Roger Bothwell

While walking my dog this afternoon we met a lady with a snarly little dog.  My dog which was for sure five times the size of the offender was a model of decorum.  I was so proud of her.  The lady said to me, “You will have to excuse her.  She’s pregnant.”  I’m tempted to say, “That’s not the first time I have heard those two sentences.” But I won’t say it because I don’t want to get into trouble.  Being that I have never been pregnant makes it appropriate for me to say nothing.
 
So very often saying nothing is the correct response to a majority of comments.  I have often thought the Quakers were really on to something significant. “Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles.”  Proverbs 21:23   How often have I returned from being at a gathering or a committee meeting and wished I had refrained from opining.  Usually what I had to offer was not constructive and was only spoken because I wanted to appear bright.  I wasn’t.
 
Jesus, the smartest man who ever lived, could have silenced His accusers in so many ways, but instead He chose to be quiet.  “And the high priest arose and said to Him, ‘Do you answer nothing? What is it these men testify against you?’  But Jesus kept silent.”  Matthew 26   So many love the sound of their voice while not realizing what they hear is not what others hear.  It’s usually a bit shocking to hear one’s recorded voice for the first time.  We barely recognize the person speaking.  And yet even though I think this to be a wise course of action, we should not miss the opportunity to say something encouraging and uplifting to a discouraged soul.  A few wise words are a treasure.

It was crazy beautiful.  There I was with my leaf-blower in hand trying to blow the leaves out of the yard and over the bank only to have a stiff breeze pick them up and blow them back.  I was in a mini-cyclone of swirling bright red and yellow maple leaves.  Someone might ask why was I so lacking in I.Q. to be trying to blow them away.  Could I not wait until the day was calm?  I am tempted to respond like a small child with “cause.”  But this time I had a reason.  It was beautiful.  I was lavished with color.  Sometimes we do things just because it’s delicious.  My eyes were feasting.  My mind was semi-drunk with hues.
 
Being human is so wonderful.  We are capable of euphoric moments of sheer delight; standing during Handel’s Messiah, drowning in the lushishness of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, tearing when a baby cries his first sound, gasping when seeing my bride coming down the aisle on her father’s arm, marveling at a field of California poppies or standing in St. Peter’s Cathedral surrounded by the works of Michelangelo and hearing the haunting chants of monks echoing across the stone floors and against the stone columns. 
 
It is a taste of so much more to come. “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love.”  I Corinthians 2:9.   We will go from wonder to wonder and we will wonder how can something be so beautifully wordless.  The challenge will be to stay clear headed and not become inebriated with magnificence beyond all imagination.

For years one of my sons worked on Wall Street.  For years I listened very carefully to him.  I was always hoping to glean just a tidbit of information that might alert my attention to a particular stock.  I knew better than to ask.  Insider traders go to jail. But I couldn’t resist hoping I could put two and two together for a hot tip.  I never got it.  He was always super careful and I was never able to glean an iota of investment information.  I don’t bother anymore.
 
But I am still fascinated by the idea that insider information might be helpful.  Being that I am a family member in God’s family, I listen carefully for insider information.  Maybe I can glean a tidbit of information that might make gaining eternal life a bit easier.  But, wait.  How much easier can it be?  Romans 8:23 says eternal life is a gift.  The last time I checked the dictionary the word gift meant receiving something for free. 
 
Now let me think about this. I am a family member.  I have connections.  Jesus is my Savior and Brother.  If there was a shortcut available surely He would tell me.  But how can there be a shortcut when something is already free?  So I have to conclude my kinship with Jesus isn’t going to make the deal any sweeter.  It’s already as sweet as it can get.  And I can begin reaping the benefits right now.  I Peter 1 says,   “. . . you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”  Note the present tense in that promise.  I was about to say, “Sorry, I don’t have any inside information.”  Instead I should be rejoicing that there is no insider information needed!

