THE GOSPEL AS A WEAPON, THE WAY MY DAD MAY HAVE TOLD IT TO HIS SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS

In preparing lessons for his senior Sunday School class my father Ken relied heavily on a Teachers' Self-Pronouncing Reference Edition of The Holy Bible and to this day the now 90-year-old text with well-worn, delicate pages held together by duct ape, remains my main go-to source of biblical inspiration. Of particular fascination for me are notations left by my father on the blank front and back pages of the bible and I have checked out the scriptures quoted in all cases just for personal edification purposes.

The most intriguing notation, however, has been one referring to Matthew X -- 34 (stet): "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, I am come not to send peace but a sword."  On the surface, those words would seem to run counter to everything else we ever learned about Jesus Christ as savior of the world.

How very shocking! Jesus "did not come to bring peace, but a sword"?! Why would He say such a thing? And why would Ken chose this controversial statement as a hook on which to hang a lesson for a group of Sunday School teenagers, 12 to 15 years of age?

Truth be known, ministers of the word and sacraments have been known to purposely avoid Matthew 10:3 in sermons because of the awkwardness in interpreting its true meaning. 

Because I was in an intermediate class, just behind those senior SS kids taught by my dad, I was not privy to how he actually handled the lesson on this particular Sunday (perhaps in 1949 or '50). But what follows will be what I think Ken's message could have been.

Ken Wright
(1899-1952)

Up front, I think he would have explained that what Jesus was doing here was correcting false assumptions about what the Messiah's mission was. According to Isaiah 9:5-7, the Messiah is described as the "Prince of Peace". The interpreters of the Hebrew Scriptures took that to mean that the Messiah would be the "Prince of Peace" ON EARTH. That, however, was not Jesus' mission. The ultimate goal of the Gospel was, and is, not harmony on earth, but PEACE WITH GOD(Rom.5:1).

I think we would all agree that peace does not come easily. Right now, all over the world, war and unrest is rearing its ugly head. And it would be ignorant to suggest that these countries are enjoying what is taking place. Peace is always preferable, but the reality is, when two sides strongly disagree on something, conflict is inevitable.

The same goes for the Gospel. The goal of the Gospel is NOT conflict--with God, or with each other. The goal of the Gospel is "peace with God"(Rom.5:1). The difficulty is that the Gospel presents such a penetrating message that it acts like a "sword". It pierces the consciences of humanity and calls us to love God more than we love ourselves.

That, in essence, is what Jesus was implying. He warned that profound conflict should be expected between those who accept the Gospel and those who reject it.

Likely everyone reading this post today can relate to what Jesus was saying. When you go to work, what do you usually talk about with your co-workers? Sports? Fashion? Home repair? Anything and everything, but not religion.

When your family gathers at Christmas, what do you talk about? Anything and everything, but not religion. Why? Because honest, from the heart, discussions on religious beliefs inevitably causes conflict. We have all been there -- at least I have. Even with fellow Christians, conflicts arise when it comes to getting straight the message of Jesus. It is inevitable.

Nowhere in all of this is there the sense that we should run from this conflict either. It is presented as an inevitability -- "A man's enemies WILL be the members of His household"(v.36). Now that doesn't give us permission to be obnoxious for the sake of the Gospel. This does not give us permission to pick fights with people who don't share our views. We are still required to be gentle, patient, loving, and gracious towards everyone. 

In our impulsive need(?) to often be reactive, the cause of conflict SHOULD NEVER BE our personality or our manner of presentation. The only legitimate cause of conflict is the CONTENT of the message. An abrasive personality should never be the "sword" -- the content delivered is the "sword", albeit subject to knee-jerk misinterpretation, simply because life is like that.

After warning His disciples about the potential the Gospel has for conflict, Jesus reminded them of their need for loyalty. Jesus told them that "he who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me"(v.37).

