Month: December 2024

Robert Frost wrote, “Not yesterday I learned to know the love of bare November days before the coming of the snow.”  “The desolate, deserted trees, the faded earth, the heavy sky.”  “These dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; She (my sorrow) loves the bare, the withered tree . . .”

I am so glad we live on a tilted earth.  Without the tilt we would live without the seasons.   For six years my wife and I lived almost on the equator at 4,000 feet of elevation.  It was delightfully the same every day.  We never saw it colder than 62 nor warmer than 82.  I missed the crispness of 40 degree mornings.  I missed the tang of winter on my nose.  I missed scoping a thin sheet of ice from the birdbath and peering at the out-of-focus world on the other side.There are those who describe heaven as a monotonous place of perfect everything.  Will we never see the skeletons of maples reaching high above the earth against a gray sky?   However, astronomers tell us there are thousands of Goldilocks planets in our galaxy.  Surely some are tilted and some will have autumn for us to leaf peep and walk with our feet scuffling through noisy piles of brown leaves.

Eternity is filled with an endless variety for us to be endlessly mentally stimulated to learn and understand the beauty of life.  How grand to see layer upon layer into its quarks, hadrons and leptons.  God is a scientist and to be like Him is to quest the depth of how and what things are.  We know why.  That was answered at Calvary.  All is for love.  There is nothing more profound. Understanding love will be our most intriguing enigma.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 17, 2015

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We’ve a bumper crop of acorns this year.  I can’t recall an autumn with more.  As my dog and I were walking this afternoon I never gave it a thought as we traversed the terrain under a wonderful shady oak.  And then it happened.  Right on top of my not-protected-by-hair head – kerplunk!   I was acorned.  It must be the reason we call October Fall.

Acorns are the promise of another generation of oaks.  They are heralds of hope as well as a present banquet for our squirrels.  One of my favorite authors wrote about acorns.  She said, “As surely as the oak is in the acorn so surely is the gift of God in the promise.”  When we hold acorns in our hands we hold giant oak trees.  When we read “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” we can start planning on what furniture we want where.  John 14.

Just in case I was beginning to forget I got hit on the head this afternoon by a promise.  I can start planning my heavenly library.  It’s real.  It’s mine.  My name is engraved on the bottom right hand corner of all the book covers.  They are mine.  I have the bump on the top of my head to prove it.

What’s your acorn?  What’s your promise?  Could it be John 3:16, I Thessalonians 4 or I Corinthians 15?   Actually the Bible contains a bumper crop of promises.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 9, 2015

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Long yellowish pine needles have softened the forest floor.  As the afternoon sun splayed its angled rays through the deciduous trees that are still holding onto their precious leaves, the path glows yellow adding a golden tint to the air itself.  My prized lab and I moved quietly over the needle-cushioned trail ascending to our favorite overlook.  To my amazement there was a padded folding chair awaiting me.  Perched on the ridge I could sit and look down on a pair of red-tailed hawks floating about looking for an evening meal.  Whoever it was who carried the chair to the top I send an anonymous thank you.  It was very much appreciated.  The 62 degree breeze with the warming rays of the sun on my arms was an elixir beyond description.

Returning to the bottom we crossed a dried creek that usually provided a place for my dog to quench her thirst.  I grew up watching westerns and remembered scenes of cowboys finding water after digging a hole in a wadi.  It was time to experiment.  So I dug and much to my delight about six inches down water began to seep from the edges of my excavation and soon I had a small drink for my lab.

So it is true.  Sometimes there is value in looking below the surface.  I have discovered this to be true with people.  Often I find students that are brighter than they look.  It’s also true with Bible study.  There are memory verses I learned in Kindergarten.  Because of familiarity I rarely gave them much scholarly thought because I thought I knew all that mattered.  Might I suggest there are potential serendipities to be had by looking twice, three times or four times at a familiar verse.  We just might find meaning we didn’t know was there.  That’s a treat.

Written  by Roger Bothwell on October 12, 2016

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The air is filled with the sound of leaf blowers.  It is the sound of now.   There was no such sound when I was a boy.  Then the air was filled with the smell of burning leaves.  It was a fantastic smell.  I realize why we cannot do it anymore but I still wish there was a law that said one day a year we could burn our leaves.  The tang of it filling one’s nostrils was better than any fragrance at Macy’s.   Nostalgia urges me to sneak into the backyard and burn just a tiny pile; just enough to once again savor the past.   Surely I could make it small enough the local authorities would not catch me.  It is then that the still small voice in my head says, “Remember Immanuel Kant.”

His Categorical Imperative is the ultimate moral code.  He wrote, “It is a moral law that is unconditional or absolute for all agents, the validity or claim of which does not depend on any ulterior motive or end.”  For my students I put it in my simple way of speaking.  “It is morally wrong for me to do anything it is not permissible for everyone to do.”

When one ponders it, it becomes but a variation of the Golden Rule.   Thus it is that sin can be anything that lessens the quality of my life and other’s lives.  I cannot throw a paper cup out my car window.  It is not for fear of the $200 fine, but for the fact that our world would look like a pig sty if everyone did so.  Morality can at times be complicated but most often it is simple enough for a child to grasp.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 18, 2015

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The acorns being crushed as one drives in and out of our driveway sound like we are making popcorn. The oaks must have enjoyed the dry summer because we have an abundance of acorns.  The squirrels are going crazy trying to cache them away for the coming winter.  They will be well fed during this January’s blizzards.

