Author: Ian Bothwell

I took the long way to school this morning.  I left a few minutes early so I

could poke along and savor the autumn colors.  Opening the car window,  I

filled my lungs with the scent of fallen leaves mixed with fallen apples as

I passed an already harvested orchard.  Remembering Jesus and His disciples

harvesting a handful of grain while passing a field,  I pulled over and kicked

around in the grass under the fruitless trees until I found a really nice

apple the harvesters had left behind.  Rubbing it until it was nice and

shiny,  I took a big juicy bite.  It was grand.  Actually it was a Cortland.

 

I enjoy doing things Jesus did.  I allowed my mind to run a bit wild and

imagined Jesus standing among the trees polishing up an apple.  Truly there

are many ways we can do what He did and He is anxious to help us.  We can

perform miracles of love that can transform lives by our being attentive to

the needs of those about us.  If we are having difficulty with that, upon

our request,  the Holy Spirit will heighten our sensitivities and actually

give us the resources to come to the aid of others.

 

When Paul wrote, “Let this mind be in you that was in Jesus” he was calling

us to a higher plain of daily living.  He was telling us that we could think

better thoughts than our norm and act in ways far beyond our usual level of

giving.  Tomorrow you and I can be something so much better than what we are

today.  And should we be so, the entire world will be a better place.

 

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 30, 2008.

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

While waiting at a traffic signal this morning,  I was suddenly struck in the eye

by a sparkling beam of light .  At first I wondered if someone was playing with a

laser, but the mystery was easily solved when I looked in the rearview mirror.

There was a lady driving the car that was waiting behind me.  She

had her left hand raised to shield her eyes from the morning sun.  The

angled sun was shining in her windshield and her diamond ring was dazzling

in the morning light.  A shaft of sunlight had bounced into and out of her

ring and through my back window into my rearview mirror and into my eye. I

can assuredly say that has never happened to me before this.

 

As the signal changed and I drove away I knew that she had no idea that

light from her struck me.  “Ah,” I wondered, “how often, if ever, does the

light of God’s presence shine from us unto another without our ever knowing?

Just how many people will be saved or have been influenced for good and we

will never know?”   Most likely it has happened to all of us and we will

only know when in the Kingdom those we have affected will approach us and

share with us what had occurred and oh how happy we will be.

 

Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good

works and glorify your Father in heaven.”  I have always loved the fact that

our good works are not to glorify us but our Father in heaven.

 

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 18, 2008

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

The President of the United States receives over 10,000 letters each day.  Virtually all are opened and read by a mail team.   But what if the President is your old college roommate and you wanted send him a reminder of the promise he made to you, that should he be elected President one day, you would be given a cabinet position?  That kind of letter would most likely never get past the mail team.  But neither you nor the President want others reading personal stuff.  Therefore, all family and friends of the President are given a series of numbers to write on the outside of the envelope.  This secret code moves the letter unopened to the President’s desk.  Friends and family have direct access.

I have always loved John 15:14 where Jesus says, “I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.”   Now, combine this with Galatians 4:7 which reads, “Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”   That makes us both friends and family with God Himself.  Therefore, our communication with God does not go through a reading committee of angels.  We have direct access.  The code is found in John 16:22, Jesus said, “Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.”

People who have the President’s code have to keep it a secret.  We are commissioned to tell.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 30, 2003.

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

She’s a sweet old dog.  It’s taken most all of the eight years since we brought her home to stop being a puppy.  She still gets excited when the doorbell rings but life has changed.  No longer do I have to call her to know where she is.  I just need to look down for she will be just a few feet away.  When I come home at night she follows me not only from room to room but also from chair to chair.  If I get up in the night and put my feet to the floor often they land on her side.  The house is never empty.

As I look at her I realize how quickly these eight years have gone and before another eight shall pass I will have to place her in the back yard beside another such faithful friend.  We can keep nothing nor can we keep anyone.  A moment of parting will come from everyone we love.  Shakespeare once wrote, “This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong. To love well which thou must leave ere long.

I once knew a man who would not allow himself to love because he feared the moment of parting. When I presided over his graveside service there were only a few present and no one wept for he who gives not love receives no love.   To love and be loved is true wealth.

Will I miss this old dog when she is gone?   Of course I will, but that day of pain has been more than compensated for by thousands of days of love.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 28, 2003.

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

My mother is in a nursing home near to us.  It is convenient to drop in for a few minutes more than once a day.  Recently she is having trouble remembering things and this can be very specifically correlated to a certain medication.  The medicine has left her feeling disoriented and she struggles to cope with simple cognitive tasks.  I do not have a problem with the nurses. They are only following doctor’s orders.  I do have a problem with doctors who prescribe medication and then do not come back to check on effects.  Getting their attention on this has become a major task.  It is not fun to be mentally fuzzy and know it.  She knows it.

I have often wondered about the effects of sin on all of us.  We think we are aware.  We think we know what is happening; however, often our judgment is clouded by our habits and their effects on our clear thinking. In I Corinthians 13 Paul says, “Now we see through a glass darkly.”  Have you ever forgotten to take off your sunglasses when entering a darkened room?  It is difficult to discern much detail.

Each day we need to pray for help that we might see life and its ramifications with clear minds lest we be deceived into error that would harm our families and us.  We have been drugged by sin and need our systems purged that we would know truth.

“Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 27, 2003.

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

This morning during a television interview, Ian McKellen, who portrays    Gandalf in the film trilogy “The Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien, said, and I cannot remember the exact context because the sentence leaped upon me, “Sometimes a fool’s wisdom is the best wisdom.”   My first response to this oxymoron was “What nonsense.”  But I could not shake it off.  It stuck with me and during the day I remembered the Roman Emperor Claudius who survived the treachery of his family by playing the fool.