Now Jesus did not call us to dislike our family members. And even though Luke's version would have us "hate" our family, we must conclude this to be relative. Scripture is clear in its command for us to "honour (our) father and (our) mother"(Ex.20:12). And Scripture makes it clear that we should love our spouses (Eph.5:25).

So what is Jesus getting at here? Quite simply, Jesus wants us to prioritize Him. He wants us to make Him our first loyalty, and to emphasize this He names the two things most precious to us: our family and our own life.

Those of you with aging or ailing parents, think about how you devote yourselves to seeing that they are looked after. Those of you with children, think about to what extreme you would go to, to defend, protect, and look after your children. You invest your valuable time and resources in them on a daily basis. Quite frankly, you put your "heart and soul" into your care for them.

Then you read this passage, "he who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me".

If you work hard to love, and care for, your parents and children that is terrific. It really is. Jesus would think so too. Jesus is NOT asking anyone to abandon their love and care for family. What Jesus is calling for here is, that you put the same energy and care into your relationship with Him, as you do with the people you love most. In fact, He calls for more. This is the mark of a Christian disciple: ONE WHO PUTS JESUS FIRST.

"Christians should be known as hard workers. Christians should be known as good parents and committed spouses. But above all, Christians should be known as people committed to Christ -- committed to Him above all else."

That, in parenthesis, is precisely the message I think Ken would have left with his Sunday School class all those years ago.

We are extremely blessed here in 21th century North America. Few, if any, of us will ever be in danger because of our belief in Christ. Yet the Word of God still challenges to make sacrifices for the sake of the Gospel. And making sacrifices of time and resources is never easy. In fact, sacrificing may make us quite uncomfortable and cause us distress.

But this is the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ. We stretch ourselves. We think about the vigour we have towards our career, towards supporting our family and we hear the call of God to give even more vigour and more enthusiasm for the sake of the Gospel.

Hope I did it justice dad!

WE ARE REFLECTED IN THE FRUIT WE BEAR

Couldn't let the current Season of Lent skip by without posting at least one item relevant to the subject.

After telling the crowds that unless they repent, they will perish, Jesus told a parable about a fig tree that had not borne fruit for three years. The owner wanted it destroyed. But the worker in charge of cultivating, cutting, and pruning appealed to the owner to spare the tree: "Sir, leave it one more year," he said, "and give me time to dig around it and manure it; it may bear fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down" (Luke 13:8-9).

In the "Parable of the Fig Tree," Jesus seems to be assuring us that while repentance is a matter of spiritual life and death, nevertheless, the Lord is patient. The first point is simple: God looks for fruit.

i. The fruit of our lives shows what kind of person we really are. An apple tree will bring forth apples, not watermelons. If our lives have really been touched by the Holy Spirit, it will show in the fruit we bear, even if it takes a while for the fruit to come forth.

ii. What fruit is God looking for? It certainly has to begin with the fruit of the Spirit, mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

The message for today is that perhaps God is showing His special care for us right now, but it feels like we are surrounded by proverbial manure. Yet, God's work should not be resisted. Flow with it and bear fruit as He continues to work in our lives.

As illustrated by the farmer in the parable, God is also just in His judgment. There finally will come a day of reckoning. It is not just an endless string of threats.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One morning in 1888, Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, awoke to read his own obituary. The notice was printed because of a simple journalistic error — it was Alfred's brother that had died, and the reporter carelessly reported the death of the wrong Nobel.

To Alfred, the shock was overwhelming because he saw himself as the world saw him: the "Dynamite King," the great industrialist who had made an immense fortune from explosives. This, as far as the public was concerned, was the entire purpose of Alfred's life. None of his true intentions to break down the barriers to world peace were recognized or given serious consideration. He was simply a merchant of death. And for that alone, he would be remembered. For Alfred, this presented an existential crisis -- a matter of spiritual life and death.

