Poppa

 January 31, 2022

My second grandfather, poppa Helwig, was not only a deeply committed Christian, he was a consummate horticulturalist, one of only a handful of laymen permitted to take cuttings from the lilacs in Rochester’s famous Highland Park. He had growing in his backyard, rare lilacs worth thousands of dollars, and had developed his own strain of yews.

His home was at the end of a dead-end street beyond which extended a gully that culminated in his back yard in such a way that it was a horseshoe-shaped terraced garden, with the apex of the U giving just enough room between it and his garage for a walkway leading to his vegetable garden on the far side. The near side lay just beyond his kitchen door that dropped away in a steep terrace to the gully about twenty feet below. On the far side of the upper end of the U was his vegetable garden, its sandy-loam soil could easily be turned with a garden fork. It contained not even a pebble, let alone the rocks and weeds that surface in our gardens every spring. I’ve not seen such pristine soil even in greenhouses. 

The inside of the horseshoe held his flowers. Oh, the flowers! Perennials and annuals of every sort; he knew their scientific names, their history, and the various medicinal or gastronomic uses they have had over the years. I wish I had absorbed more of his horticultural wisdom. A veritable library died with him.

One lesson didn’t die. While visiting one day, and admiring the handiwork he attributed solely to God, he shared a bit of gardener’s wisdom that has helped me through many a difficult time. As we strolled through his vegetable garden, I marveled at the total absence of even the tiniest of weeds, to which he responded, “It’s like life; quarter inch, quarter hour; half inch, half hour; one inch, all day. Take care of matters when they’re small.”

A fruitful life doesn’t happen by accident. The soil of our hearts must be tended, adding the compost of thoroughly-thought out meditation on Scripture bathed in prayer, turned regularly by the fork of obedience, and weeded early of the tendencies and small sins which too easily grow out of control. 

“Quarter inch, quarter hour; half inch, half hour; one inch, all day.” Words to live by.

Instructions

 January 30, 2022

The air was, as they say, “blue.” From my vantage point at the closed door at the top of the stairs, I couldn’t decipher the actual words, but even as a nine-year-old, I could tell it wasn’t good. It was my grandfather, whose patience occasionally wore thin.

Poppa Henthorn was the grandfather who lay dying of cancer some years later when pastor Ellis faithfully visited and witnessed to him. Those terrible days were yet to come. Poppa Henthorn was a stubborn man. We didn’t know much about his growing up except that his home life was of the nature that he joined the Navy as a teenager, just to get away.

He was, for that day, a big man, towering about six foot three, solid, but not heavy. Like so many men of that era, he had smoked for most of his life, resulting in a heart attack when he was in his fifties that ended his work as a milkman in the city of Rochester, NY. The doctor said he could no longer keep going up and down the steps of the delivery truck to deposit the bottles in the little cubby holes that used to be built into the sides of houses back then, the ones with doors on both the outside and inside.

He wasn’t one to just sit around, so he bought a barn from his sister who lived on the Ridge outside of Brockport, tearing it down so he could build a himself new house. I guess he figured if he was going to cash it in, it would be doing something constructive. 

In the basement of his new home was a wood shop, complete with table saw, band saw, joiner, planer, drill press, shaper, and other assorted woodworking tools that he used to cut everything from floor joists to molding. Which brings me to tonight’s tale. 

He had just obtained a new piece of equipment. No, I don’t know which one it was, but it needed to be assembled, and the task wasn’t going too well. Thus the “blue” air, when my dad walked in on him. My father asked if he had read the instructions. “NO I HAVEN’T READ THE (blankety-blank) INSTRUCTIONS! Remember, patience was not one of his virtues.

My father located them, looked them over, and said, “Here’s your problem: you needed to assemble this part first.” 

“THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE MADE IT THAT WAY!” Poppa’s response was as loud and curt (and probably profane) as it was typical. 

Without realizing it, poppa gave me a valuable life lesson. So often in life, we struggle to put it all together, frustrated at the complexity of it all, angry when nothing fits the way it should. The problem isn’t with life; it’s that we haven’t bothered to read the instructions, and when someone points it out, instead of repenting, we respond exactly like my grandfather. “God shouldn’t have done it this way!” 

I shudder to think of all the times I failed to read the Instruction Manual; even more at all the times I read it, but didn’t follow it, and got mad because I couldn’t put life together. The answer is simple: pay attention to my father’s example, pick up the Instruction Manual and follow it. It inevitably leads to Christ, who alone is able to put life together in a way that really works.

Squarehead

 January 29, 2022

My children have heard this story before, but last night’s post brought it again to mind; it bears repeating.

I was not an eager convert to Christ. I remember riding my bike through the neighborhood on a Sunday morning, cheerfully waving to my friend Jack as he gloomily sat in the back seat of his parents’ car on his way to church. So when my mother decided we should start going to church, I was, to say the least, greatly disappointed as I joined the ranks of gloomy backseat kids.