I just discovered my dog eats tomatoes.  Dogs don’t eat tomatoes!  This is truly weird.  What other strange appetites and behaviors are housed inside my beautiful friend?  I thought I knew her well.  Could it be that my wife of 54 years also has secrets?  Probably so; and probably for good reasons.  It’s not always wise to know everything about somebody. Has Ecclesiastics 12:14 ever bothered you?  Or maybe even more so, frightened you?  It says, “For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”
 
That seems like a short trip straight to hell.  But hang on.  Don’t despair.  Don’t go to the fridge and pig out on a half gallon of Breyers.   Isaiah 43:25 is a verse for you.  “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.”   Now we are talking Good News.   Our heavenly Father knows everything about us.  Jesus said He even knows how many hairs we have or don’t have.  And yet He still loves us.  He still wants to live with us forever.  He must like us.  And He blots out our sins so others can’t snoop and pry.
 
There is a huge difference between loving and liking.  Loving is wanting the best for us.  Liking is wanting to be with someone.  How grand it is that our heavenly Father who knows all about us not only loves us but likes us.  Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you…that where I am you may be also.”
   
I wonder what other things my dog likes to eat? 

I have this wonderful wooden box filled with cards.  It is great fun to open it and shuffle through old driver’s licenses, (I actually liked my picture on one of them). There are ID cards from the Massachusetts Teacher’s Association, the Audubon Society, Atlantic Union College, Fitchburg State University, Quinnsigamund College and many more.  One of my favorites is a complementary pass for me and a guest to Boston Red Sox games.  I can go in and sit anywhere until the rightful ticket holder shows up.  Then I have to move to another empty seat.  Sometimes I used to sit right behind home plate and no one would come and bump me out.  It is difficult to understand why someone would let a seat like that go empty.  But then again there are seats in heaven’s throne room for everyone and thousands will let it go empty.  What a waste!
 
It’s a waste of life and opportunity.  It’s a waste of intellect and creativity.  It’s a waste of happiness and fulfillment. God is in the business of saving people He will make every effort and use every tactic available to woo people into the Kingdom.  But there are some hard-nosed folk who will resist and resist until they no longer hear the pleading voice beckoning them to come.
 
Revelation 3:21 says, “To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne.”   Now that is a seat no one in their right mind would ever want to miss.  Please come with me.  I promise I will cheer and shout your name the day I see you sitting with Jesus.  How very grand!

I dropped an M&M on the floor – a red one.  I had 2 seconds to retrieve it.  But I was slow on the draw.  Locating it and bending over took at least twice that amount of time.  But wait, I was still within the 5 second rule.   Should I or should I not?  If it had been a brussel sprout would I have even pondered?  Dropping it would have been a boon.  I would not have to eat it.  But this was an M&M.  It had that crispy coating over that amazing drop of chocolate.  This was not a Brussel Sprout this was a tragedy, unless the 5 second rule applied.
 
Ah, the intrigue and power of rationalization.  Now, I know that bacteria are transferred instantly onto a fallen object, that is if it lands on the bacteria.  But what if this was a clean place on the floor?   And research does show that a full minute on the floor will contaminate the fallen object ten times as much over that of an object retrieved within 5 seconds.
 
Was I about to risk my health anymore than if I ate a bowl of ice cream?  I have no idea who sneezed at the ice cream factory or the health of the scooper/server at Friendly’s. Is anything we eat really clean?  And furthermore just this morning I received a huge dose of antibodies.  I mean huge.  It took four hours to run it through a tiny needle into my arm.  (I have to do this once a month – aftermath of many kinds of chemo.)  Right now at this very moment I am as safe from disease as I will ever be.
 
More importantly – this relates to so many other aspects of right and wrong.

We have a hairy woodpecker in our yard that deserves to be reported to the National Audubon Society as an endangered individual.  He must think it’s Halloween because all morning he has been knocking on my back door and flying away when I answer.  No sooner do I sit down than he is back knocking, knocking, knocking.  It was cute the first two or three times but really enough is enough.  I feel like I am trapped inside an Edgar Allan Poe poem.  “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.”  We can call this one, “The Woodpecker.”
 
Jesus said, “Behold I stand at the door and knock.”  However, quite to the contrary He doesn’t run away when we answer.  But He is just as, or even more so, persistent as our woodpecker. He never had to chase me.  I have loved Jesus as long as I can remember, but I have known persons who were persistently chased, courted, harassed and beleaguered by the Holy Spirit, who would not let them go.
 