As he read the obituary with horror, he resolved to make clear to the world the true meaning and purpose of his life. This could be done through the final disposition of his fortune. His last will and testament would be the expression of his life's ideals and ultimately would be why we would remember him. The result was the most valuable of prizes given to those who had done the most for the cause of world peace. 

Of course, today, that prestigious honor is called the "Nobel Peace Prize."

CHANCE ENCOUNTER WITH A FORMER PREMIER'S BODY GUARD WHO FANCIED HIS OWN RUN AT POLITICS

Ontario Premier Mitch Hepburn acknowledging a crowd in 1934.

Back in the fall of 1978, I was sitting at a bar in Brampton's Marlboro Hotel, an all-too-frequent haunt, after putting out all the news of the day that was fit to print in the local Daily Times newspaper. Nothing unusual about that, but on this occasion a funny happenstance was about to unravel.

A rather pugilistic, bombastic, yet decently attired middle-aged character with crew cut hair, plunked himself down on the vacant stool next to me at the bar. It was inevitable that we would eventually strike up a conversation.

My newsman's instinct seemed to tell me that this guy was going to have an interesting story to tell and, what the heck -- I was all ears.

Not too far into our introductory exchange, I mentioned that I had spent a lot of time in St. Thomas in the 1950s and '60s. That's all my new friend apparently needed to hear as he quickly downed his class of beer and promptly ordered another, as if to settle in for the long haul.

"You probably knew Vince Barrie," he said as an opener. Of course I knew Vince Barrie as one of the most popular mayors in the history of St. Thomas and a former Canadian light weight boxing champion. It was also no secret that Vince, who contributed greatly to the economic growth of the city, had a rather checkered past and was implicated in a prostitution ring in the London-St. Thomas area toward the end of his political career.

Vincent Barrie

Sandy (that's what I'll call him for the purposes of this story) said that he too was a boxer but even though he cold have been a "contenda" a la Rocky Balboa of Hollywood movie fame, he didn't go as far in the ring as Vince. He explained that he, instead opted for a job as a body guard for another St. Thomas and Elgin County native in the person of colorful former Premier of Ontario, Mitch Hepburn. (Hepburn is a story unto himself and I'll review some of his complex and controversial history as a wrap up to this post.)

As with Vince Barrie, I was very familiar with the Hepburn era in Ontario politics and, in fact was well acquainted with one of his sons Peter and two daughters Patricia and Helen, who were still prominent in St. Thomas circles as we spoke. Peter took over management of the family farm after the death of his father and Pat who married a chap by the name Hub Dollar, worked with my wife Anne at a Royal Bank branch in downtown St. Thomas.

The more I interrogated Sandy about his days with Hepburn the more physically and vocally animated he became.

"I really learned a lot about politics accompanying Mitch in the 1930s and '40s and developed a taste for that kind of life," he explained before ordering another beer at my expense...and dropping an unexpected bomb on me in the process. He just might run for the office of Mayor in Brampton for the coincidental upcoming municipal election, with an eye to entering provincial politics after that, no less.

"I'm sure I could win," he added in a fit of over confidence and bravado. Whoah!

Jokingly, and ill-advisedly egging him on, I responded by saying "Well if you ever do, keep me in mind as your campaign manager. That apparently was all Sandy needed to hear.

With that, he jumped up from his bar stool and began glad-handing with patrons as he circulated the pre-supper hour crowd, introducing himself as "the next Mayor of Brampton", a city of 100,000 population in those days. Numerous times he pointed over to me, the local newspaper editor, as his newly-appointed campaign manager and loudly instructed me (still wondering what I had I just let myself in for?) to "buy these good folks a drink on me!"

Truthfully, Sandy was pretty adept at what he was doing that night. Perhaps a trait he picked up from his longstanding exposure to the former Premier.

The ensuing 30 minutes cost me a lot of beers, which I guess served me right. But the charade had gone on long enough and I had to find a way out of it.

