Overcoming

When we say, we must “overcome,” the images that most often come to mind are military ones of battlefields, armor, weapons, and strategies.  We think of “spiritual warfare” as being against outside attack forces and of conquering as confronting and eliminating the “enemy” with swords and spears, armor and chain mail.

 While it is true that we “wrestle against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world,” we also war against an enemy even subtler.  As Pogo said, “We have seen the enemy and he is us.” 

The enemy can be our impatience, our propensity to quit before the job is finished, because we expect immediate results.  Often the enemy is our trust in what is evident instead of what is unseen.  Many times the enemy is our expecting to accomplish Kingdom work with the earth’s systems, or to interpret God’s blessing in material terms. Most things of true value require what we least like to do—to wait, and most eternal lessons are learned by waiting with persistence, patience, and, yes, pain.

Ann Smith, a dear friend and mentor of ours who is half through her tenth decade, told us this week that she has chosen her guiding objective for this part of her journey; it is this:  To nurture a “passionate sense of potential” in all situations and with all people.  She says this means that she will try to see clearly what is, then beyond what is to the potential, and finally, to relate to each person or situation based on the potential, nourishing what could be.

Her eyes danced as she said she had discovered a hymn she hadn’t known and had taken its text as her living joy or her life’s last statement, whichever this decade might hold.  When I found it, I loved this hymn, too, and leave it for fuel for thought for all who would overcome!

In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree,
In cocoons, a hidden promise:  butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that wants to be,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

--Natalie Sleeth © Hope Pub. 1986

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Conflict Resolution

For graduates researching possible interesting and in-demand courses of study, a degree in Conflict Resolution might be one to consider.  Lord knows we have plenty of conflict in our world to resolve!  Majors in this field are listed by several titles:  Mediation, Negotiation, Community Conflict, and Arbitration, to name a few.

Neither Bill nor I majored in this field of psychology, but I know for sure that if you were to ask Bill who was his best teacher in this area of learning, he’d say George Gaither.  Bill’s dad was a quiet and patient man.  His style of teaching was way more by example than instruction.  But as peaceful and steady as he was, there was a memorable issue he once had with a neighbor.

George had cows on his property and a huge garden.  He kept his fences in good repair to keep his cattle in the pastures and out of his garden.  There was a neighbor who didn’t have transportation at the time, so he took a shortcut into town. He walked diagonally from his house, across the railroad tracks, then, climbing the fences, crossed George’s fields and on to the main road into town.

A time or two Bill heard his dad say, “I’m afraid that if he keeps climbing the fences, it will break them down.”  So Bill asked him, “Well, why don’t you just tell him to stop?”

His dad would say something like, “Yeah, I need to talk to him about it.”

Time went by, and one day Bill noticed that there were wooden stiles (small ladders) in three places on the farm fences.  He mentioned this to his dad and asked him if he ever talked to the neighbor about climbing the fence.

“Nah,” answered his dad,  “I thought this might be a better solution.”

Ah, blessed are the peacemakers.  With a few boards and some nails, a situation was defused before it ever developed and a relationship was salvaged in the process.”  Win. Win.

Robert Frost in his poem “Mending Wall” says his neighbor kept quoting his father’s axiom, “Good fences make good neighbors.”  The poet says he is wont to ask what he is “walling in or walling out.”

George said it this way:  “He wasn’t hurting anything walking across the pasture into town.”  So instead of forbidding the trespass, he made it easier.  These sixty years later, the stiles are still speaking a silently powerful lesson to our kids and grandkids.

If the certified negotiators of the world could have just one course in George Gaither 101, the world might just call them “children of God.”  And, anyway, what are a couple of stiles, more or less?

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Coffee Evolution

Since these days there are usually just the two of us rattling around our kitchen in the morning, we bought a Keurig coffee maker.  Bill likes it because he can work it and, he says, each cup tastes like the first cup from a fresh pot.  I like a different roast than he does, so each of us can have the roast we like best.

But really I like coffee from the old stove-top percolator I grew up with.  I love the cheery rhythm of it perking along to some unnamed primitive melody, coaxing the sun to rise and sing along for joy.  I love the aroma of real coffee escaping from the ground beans and permeating the atmosphere of first the kitchen, then wafting its way to the corners of the bedrooms, pulling sleepers to consciousness in a way they’ll never forget.

I love to pour the first cup, inhale the coffee steam, and take the first sip.  Yes! Morning is here! A fresh start.  A new possibility. A new me.  I love the sound of my husband’s “u-m-m-m” as he, too, smells the full-bodied scent and tastes the rich flavor only perked coffee can produce.  The day should start like this!

These days it is followed by a shared reading—he in his chair and I in mine by the fireplace—of a real newspaper.  He reads the sports section first, while I go over the front page for local and national stories, and then the editorials.  Conversation naturally ensues, applying to regular life the principles of good team-building and fair play (or not!) of sports and the encouraging or devastating results of political or economic choices.

Beginning the day like this is a new luxury for us, lingering over a great cup of coffee having uninterrupted conversation. We treasure these minutes that often also include phone conversations with some or all of our grown children about their children’s activities and endeavors or about their own spiritual breakthroughs or aspirations.

It’s all good.  It was good when the scurry to collect homework, uniforms, instruments, and lunches was a part of our morning.  It was good when the house was full of neighborhood kids making cornstarch clay figures, finger painting, carving pumpkins, and stringing cranberry and popcorn garlands.  It was good when the place was rocking with teen-agers dancing, practicing with their rock band, writing and filming video mysteries, and rehearsing scenes for high school plays.  It was good when college students came home with roommates, girlfriends and boyfriends and a month’s worth of dirty laundry.

Soon, it will be good when our children and their families come home for a week-end of bonfires, cook-outs, swimming, and fishing.   It will be fun to cook big meals again and hear the house reverberating with guitars, keyboards, basses, and drums.  It will be good sitting and talking on the porch with a fire in the firepit until it gets dark and the lightning bugs come out and pond frogs and cicadas start their serenade.

And it will be good when the smell of fresh perked coffee wafts its way up the stairs to pull from their sleep the people we love the most to gather around the big oak table for pigs-in-a-blanket, scrambled eggs, and fresh fruit to share new spiritual insights, political opinions, and stories of the grandkids’ latest adventures.  The prayer time around the table will be deeper and richer than when we once read Egermeiers Bible Story Book before school.

After we circle the kitchen to pray for safe travels, hug each other, and walk these beautiful children down the mill stone walk under the grape arbor and to their cars, it will be just Bill and me in our old farm kitchen, reading our devotions and a real newspaper, and sipping good coffee.  And it will be good. It will all be good.

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