I love acorns. Holding them in my hand reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite authors.  She wrote, “As surely as the oak is in the acorn so surely is the gift of God in the promise.”  There are over 3500 promises in the Bible.   That’s a forest of good things to anticipate.  One of the last promises found in Revelation says, “He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be my son.”  I don’t want to be greedy.  I don’t need to inherit “all” things.  I will be happy with forgiveness and eternal life with my loved ones.  But our heavenly Father is a lavish giver.  That’s a promise in Ephesians 2.   God isn’t content with giving us the basics.  He wants to give us “all things.”

Paul says what we will receive is beyond what we can now imagine.  The Gospel is a story of excess.  Excessive love, excessive forgiveness, excessive lifespan, excessive health, excessive intelligence, excessive power, excessive understanding and excessive happiness are just a few of the things we are promised.

Right now I am going to go out to my driveway and pick up a few oak trees and carry them about in my pocket today.  Then I will not forget how very much you and I are loved.  Oh, how grand!

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 18, 2016

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It was a beautiful moment.  This morning I was walking down the hallway of a large elementary school when the principal announced over the loudspeaker that it was time to pledge allegiance to the flag.   I was where I could see into four classrooms as everything came to a halt and the children in all four rooms rose to simultaneously pledge to our flag.  But that was not the really great moment.  I had been following two little boys down the hall.

This was the great moment.  They stopped, stood at attention and facing a flag that we could see in one of the rooms they put their hands over their hearts and loudly said, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.”  As they turned to continue on their way I noted one of them was wearing a yarmulke.

It was a proud and revealing moment for me.  When I was a little boy we always recited the Lord’s Prayer after the Pledge.  Sometimes I get all sweaty because we no longer have prayer in school.  But I have to tell you. This morning I was glad we did not.  I was glad we did not shove Christianity in the face of a proud little Jewish American, who most obviously loves his country as much as the rest of us.  If both or either boy wanted to pray there was no one stopping them from each having his own moment.

Sometimes we get overly egocentric and think this world and especially our country is all about us.  It is about “us” as long as “us” includes everyone else who is here with us.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 7, 2010

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The traffic light turned green and the driver pulled out to make a left hand turn.  Just then another car appeared coming from the left at about 50 miles an hour.  It never slowed for the red light. Fortunately, there was no collision.  The driver of the other cars entering the intersection saw the speeding car and waited. But an assumption had been made by the driver of the first car; the light was green, and it was safe to go.   It is so easy to become complacent and let down one’s guard.  We assume life will go on the way it is supposed to.  We are not always careful.

Fifty times in the New International Version of the Bible we find the expression “be careful.”  There are some rather interesting verses connected with this phrase. Just one is found in Titus 3:8,9.  It says, “…those who have trusted in God should be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good.  Avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.”

Written by Roger Bothwell in July 2000

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There is in central Connecticut an absolutely lovely little town that takes one’s breath away because of its quaint beauty.  The houses date back to the 1700’s and the lawns are expansive.  Giant trees shade the streets and the town square is out of a picture book.  There is an ice cream shop on one corner with an antique store close by.  A used bookstore filled with musty tomes beckons one to enter in search of treasure.  The village square has a bronze monument with the names of townsmen who gave their lives in wars dating clear back to the revolution against Great Britain.  An old canon sits on a concrete pedestal and is worn from the trousers of thousands of children who have sat astride its massive girth.

Inside the antique store are some of the most amazing prices!  Simple small nightstands, chairs and desks with thousand-dollar price tags.  And according to the proprietor, none of these pieces of furniture had been previously owned by some famous American like George Washington or Alexander Hamilton.  You don’t suppose this proprietor simply drove to Vermont, bought the items for twenty-five dollars and then brought them back to his up-scale Connecticut store?

But then God put a horrendous price tag on us.  In the eyes of the angels we must look like we are worth twenty-five dollars, if that.   But obviously God thought differently.  For you and me He spent His only son.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 28, 2000

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Three days ago a snail crossed the driveway.  His slime trail is still there.  It is just like some people we know.  Everywhere they go they leave a trail.  They are the kind of people that impact your life.  Sometimes for good and unfortunately sometimes the opposite.  Sometimes they leave a happy pleasantness, and sometimes they leave slime.

Now of course we are the kind of people that always leave happy pleasantness.  It would be impossible for people as loveable and likeable as we to do anything else.  After all, don’t we always have other’s interests before our own?  Are we not always careful to guard our tongues so we only say things that elevate others?  Are we not generous with our assets so others who have little have more because they have met us?  Are we not careful never to pass on gossip?  Of course that’s the way we are.

We are not leavers of slime.  We are better than that; are we not?  Even as Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica he would write to us, “Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 25, 2000

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Three days ago a snail crossed the driveway.  His slime trail is still there.  It is just like some people we know.  Everywhere they go they leave a trail.  They are the kind of people that impact your life.  Sometimes for good and unfortunately sometimes the opposite.  Sometimes they leave a happy pleasantness, and sometimes they leave slime.

Now of course we are the kind of people that always leave happy pleasantness.  It would be impossible for people as loveable and likeable as we to do anything else.  After all, don’t we always have other’s interests before our own?  Are we not always careful to guard our tongues so we only say things that elevate others?  Are we not generous with our assets so others who have little have more because they have met us?  Are we not careful never to pass on gossip?  Of course that’s the way we are.

We are not leavers of slime.  We are better than that; are we not?  Even as Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica he would write to us, “Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 25, 2000

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