Nothing to Worry About

In the arms of my mother I learned I was safe
From the terrors and sounds of the night,
For our bedtime routine silenced all the alarms
Of the dark that so filled me with fright...
Now, the story was read, and my prayers were said,
And all lights but my night-light put out;
I can yet hear her clear whisper next to my ear:
“Love, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Since then, many a teacher and mentor of mine
Has unsettled that confident calm,
For the criminals’ wake and the ripples of war
Flood their lessons and moisten my palm.
O the world, on its face, seemed to me a safe place
‘Til my intellect started to sprout...
But those feral forays seemed, as yet, far away--
There was nothing to worry about.

Well, the warnings keep coming and cannot be stilled
Of the plagues and the hazards awaiting
All the careless and brash who don’t bother to wash,
And the damsels and dudes who are dating.
Scabies, cancer and flu are out gunning for you,
Not to mention heart flutters and gout!
But I’ve lived my life clean (at least, what can be seen),
So, there’s nothing to worry about.

Yes, I’ve made it this far now with nary a scar
And my family fixed and well-fed;
What we’ve saved in the bank armors us like a tank,
Fortified for whatever’s ahead.
Candidates just like me are in office, you see,
So with them, I have plenty of clout...
Long this nation has stood now, so why not for good?
We’ve got nothing to worry about.

Now my mother has gone to a home far beyond
And mortality looms in my eyes...
All her words, just like gold in my mem’ry, unfold
To remind me of life’s greatest prize:
“If I die ere I wake, may my soul the Lord take”
Was the plea meant to shield me from doubt;
But if I had no claim on that kind Savior’s name,
I’d have plenty to worry about!

Many times she would read of our desperate need
For forgiveness and favor with God;
Of His wrath, and the love that sent Christ from above
To be born and up Calvary plod...
There the God-man would die, and for rebels like I,
Earn the favor we can’t die without;
Jesus, You are life’s goal! Take my heart and my soul;
Give me nothing to worry about.


MNA 11.6.14

Round One

Barry Butterton had always had a weight problem. By the time he entered junior high school, that problem became everybody’s problem.

Chad Pumfrey was the first person to experience this strange phenomenon. He decided at the opening of sixth grade that Barry Butterton would be his own personal target for scorn and ridicule. Chad had transferred in from a neighboring district, so when he learned Barry’s last name, he gleefully began referring to him as “Ton of Butter” along with other less-than-imaginative names. He also poked and pinched and pushed him around whenever he got the chance.

Barry Butterton treated Chad to exactly the kind of reactions Chad anticipated. He was reduced to tears, he shouted back at Chad, he whined and complained to his teachers, he turned and ran away from Chad’s mal-treatments, accompanied by the giggles and guffaws of their classmates.

Halfway through October, something strange began to happen. To everybody’s amazement, Chad’s attempts at humor at Barry’s expense no longer produced any reaction. Barry would simply ignore everything Chad said or did to him. Once in a while, however, after Chad had given up his attack and turned away, Barry would follow him with his eyes and a sinister kind of smile would spread across his overweight face.

Halloween fell on a Friday that year, and as the sixth graders were dismissed to board the buses that day, Chad couldn’t resist a parting shot as Barry walked past him to enter bus number thirteen: “Hey, watch out, everybody! Here comes the Great Pumpkin!” There was a gale of laughter from Chad’s buddies, but Barry’s only reaction was to turn around, look Chad in the eyes with a wicked grin and say in an intense whisper, “Have a great time trick-or-treating tonight, Chad Pumfrey!” Something in the way he said this made the laughter evaporate like a puff of smoke.

Four hours later, Chad and his costumed cronies were crossing the municipal park, making their way to Wood Street, which was well-known as the best trick-or-treating section of town. Their bags were already getting fairly heavy with sugar-laden treasures, but greediness for sweets is a symptom shared by most sixth graders, and this merry band was eager to top off their yearly take with a thorough fleecing of Wood Street’s wealthy warrens.