Finally managing to drag Sandy out of the hotel under the guise of talking campaign strategy, I suggested that we both needed to go home and sleep on what had just transpired. "Great," he said as he hustled off into the darkness of the busy main drag. "I'll be in touch after I file my name at city hall in the morning!"

Luckily, I did not hear from Sandy again but I did get an interesting telephone call from a psychiatrist at my office the next morning.

"I understand you have been talking to one of my patients about running for politics," he stated matter-of-factly.

"Well, yes," I answered rather sheepishly. "It stared out as a joke over a beer and quickly escalated out of control. In the end, the last thing I wanted to do was upset him but I guess he took it out of context as a form of all-too-welcomed encouragement."

Alluding to Sandy's lack of mental stability and with the hint of a chuckle, the doctor said "I understand, but don't worry, you won't be hearing any more from him." I chose not to ask any questions.

To be on the safe side, I did not go back to the Marlboro Hotel after work for several weeks.

I often wondered what happened to good old Sandy though. He was not really a bad guy and I hope they found him a good home someplace where he did not have access to gullible, young newspaper editors who knew about his former boss, Mitch Hepburn.

Incidentally, the incumbent Brampton Mayor Jim Archdeacon was returned to office, unchallenged by any election newcomers that year.

THE MITCH HEPBURN STORY HAD TWO SIDES TO IT

It was his turbulence that rushed Mitchell Hepburn into power in Ontario in the stagnant year of 1934. That made him a popular hero to the depression-weary electorate. Later this same turbulence brought against him accusations of treachery, threats of tar and feathers, insinuations of Nazi leanings.

Hepburn gave the appearance of trying to keep that turbulence tightly buttoned under his double-breasted blue suit. He tried to hold his natural friendliness in check by replacing his amiable smile with a fierce look. He was not good at it. This is partly because he had the wrong kind of face, with twinkly blue eyes, a short dimpled chin and a pair of large impishly fluted ears. His high forehead, topped by downy thinning hair, was more suggestive of extreme youth than terrifying wisdom.

He truly liked people people and he was fond of talking. His resolve to be a strong, silent man could be broken down by the mention of (a) his children and (b) his farm. Anyone ready to hear about either one was welcome to stay till the cleaning women came to sweep out his office.

The children were the previously mentioned Peter, Patsy (Pat) and Helen, all adopted. His own son and daughter died in infancy, but he did not ever mention them publicly. To his credit, he was completely devoted to his adopted family.

The children and their mother Eva Hepburn lived on the farm and the senior Hepburn went home for week ends when he could. Bannockburn Farm, near St. Thomas, was settled by Hepburn’s grandfather more than two hundred years ago. The white brick house the Hepburns lived in was the same house in which he was born. The farm,  1,000 acres in all, was a veritable industry in itself. It had 100 horses, 170 registered Holstein cows, 45 brood sows, 1,250 laying hens, and more than 100 acres of prize Spanish onions and celery marshland. This hundred acres were Mitchell Hepburn’s own achievement and pride. It was an old lake bed, looked upon as a worthless swamp. For 14 years he worked at draining it and the property became the best growing soil in that part of the country.

As a place to live, Bannockburn Farm was idyllic with two beautiful acres of lawn and flowers. With a summer lodge built of logs on the edge of a 9-acre artificial lake stocked with trout and bass. Each member of the family had their own dog and horse.

Premier Mitchell Hepburn (left)
with Lt. Governor of Ontario
Dr. Hebert Bruce.

That was the good side of Mitch Hepburn, but there was another side too, one that out-trumped the likes of American presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton combined.

To put it bluntly, he was noted for his persistent drunkenness and debauchery, despite being married with three children. In fairness, he was often described as a political paradox who in spite of his shortcomings was accepted by the people.

Hepburn represented a type of agrarian democracy that detested Toryism and valued oratory. He once saw a pile of manure situated in a village square, and proceeded to jump on top of it to give a speech, apologizing to the crowd for speaking from a Tory platform. He also used the same line when standing on a manure spreader, only to have a heckler shout, "Well, wind 'er up Mitch, because she's never carried a bigger load!"