We tried the church where Jack’s family went, and if one had to go, this was the least of religious evils; Jack and I made the best of a bad situation by goofing around and not paying attention. That lasted all of about three weeks, when mom announced we were going to a different church down the road. The next Sunday, I found myself reluctantly, but firmly ensconced in the third pew, left hand side. 

That was Sunday mornings. I hadn’t counted on Sunday School, Sunday evening youth group, or Sunday evening services. I was trapped!

A strange thing happened though, on one of these Sunday evening youth meetings. We met in one of the larger basement rooms, just off the kitchen, and on this particular evening, an elderly gentleman stood before us with a contraption he had wired up on a table in front of him. He was short and stocky, with a bald, and what he later described as, a “German square head.”

The contraption on the table consisted of a light fixture wired to an extension cord with one of the dual wires cut. One side was wired directly to the plug, but the cut wire had one end sitting in a bowl of water with the other end stretching from the bowl to the plug which he had inserted into an outlet.

He began to talk from Matthew 5 where Jesus spoke of being salt and light in the world. As he spoke, he began stirring salt into the bowl of water. Slowly, the lightbulb began to glow until it shone brightly through the room. “You are the salt of the earth,” he said. “You are the light of the world.” I don’t remember much else that he said other than asking if any of us wanted to receive Jesus Christ as Savior. I raised my hand.

A few minutes later, I was standing just outside the door, talking to our pastor’s wife. I bowed my head and prayed. The following Sunday morning when the invitation was given, I stepped out of that third row pew and walked to the front of the sanctuary, professing publicly my newfound faith in Christ—all due to a simple talk by an old “German square head.”

My grandmother was widowed about that time. The pastor had daily visited my grandfather in the hospital as he lay dying of the cancer that would all too soon take his life. Pastor Ellis’ faithful witness paid off, and when shortly before dying, my grandfather finally professed faith in Christ, my grandmother did, too.

She was terribly lonely, but about two years later, she married an older gentleman whose wife had passed away some years before. And so it was, that the old, bald, German square head who led me to Christ became my grandfather, Poppa Helwig. God is good…no, much better than good; God is great…all the time!

Pleasant Lines

 January 28, 2022

What is a twelve-year old kid doing in the middle of all these older men drinking coffee and eating donuts at 11:00 pm on a Monday night? Ozzie Palmer, Chuck Bassett, Al Orgar, Merle Silver, Roy Comstra, Charles Ellis, John Helwig, Roy Beach, my dad…these, and others whose names elude me gathered every Monday evening at 7:00 for work night at the West Side Baptist Church. 

A skinny kid who didn’t really belong and had almost no ability, but was accepted by these men as one of them. They plumbed, wired, installed dry wall and ceiling tiles, while I mostly painted trim for the doors and windows. We worked for three or more hours before gathering in the kitchen where one of them would pull a jug of last week’s leftover coffee from the refrigerator and added the night’s brew to it. I’m betting that some of the original beans were still sloshing around years later.

My dad wasn’t much for joe, so they thumbtacked his teabag to a stud in the unfinished kitchen, to be reused like the coffee. Until one night, someone found a shriveled-up mouse and tacked it to the wall by the tail where his teabag usually hung. These men worked and laughed and prayed together. And they included me. Without a single formal lesson, they mentored me, taught me what Christian masculinity was all about. 

Sixty years later, these names roll off my tongue, flowing from my heart, continuing to embrace and bless me. Their influence is as unmeasurable as it was influential. Our church had its programs; I attended Sunday School, youth group, Christian Service Brigade, Youth for Christ, but I think Monday nights was where I learned most who I am, for I felt a misfit among my own age: I wasn’t athletic, played, of all things, the bassoon in high school band. I’ve never been cool. But I was accepted by these men as one of their own. 

The Bible says it best: “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; yes, I have a good inheritance.” —Psalm 16:6. Those lines helped shape me, told me who I am, preached more than any sermon that I was accepted by God, loved by Christ, and commissioned by the Holy Spirit for the work of ministry. Yes, those lines fell pleasantly to me, and I am deeply indebted to each one of those men who unknowingly had a hand in laying them down.

Praise and Blessing

 January 27, 2022

“God be merciful to us and bless us, 

And cause His face to shine upon us, Selah 

That Your way may be known on earth, 

Your salvation among all nations. 

Let the peoples praise You, O God; 

Let all the peoples praise You. 

Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy! 

For You shall judge the people righteously, 

And govern the nations on earth. Selah 

Let the peoples praise You, O God; 

Let all the peoples praise You. 

Then the earth shall yield her increase; 

God, our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us, 

And all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.”