But suddenly, in the middle of the park, Chad Pumfrey found himself alone. “Buck? Brad? Ollie? Michael? Where...where are you guys? Are you h-h-hiding or something?” There was an eerie, dead silence all around him. Somehow, the lights of the surrounding town had dimmed and the ancient, widely spaced trees of the park stood like foreboding sentinels, each of them casting its own sickly green aura.

Chad felt a rising panic that started in the soles of his Red Ball Jets and surged up into the black pirate bandana swathing his forehead. He continued calling out to his friends, but his words fell dead as they left his throat. He could sense an oppressive Presence in the park--a disembodied, bestial form that was stalking him, toying with him, approaching him from all directions. He wanted to run, but had lost his bearings; he didn’t know which way to turn. He felt paralyzed...rooted to the turf where he stood.

Chad could hear the panting of his own breath, the frantic beating of his laboring heart. But then, faintly at first, but growing slowly louder, he heard the beast approaching. He cast about this way and that, seeking a way of escape, but the rumble of movement was everywhere in all directions, coming toward him through the openings in the garrison of tree-watchers.

Then, staring, dumbfounded, he dimly made out what it was that was encroaching his hapless position. It was a wall of some kind--solid, but uneven and undulating as it moved. A living, pulsating, bulging tide of inward expanding tissue. It was the color of flesh...it was sallow and hairy...it was...

Chad’s eyes bulged in their sockets. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He had to be dreaming. His last piece of candy must’ve been laced with LSD or something worse! The wall of quivering fat was now a ring surrounding him only twenty feet away.

Chad heard the sound of muffled laughter--a voice that was vaguely familiar, though he'd never heard Barry laughing before. The wall was shaking with gelatinous spasms, each of which inched the wall inward. Chad’s panic and fear gave way to something a million times worse...a feeling of impending doom.

He knew that, if he couldn’t escape this nightmare, he was destined to become one dead pirate.

The laughter crescendoed and the adipose wall jiggled ever closer and closer, shrinking his circle of life inch by flabby inch. Chad Pumfrey burst into a fit of rage and leapt forward, trying desperately to attack the wall of fat.

As his fists pummeled it, he could hear echoes of his own taunting voice: “Hey, Ton-of-Butter! Great job in gym class today. You run like a herd of hippos, Fat Boy! Yo! Watch out everybody, there’s a whale in the pool!” On and on the taunting ran, a reverberating record of every unkind word he’d ever hurled at Barry Butterton.

Ploosh! Ploosh! His fists hammered in futility at the fleshy, closing cage. Chad was burning up with sweat, terror, anger: “Butterton, you freak! If you’re behind this, you’ll be sorry! I’ll bust your fat butt, you big jerk!” Ploosh! Ploosh! The wall was now only fifteen feet across. Chad could feel it pushing him backward.

He shot a glance over his shoulder to the rear, raw adrenalin gauging the shrinking circumference of his future. Like a cornered rat, he grabbed handfuls of flab, attempting to scale the fortress of fat. But the greasy slickness of the barricade defeated him and he slid back down into his hole. The enclosure was now ten feet wide.

“Butterton! You let me out of here, you creep! You can’t do this to me!” Ploosh! Ploosh! Ploosh! Eight feet wide. “Barry, c’mon! Enough’s enough, man! I’m warning you, you’re gonna get it when me and my friends...C’mon, Barry, stop this now!!” Ploosh, Ploosh, Ploosh! Five feet.

The laughter intensified and quickened, even as Chad’s breathing became faster and shallower and sweat soaked through his BVD’s and his flashy pirate regalia. “Barry! Barry, please!!” Three feet.

Chad looked up at the tiny patch of night sky remaining above him, vainly hoping for some miraculous way of escape. Several stars shone down with cold indifference to his plight as the inward-swelling blubber encased him in its soft, suffocating embrace.

Buck, Brad, Ollie and Michael found their unconscious friend at the foot of an ageless oak tree near the center of the municipal park. They hadn’t even noticed his absence during their foray of the brightly decorated houses on Wood Street. But after Chad returned to school from his stay at the trauma center, all his friends noticed his marked avoidance of their largest classmate.