Prime Minister William Lyon
MacKenzie King

Hepburn, who led the province from 1934-42, was on a collision course with Liberal Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, who despised Hepburn’s personal life. York University professor the late John Saywell chronicled Hepburn’s riotous living in his 1991 biography, Just Call me Mitch, (U of T Press) recounting how, in 1934, Hepburn had become “very puffy” in appearance.

“King relished the stories of Mitch’s alleged debauchery,” Saywell reported. “He faithfully recorded the story of the morning Annie Odette (the wife of a Hepburn colleague) went to Mitch’s suite and “found three girls there, who greeted her with the words, ‘Well dearie, you’re too late, we’ve been here all night.’”

Saywell also tells of a Caribbean vacation Hepburn spent with two other colleagues (perhaps one of them was a certain body guard?).

“After a night at the Biltmore in New York, the trio boarded the SS Monarch Of Bermuda on Dec. 6. Not long after they cleared the harbour, a young woman approached Mitch at the rail: ‘Hi, remember me?’ Mitch did remember buying the young Hepburn Liberal team member a chocolate malt during the election campaign. There was nothing adolescent about the beautiful, full-bodied, 21-year-old who told Mitch that she and some other young people had won the trip in a competition. When the ship docked in Bermuda two days later they went their separate ways.”

Saywell recounts how the trio sailed from Bermuda to Nassau, where they were to have dinner with the captain and the governor of the Bahamas. All went well until Hepburn and one of his buddies went missing.

“Eventually they were found in a brothel, which they had resorted to as soon as the boat put in.”

Hepburn brazenly flaunted his women in the legislature. “No one expected Mitch Hepburn to be a sophisticated parliamentarian, but there was a crude arrogance about his behaviour that many found disturbing,” writes Saywell.

“One contemporary observer, Dr. George McQuibban, noted that every man ‘on the front row’ (i.e. cabinet) now arrived with a good looking ‘stenographer’ and when drunk boasted about them. Hepburn brought his right into the House with him, although she looked ‘fagged out.’”

“Mitch had not forgotten his shipboard chance meeting with the young Hepburn team supporter and not long after his return he arrived at her father’s farm alone and unannounced. Two weeks later she was working at Queen’s Park. The romance blossomed. The beautiful young woman, robust in body and playful in spirit, became his frequent companion. Strongly independent, she resented the term mistress and would have been outraged if Angela Bruce (wife of the lieutenant-governor) had included her as one of Mitch’s ‘tarts,’” reports Saywell. “She was in love with him. Like most of his entourage, she usually called him ‘Chief,’ but there were times when they both preferred ‘Uncle Dudley.’”

Hepburn’s romps were not reported by the newspapers of the day, although Saywell implies that the Toronto Star may have used them as a nail in ‘Uncle Dudley’s’ political coffin: “His other private life was the stuff of stories in the newsroom of the Toronto Star, where it was said that publisher Joe Atkinson had finally driven Mitch out of politics by threatening to release compromising pictures of him with a girlfriend.”

On his death in January of 1954, the Toronto Star observed:

"It was in the 1934 election campaign that Mr. Hepburn's gift of oratory first impinged on the province at large. He had a free and easy platform manner, his customary attitude being hands plunged in side coat pockets while he wandered about the platform releasing an unfaltering flow of barbed-wire eloquence that no other political speaker could match in rapidity and certainly not in deadliness. He never consulted a note, never appeared to prepare a speech in advance, and delivered an array of astounding facts and figures with such an air of assurance that his audience seldom thought to question them."

I never got to ask Hepburn's old body guard Sandy about any of that in what turned out to be the three longest hours of my life spent with him in the Marlboro Hotel bar one night in 1978. All Sandy offered was: "Mr. Hepburn was a good politician with a lot of good ideas." Some of which he planned to incorporate in the political career of his delusional fantasy, God bless him.