Psalm 67:1-7 

For too many years I’ve been reading the Bible incorrectly. I would read a text like the above psalm somewhat detachedly, as if the statements were merely that—generalized declarations that in practice amounted to little more than suggestions. In recent months, God has been raising my awareness to the fact that the words I had read and understood in that detached way were in fact, direct commands from God himself.

In this 67th psalm, we are commanded three times to praise God, and holds the promise that from that praise, “the earth shall yield her increase” (v.5), and God’s “salvation among all nations” (v.1). The train of thought begins with the request for God’s blessing, but the blessing itself is a result of our praise being offered (“Then the earth shall yield her increase [and] God…shall bless us” (v.6). In other words, the requested blessing comes as a result of our praise.

If we neglect praise, even our prayers become self-serving—what we want, rather than what God wants. Praise, and praise alone, focuses my prayers and attention towards God instead of myself. God alone is worth of praise. His majesty and mercy, his love and judgment, his power and forgiveness are reasons to praise.

So let us praise him. Praise alone fosters our sanctification by turning our hearts from their petty, selfish, and sinful desires, and gives us the mind of Christ. When we, as St. Paul commands, think on what is “true, what is noble, what is just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8), such praise and thanksgiving helps us bring every thought captive to Christ. And that is where God’s blessing is found.

Crucified

 January 26, 2022

I’ve often wondered about St. Paul’s strident declaration in 1 Corinthians that “the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God” (1:18). When I look around and see the condition of the world, and even more, the condition of the Church and many of God’s people, including myself, I wonder what kind of power this is. Sure, a lot of good things have happened in the name of Christ, but the world still goes on its destructive and wicked ways. Christians still struggle with jealousy, anger, violence, lust, and greed. I’ve often asked the question, “Where is the power?”

The answer in part, is found in Paul’s letter to the Galatians where he says, “I have been crucified with Christ” (2:20). It isn’t only the physical crucifixion of Christ that Paul has in mind when he speaks of its power; it is that the cross cuts across my self-will. The wisdom of God is that it’s not through human striving (““Not by might, nor by strength, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord”” comes to mind), but through the negation of human willfulness that transformation happens. 

Left to myself, I would continue to exalt myself, insist on my own way, trample over or ignore others, allow lust, greed, and violence to govern my actions. In the end, such a life ends up lonely, embittered, and miserable, a shadow of the glory of humanity, barely recognizable as having been made in God’s image.

Apart from the Cross, I would give undue attention to the nightly negative news, give way to stinking thinking, become critical, cynical, and depressed. The message of the Cross is not only that Christ was crucified in our place, but that in the cross, Christ demonstrated a different way to victory; that the humble giving of oneself has power beyond our understanding to transform human life.

I can believe that message, receive and auto on it, or I can reject it. When I believe it and allow it to take root in me, that which seemed foolish proves to be wisdom beyond measure. I am given back my life in ways far better than before I shouldered that cross myself.

New Paths

 January 25, 2022

The first time is always the hardest, but the more you work at it, the easier it becomes. The sun was shining and the temperature hovered in the 20s, which made it a perfect day to get out the cross country skis and check my beehives. The only problem was, it has been snowing almost nonstop for two days, and the snow was almost up to my knees. I could only shuffle my way through the first pass around the yard, but after about five runs, the snow was tamped down enough that I was actually able to ski on the long stretches.

It’s too cold to actually open the hives and check on the colonies, but I could see on one of my long hives where they had dragged out the dead ones in their determination to keep the hive sanitary. As long as there aren’t too many laying on the snow, it’s a sign the colony is in good shape. Getting through winter is always a challenge, and waiting for spring can be a nail-biter.

But the exercise was good; as cold as it was, I worked up a sweat, and as I said, each time around was a bit easier. It’s true of life, too. Sometimes we hesitate to try something new, and if we try it, we give up because it’s harder than we thought and not worth the effort. But if we keep at it, it gets easier. The only caveat is, we must be doing the right thing. We often repeat the truism that “practice makes perfect,” but it doesn’t. As John Maxwell used to say, “Practice makes permanent.” If we practice the wrong things, we get the wrong results. Like my ski ruts, the path becomes easier the more we travel it. 

This is why it is often so hard to overcome sinful habits. It’s easier to stay in the rut than to break out and carve out a new trail. As Christians, we expect the power of the Holy Spirit to make new and better habits easier, but the only thing that makes them easier is keeping at it. Breaking away from the old is always difficult, so we continue in our old, destructive ways, praying for God to change us or work a miracle, when God is waiting for us to simply choose the new path. Once we travel it enough, it becomes easier, but that’s the end result, not the beginning. 

I carved a new trail, sweating my way through the snow. By the fifth time around the yard, this new trail was a pleasure to ski, and I was able to enjoy the workout and check out my bees. To top it off, I got a good life lesson out of the experience.