From that October on, anyone who dared to ridicule the Round One, lived to regret it.



MNA  October 30, 2014

Not in Vain

The labor of his lifetime
seemed to vanish like steam,
his preaching and his healing
like an ill-recalled dream
bled away, a guileless victim
of a poorly planned scheme
as his pierced form began to wane...

Two hands that never grappled
or contested for wealth,
that only sought to gather
weary souls to himself,
stretched out to feel the stabbing
on that stony, bleak shelf
where vultures croaked their refrain...

Where were the hungry thousands
whom his kindness had fed,
the grievers and the lepers
who had welcomed their dead
from the realm of dark and terror
by the words that he said?
Could they not cry out to restrain?

Where were the faithful learners
who had sat a his feet
and vouchsafed their allegiance
never dreading the heat?
Had all those years been wasted--
all his hopes a cruel cheat--
as their abandonment now made plain?

A thousand hopes had budded,
but now, where was the bloom?
Those joys, a lifeless body,
were encased in a tomb...
The feast so many craved
had been swallowed by gloom,
not a crumb or a drop to remain...

But, Resurrection Morning,
every hope was re-born!
And from our age of mourning
shrouding curtains were torn!
Yes, Resurrection Morning
freedom for the forlorn
blew a horn all warning,
treating sadness with scorn,
and timeless faith reforming--
yes, Resurrection Morn
means his work, and ours, is not in vain!



MNA 10.26.2014

Made New

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, the new has come" (Corinthians 5:17).

I need to be reminded constantly of the truth referred to in the above verse of Scripture. Becoming a Christian (one who is “in Christ”) is not a simple matter of making a mere human choice such as I might do on New Year’s Day when I “turn over a new leaf.” Rather, the Bible tells me that becoming a child of God requires a profound, invisible, supernatural transformation that requires a direct, divine miracle to make it happen.

Paul, the great Apostle, describes conversion as a resurrection--a creation of life in a soul that once harbored only death. “You once were dead in your trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1), he tells me. But now, because God had mercy on me, through Christ I have been made alive (Eph. 2:4-5). Alive to my desperate need for grace, alive to the power and forgiveness of the risen Christ, alive to the truth that He will save all who trust and embrace and follow Him.

Just think of a closed tomb containing a deep, dark nothingness...cold...lifeless... hopeless of any light or warmth penetrating its thick stony walls. This was my heart when it came to the God who made me. I wanted nothing to do with Him or His law or His love or His truth. Oh, I might have made a pretense of religion for the sake of appearances or to placate my own conscience. But God’s supreme act of love--sending His only Son to die in the place of lost sinners--this love found my heart stony and unresponsive as a tomb.

But, in the words of a great old hymn: “Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke; the dungeon flamed with light! My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth, and followed Thee!” When God spoke into the lifeless void, “Let there be light,” behold, there WAS light. He spoke and an entire universe came into being at His command. Similarly, when this same God gave the word over my dark, dead soul, life was generated that was absent before.

And newness was the result: new hope, that a lost sinner like I could reach out and trust in Jesus Christ the God-man to forgive and free me from my guilt and shame. New understanding, that all God had told me in His word was true and that truth would set me free from my own pride and worldly wisdom. New desires, for the beauty, truth and goodness of the triune God who chose and called and re-created me; for deeper and deeper fellowship with Him and with His people. New freedom to follow those new desires and say “no” to those sinful choices that had infested my old nature.

Sometimes Jesus performed His miracles in a big way, such as the feeding of the five thousand with a small boy’s lunch. Other times He healed people privately, as when He told the centurion that he should return home because His servant would live. Likewise, there are many accounts of conversions to Christ that are grand and stupendous, written about in books and broadcast in the mass media to make a worldwide impact. But there are also quiet conversions that no one ever hears about, as when a little child slowly begins to understand the Gospel and one day begins to believe it for herself.

But don’t be fooled. It is a miracle of God that creates His new life in the hearts of ALL His people. And the result is always newness. New hope, new understanding, new desires, new freedom--a new path of living that leads my soul to heavenly joys now...and a heavenly new world to come!