HOPE IS A PRIME MOTIVE FOR CHRISTIAN LIVING. WE CAN FACE ADVERSITY BECAUSE THE PRESENT SITUATION IS NEVER THE LAST CHAPTER FOR NEW BEGINNERS.

What you do in the present -- by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself  -- will last into God's future. Whatever we do to mend the world has lasting value.

Popular theology has not always followed traditional thought.

Some Christian thinkers have extrapolated that death releases an inner divine spark whose battery never runs out and that floats along heavenly streets of gold and other adornments of crystal, halos and white robes. Salvation, tritely referred to as "going to your rest," is pictured as a continuous holiday in a gated community monitored by St. Peter. Background music is supplied by harps. God performs, in theologian Ted Peters' words a "soulectomy," separating soul from body for a nonphysical world. 

So the result is a bodiless person and a worldless God. Caricature or not, some of those notions left me perplexed as I grew up in the church of my youth. Surely God had something far bigger in mind.

N. T. Wright (no relation), a new testament scholar and Anglican bishop, summed it up not long ago when he explained, "What (Jesus) was promising for the future, and is doing in the present, was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity, but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world presently is so they could enjoy, already in the present, the renewal of creation which is God's ultimate purpose -- and so they could thus become colleagues and partner in that larger project."

In other words, a promise of a new creation and an invitation to a new vocation stretches beyond "me and Jesus" to God's worldwide purposes. The Christian life is so much more than one person's long-term survival. It is about the world's future, it is about our hope turning our heads and hearts outward to the world. This, ideally, should be the focus of churches struggling to be relative in the troubling times of the 21st century and beyond. Connecting mission with change.

Mission provides the major standard against which all activities, services, and decisions are valued. Mission is the preserver of congregational integrity. It is about God's love for the world, not about what I like or don't like about my church. 

When talk show host Stephen Colbert interviewed the previously-mentioned N. T. Wright, he said his vision of heaven was a harp, mint julep, and asking former U.S. President Ronald Reagan questions. Farcical as Colbert was and is, it is not to much of a stretch to suggest that far too many people want to go to heaven for similar self-serving and fanciful allusions of eternal bliss. But the biblical final destination is a surprise, not merely a heavenly reward where we see and hear what we want to see and hear. It is a new heaven and a new earth.

All creation has a future. Our journey in life is not a private affair. We are invited to become agents of God's creative work -- seeking the lost, feeding the hungry and befriending the lonely.  

It should be remembered that Israel became a community of hope by refusing to allow the exile to be the epitome of their destiny. They confidently trusted that God would in his own time mend the brokenness. They had no assurances, no natural endowment for rosy expectations, no hope that the law of averages had to play their number eventually -- just "My hope is in you (Ps. 39:7). It all came about because of God's will being done on earth as in heaven.

His promise to renew all things creates hope, not the need for hope. The future is different.

"The dark door of the future has been thrown open," Pope Benedict XV1 declared, "the one who has hope lives differently." We can take our lyres (guitars, drums, tymphonies, tom toms, tambourines and trumpets) off the trees in this time of dislocation and sing our songs of Zion which glorify God's presence, always. 

Every now and then, we and our places of worship need to step back and take a long look forward. God's kingdom is beyond our efforts, even our vision. In a lifetime we participate in only a fraction of God's work. But, while we cannot do everything, we can do something. Incomplete as it may be, it is a step along the way, a beginning.

End results? We may never realize or see them, only hold them trusting in God's future promise of the creation of a new heart in us and a new world out of the old. 

Prayer: God who made us the creatures of time, so that every tomorrow is unknown and every decision a venture of faith, grant us frail children of the day, who are blind to the future, to move toward it with a sure confidence in your love, from which neither life nor death can separate us. 