Just before His death Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives looking over Jerusalem and He mourned, “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”  The truth is we are loved and God is just not willing for us to perish. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”  II Peter 3:9.
 
And so He continually knocks, raps, taps at the front door, side door and backdoor of our hearts.  He really wants in and will never fly away.

It only lasted one day.  A heavy rain stripped bright yellow and red leaves from their summer branches and blanketed our lawn.  For twenty-four hours we had the most magnificent carpet anyone one could imagine.  The leaves had not yet begun to dry.  They were lush and pliable.  Walking on them was like being in an enchanted land of colors that dazzled with each step.  Jackson Pollock would have sacrificed a year of his life to have produced something so unworldly.  Van Gogh would have cut off his other ear to have added such beauty to his portfolio.  Could I have preserved it I could have become a rich man by charging people to see it.  But the next day it was diminished.  Its prime was past.
 
I was tempted to write that it was like people.  We have a prime and then it is gone.  Rarely are we aware when that prime is.  We just wake up one morning and look in the mirror and be it ever so subtle we are not the same. Every day that follows steals a bit more.  We are pilfered by time. But unlike my gorgeous carpet which will never be again, we have a “primer” prime awaiting us.  We will never reach our “primest” because each day will bring yet more vitality and beauty.
 
Paul wrote, “Just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.”  I Corinthians 15:49.   A sperm and an egg are not much to look at but put them together and the splendor of a baby is.  A wrinkled old man is not much to look at but unite him with Jesus and the grandeur that will forever grow “primer” and “primer” is beyond words.

Many schools no longer teach cursive.  Children are so keyboard literate it seems the only use for cursive is to sign one’s name.  I always despised penmanship class.  We had to make endless ovals which for me always looked like a tornado on its side as the ovals got progressively smaller as they approached the right hand side of the page.  Paul had Tertius write for him.  However he did write the closing lines in his letters.  “I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand, which is the distinguishing mark in all my letters.  This is how I write.”  2 Thessalonians 3:17.
 
I wonder how much Paul would have left us had he a computer.  It does seem that we are missing one of his letters to Corinth.  Many scholars believe II Corinthians should be III Corinthians.  Had he the tools to send out a thousand emails each evening I’m sure we would have lots of details regarding his adventurous travels spreading the Good News.  I wish we knew more about Tertius.  Was he merely a recorder or did they discuss the wording of passages in Romans?
 
I am most grateful to be able to use modern technology to tell you how much Jesus loves you.  My sorrow is my lack of grasping the deeper things, the mysteries, of which Paul speaks. His mind was amazing.  Romans 5, 6, 7 and 8 make my mind swirl with an attempt to grasp Paul’s depth.  Even Peter speaks of struggling to understand.  See II Peter 3:16.
 
Suffice it to say we are thankful to know the basics.  We are sinners.  Jesus’ death enables the Father to lavish us with grace and we are saved.   That’s enough for now.  Probably would be enough forever, but more we shall know.

One of the greatest things that ever happened to us was moving to Africa.  Instantly we were surrounded by birds and animals we previously had only read about or had seen in documentaries.  The best thing of all was all the new people.  We had colleagues from all over the world and quickly learned all manner of cultural quirks.  One of our South African families loved stewed raisins or as the husband called “Ticks on Toast.”  I was reminded a few minutes ago when I found a swollen tick on my dog.
 
Ticks are the perfect parasite. They are blood suckers that leave nothing behind but disease and scars.  I just finished Googling the question, “What good are ticks?”  The answer I found seemed like a stretch to try and say something positive about the creepy little monsters.
 
So now comes the part when I apply this to people because there are tick people among us.  These are the takers that rarely, if ever, give back.  Their purpose seems to be that they are opportunity givers.  They give the rest of us opportunities to develop our characters by giving to them and tolerating them.  They are the negative people that suck the energy out of a room and leave behind a depression that makes us wish we had not been around them. 
 
Now why should I bother to write about such a depressing topic?  It gives me the opportunity to tell you that Jesus loves them as much as he loves us.  Always remember Hebrews 7:25, “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them.”  Do I sound smug?  Jesus even loves me with my smugness. He knows I’m working on it.