Deserted

(Suggested by Psalm 88)

Within this darkened hold I languish long,
As waves without beat hard upon the hull,
And shrieking gales rehearse what nature’s flung
To stifle chanties I’d perhaps have sung
If trapped I’d never been inside this shell...

But thousand miles’ aloneness lies between
All safety and this dungeon on the waves.
I cannot see...indeed, I’ve never seen
The One who promised streams and pastures green--
The Rescuer who sees and cares and saves.

What doubts those waves now dash upon my mind!
What fears accompany the blasting mist,
Pelting my heart with taunts that faith is blind--
And Providence capricious and unkind!
Suspicion whispers God does not exist!

The Dark, the Dark creeps into every pore;
It makes all luminosity a dream...
And I lie quaking--shaken to the core--
Close to denying all I knew before,
Extinguishing faith’s faintest, faltering gleam.

The Cry, the Cry of “why?” is in my throat,
For of a Fount of Life I’m now bereft...
Gone now the joys of which I used to gloat;
All pleasant recollections now remote,
Now but a man-shaped chasm all that’s left...

But suddenly that shape assumes a form
That memory drags up from dungeons deep:
A bitterer bereavement...sterner storm...
Far deadlier desertion...heaviest harm
That ever caused a mortal will to weep.

That man-shape horror dared a poisoned cup
Full-brimming with a billion acts of crime,
And calls me from that chalice now to sup--
Identify with Him who drank it up
To rectify my guilt for all of time!

Because of Him, my storm will soon abate,
Imprisonment will hardly seem an hour
Until the Dark is drowned from Heaven’s gate
Whence floods the light all faithful ones await--
The Light, the King, the Christ who comes in power!


MNA  October 12, 2014

The Fox and the Commander

“Greetings, Commander!” Frederick told the reclining man leaning against the big round boulder at the top of the hill.

“Hello, Freddy,” the man replied to the fox who had just hailed him. The reddish brown creature  flicked his bushy brush of a tail from side to side and curled up contentedly in the shade of a neighboring crag of stone, close enough to the knoll’s edge that he could gaze down on the scene his humanoid friend was watching with interest.

“You are still here, I see,” Frederick said lazily, glad to be out of the noonday sunshine. He had been in pursuit of an all-too-skinny quail cock who proved too fast for him. Later he would track the troublesome bird to his nest and obtain supper for himself and his family, whose tummies would be growling by then, no doubt. “Are the nomads still at it down below?” he asked.

“You know very well they are!” the man chided. “Since they set up their camp a week ago, you’ve been doing your best to pilfer whatever straying chicks you could from them, sneaking about and striking from the shadows.” He clucked his tongue good-naturedly. “If you don’t cut that out, I may decide to un-shade the sentries’ eyes and let them send an arrow in your direction!”

“All right, all right...I admit it,” the fox said with very little remorse. “But you can’t blame me for trying to snag an easy meal once in a while, can you? These tribes of yours might be your special favorites...though, for the life of me, I can’t imagine why...but you might spare an effortless morsel now and then for those of us who have to chase our dinner.”

“Oh, you poor, poor fox-ling! You have it so hard, don’t you, poor Freddy?”

“And sarcasm hardly befits you, Commander, sir!” the fox huffed half-heartedly. He squinted toward the rows of tents down on the plain below them, where women and children were awaiting the return of their menfolk. “But you are right...I watched the army set out earlier with all their strange stuff. To tell you the truth, sir, they didn’t really look very dangerous. Rumors have been circulating that they’ve defeated nation after nation, king after king, tribe after tribe. But you certainly couldn’t prove it by looking at them.”

“Frederick, what have I always told you about judging a scroll by its cover? Oh, their army is strong, alright. But it is a strength that doesn’t always show on the surface. You’ve seen rattlesnakes before. They don’t look very frightening on the outside, do they? But if one of them bites you, you’d be one sorry little fox-ling!”

“So, are you telling me that this nomad army is going to bite and poison their enemies to death, O mighty warrior?” Frederick snickered.