But this was not what Ian McKellen was talking about.  He was talking about wisdom that wise people miss.  He was in the same arena as Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians the following.  ^“But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”         I Corinthians 2:4

To pretend to understand God is real foolishness. If we totally understood Him He would no longer be God but be a fantasy of our imagination.  He is beyond us, yet has through His greatest revelation, Jesus Christ, revealed enough of Himself that we might understand His Fatherly and redeeming love.  Paul said, “The things we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: . .”  I Corinthians 3:13-14

Sometimes we need to leap beyond logic into the love that awaits us.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 22, 2003.

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

My granddaughters spent the afternoon making gingerbread houses.  Our table was immersed in Graham crackers, pretzel sticks, Gummy Savers, marshmallows, multi-colored Sprinkles and lots of frosting for glue.  But where I asked was the gingerbread?  What a stupid question.  Gingerbread houses are not about gingerbread.  This was an adventure in design and imagination.  Soon there were walls and roofs and sprinkling pathways leading from one fantasy house to the next.  The afternoon was filled with tales of little people living in sugar houses.

Surely one of the greatest gifts God has given to us is imagination.  Without imagination we would be a miserable lot eking out a living fighting off the elements and foraging for food.  Each year the imaginations of bright people bring us wonderful ways to improve our living.  Last week, just for fun, I sat in a 1965 Mustang and remembered when I owned a brand new one.  I remembered thinking what an incredible machine it was.  Now as I sat there stroking the steering wheel I was overwhelmed with how much cars have changed.  It is true they don’t build cars the way they used to.  Today’s cars are marvels that first existed in someone’s imagination.

Surely the best use of imagination would bring peace to a violently troubled world.  The best place to begin is right where we live.  My granddaughters’ gingerbread houses were homes filled with laughter and love.  Surely it is not too much of a stretch to imagine that for real.  Imagine love and it will be so.  Imagine peace and it will grow.  “Behold, the dreamer cometh.”  Genesis 37:19

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 17, 2003.

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

The day before the grandchildren arrive is always grocery-shopping day.  I enjoy the cereal aisle.  It’s the fun one.  There are so many different kinds from which to choose. I don’t have a clue about most of them, so I usually go with Fruit Loops.  It’s an old favorite that never misses.

It was great when the children arrived.  At our first breakfast out came the Fruit Loops to great cheers.  It is a good thing God gave children mothers and not just grandpas.  Before the milk was poured over the pretty colored loops my daughter-in-law said, “Stop!”  Picking up the bowl and looking closely we were horrified to see the cereal moving all by itself.  At least it looked like it was moving by itself.  In reality it was full of tiny bugs, which must have been terrified because their dark sugary world had been disturbed.  So much for Fruit Loops.

I certainly don’t want to infer that Fruit Loops is anything like manna but I did think of the story in Exodus 16 about manna that was left over from the day before.  It was always wormy if the children of Israel tried to keep extra, except for Sabbath.  Friday was the only day they could collect for two days. That way they didn’t have to collect on Sabbath morning.  Each week the children of Israel had a vivid demonstration of God’s direct care.

Since God doesn’t show favorites (Acts 10:34) I assume we also get direct care.  Most of the time we just don’t see it.  We need to elevate our awareness.  It’s there.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 16, 2003.

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

I found a very nice eight-foot stepladder in the middle of my street.  It had obviously fallen off someone’s truck but there was no truck or car in sight.   That evening I called everyone on my street who owned a truck seeking its owner but all I got from my neighbors was congratulations on my new acquisition.   It’s not often I find something of value.  Usually I’m the one who loses things of value like keys and tools.

But wait.  That is not exactly correct. On a very regular basis I find new friends.  They certainly have lots of value.  Each day in class I find out something new about one of my students.  Usually it is something that helps me relate better to them and perhaps be a better teacher for them.  That certainly has value. If I spend any time at all with my Bible I find things of value.  What amazes me about that is it is not seeing a text for the first time but seeing new meaning in a text that I have read a hundred times.   Ninety percent of the time I begin my classes by reading a passage of Scripture.  Sometimes my students stop me and tell me I already read that one this semester.  I like it when that happens because they remembered and I found out something new about them.  They are listening.

So I regularly find things of value.  They just aren’t stepladders or green pieces of paper with presidents’ pictures on them.  But they have tons of value. How about you?  What have you found today?

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 10, 2003.

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574

Myrtle was a community novelty.  Her odd ways did not place her on top of community invitation lists for weddings and social events.  Yet she somehow knew when events were occurring and would show up in her very plain dress and with a brown bag to collect food to take home.  It was not that she did not have enough.  She had a steady job.  Modern psychologists would probably say she had arrested development with childlike characteristics.   Most people were standoffishly polite to her, halfway afraid she was an angel God sent to test them.  No one wanted to show up on judgment day and find Myrtle standing by the right hand side of God’s throne knowing they had not been nice to her.  And so when she appeared uninvited at functions no one rebuffed her but pretended they didn’t see when she filled her bag with the leftovers.

The first time I saw Myrtle was at my wedding.  As part of the wedding preparations a very lovely bag of nice things was made ready and given to Myrtle.  Surely there would be no need for her to feel the embarrassing necessity of gleaning the reception hall.  However as my new bride and I were about to leave I looked across the room and there was Myrtle filling her brown bag.

Myrtle was little different than most of us.  God has prepared a banquet for us and we prefer leftovers.  Instead of opening our Bibles and reading for ourselves we depend on preachers and teachers to tell us what they ate of God’s wonders when God has a full bag prepared just for us.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 10, 2003.

Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574