“Not exactly. But this hidden strength I’m talking about will win them the victory all the same. Did you see the fellow who’s giving them their marching orders?”

“Uh...you mean the one with the short beard and the fancy helmet? Always fingering his sword?”

“Right. Well, right after they set up their camp, I arranged a meeting with him and gave him the battle plan that will get them into the enemy’s stronghold. I assured him that if they obey my instructions exactly, then defeating the city would be like shooting ducks in a barrel!”

“Okay...so this daily march around the walls of the town is part of the plan, is it?”

“Yes. Once around the city each day for six days, carrying the ark and blowing the trumpets.”

“Oh. That explains all the noise. And the noise explains why all the birds I’ve been chasing have been so fidgety all week long...”

“Let’s not start on that again, Freddy...”

“Sorry. Anyway, how do you figure that marching and carrying the chest and blowing the horns is going to win any battles?”

“I told you. Doing this for six days will build up this inner strength I mentioned. Usually this strength can only be built up by giving people instructions to follow that are hard for them to understand.”

“Well, okay...those orders you gave them certainly qualify as hard to fathom! Now, after the six days, what will happen? The enemies will just give up and open the gates and surrender?”

“No, the city-dwellers will probably just laugh at them and throw things...”

“So, when do the nomads use all this inner strength they’re building up?”

“On the seventh day.”

“Ooohhh...what happens then? More marching, I suppose?”

“Yes, quite a bit more. On the seventh day they will circle the city seven times. Then all the people in the army will give a mighty shout!”

“...And?”

“That’s it. Then, the army gets to go on in and capture the city and destroy it.”

“Uh...did I miss something?”

“What do you mean, Freddy?”

“What do you mean, ‘what do you mean?’? The wall, man! There’s a big, thick, tall, impenetrable wall around the city!”

“No, no, no, my little friend. The wall won’t be there any more. The power I told you about will just obliterate it.”

“What? No battering rams?”

“No.”

“No black powder?”

“Uh-uh.”

“No earthquakes or tornadoes?”

“Nope. Just their faith, Frederick. Faith will give them the victory.”

“I...I...can’t believe it!”

“Believe me, Freddy, they do. They believe it. That’s why they are marching...why they’re following all my instructions, word for word.

“And when anyone believes me enough to obey me completely, there is nothing their faith cannot accomplish.

“Walls turn into piles of ash...

“Waters divide in two and dry up...

“Giants are killed with a stone and a sling...

“Tens of thousands are slain by a handful of men...

“And,” the man said with a knowing glint in his eye, “little foxes are allowed to catch up with quick quails!”

“Okay, I can take a hint,” Frederick said, springing up. He trotted down the hill with one backward glance. “But I’ll be back tomorrow...day seven, right? I wouldn’t miss this for the world!”


(1,057 words)

A Man Upstairs

There is a man upstairs...
a man who labored with sweat and strain--
agonized through a hell of pain
long years for his family.

There is a man, I know, up there...
one who said farewell to ease--
tasked himself like Hercules
for sisters and for brothers,
for weakened, wayward mothers
and the fathers who abused
their blessings, lost...confused.

There is a godly man upstairs.
I know his name--not yet his face...
He’s earned his rest--none more,
but he’s working still;
he’ll build until
my home is all prepared...
for once my heart had dared
to trust this workman’s skill,
I knew his work, in me, he’d fulfill.

There is a man like me up there
who could have saved himself
from slave’s humiliation, loss
of privilege and the bitter cross...
But no reward awaited him
downstairs--here where dragons roam
and drudgery finds its wretched home,
where his very kin berated him
and a felon’s treatment fated him
and a father to Hades traded him...

There is a re-born man upstairs...
one whose work could not be cursed
or ever undone or reversed,
but ever counts for me,
when all of mine, disqualified,
lies burned to ash...all swept aside.
This workman took a throne
upstairs where he, second to none,
works all things for my good,
hears my complaints and writes in blood
the notes that buy me free
and pledges me the golden key
to enter in and live with him...upstairs.