JACOB'S DREAM: IT WAS A LADDER, NOT A STAIRWAY

Through my study of Hebrew, as cursory as it may be, I am discovering some interestingly revealing things that otherwise would evade further thought and serious scrutiny.

For instance, do you actually understand the meaning of Jacob’s Ladder? Found in Genesis, this is one of the most famous scenes in the Bible. But the tale of a distressed man, who dreams of angels ascending and descending a ladder to Heaven, has layered complexities. 

When Jacob was forced to flee the Land of Israel, he fell asleep and had a mysterious dream. One that scholars still debate the meaning of to this day. A dream of angels who climb and fallow a ladder to Heaven is heavy with significance.

Jacob’s dream has many interpretations. For many, the most significant one is: it could be that our spiritual lives follow a pattern. Sometimes up, sometimes down — but always reaching Heaven eventually. 

Our spiritual lives, like Jacob’s ladder, need “to be set up on the earth”. This provides the foundation we require to ascend in our connection with Heaven. The Hebrew word in this verse for “set up” is mutzav (מֻצָּב). This comes from the root “to be firm, unwavering”.  So, the original text means our spirituality must be rooted and firmly placed on the ground before we can climb.

Just as a refresher, Jacob’s dream about the ladder is found in Genesis 28:12. It reads as follows:

"Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place. He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, 'I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants'.”

The Hebrew word for “ladder” is sullam and it means ladder – not stairway as we often hear in a popular song.

There are two key reasons to believe that it is a ladder we are talking about. First, if the Holy Spirit had wanted to tell us that this was a stairway, He could have used the Hebrew word maala which translated is “stairway.” He did not do that. Come to think about it, there might have been not such things as stairways per se in Jacobs time.

No explanation is given in scripture as to why the ladder and angels appeared in the dream. However, they appear to symbolize that God is communicating with Jacob since the Hebrew word for angel, malak, actually means messenger and God is standing at the top of the ladder. The ladder does not actually exist. Remember, this was a dream.

In the dream God repeats the covenant promises made to Abraham and Isaac regarding a homeland for their descendants.

"Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Genesis 28:14-15

God promises to fulfill the covenant and never leave him. The entire dream reveals God’s awesomeness, sovereignty, and faithfulness. Even though God made the promises to Abraham and Isaac who were dead, He would remain faithful.

Have you ever felt that God was speaking with you maybe in a dream, or through another individual? Well, that very well may be a case where He is moving your heart in the direction that He wants you to go. It only requires that you are quiet and sensitive to His leading.

FIRST THE GOOD NEWS: JUST YOU WAIT, THE WORLD IS NOT ENDING ANY TIME SOON

To be clear, for the purpose of what follows in this post and to dismiss any misgivings, the rapture that we often hear about is an eschatological theological position held by some Christians, particularly within branches of American evangelicalism, consisting of an end-time event when all Christian believers who are alive, along with resurrected believers, would rise "in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." The origin of the term extends from Paul the Apostle's First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Bible, in which he uses the Greek word harpazo (Ancient Greek: ἁρπάζω), meaning "to snatch away" or "to seize," and explains that believers in Jesus Christ would somehow be snatched away from earth into the air.

The idea of a "rapture" as it is currently defined is not found in historic Christianity, but is a relatively recent doctrine of Evangelical Protestantism. Most Christian denominations do not subscribe to rapture theology and have a different interpretation of the aerial gathering described in 1 Thessalonians 4. Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, United Methodists, the United Church of Christ, and most Reformed Christians do not generally use rapture as a specific theological term, nor do they generally subscribe to the premillennial dispensational views associated with its use. Instead these groups typically interpret rapture in the sense of the elect gathering with Christ in Heaven after his second coming and reject the idea that a large segment of humanity will be left behind on earth for an extended tribulation period after the the previously mentioned events have taken place.

Regardless, where would we be today were it not for the work of scribes and Pharisees in the form of holy scripture giving us a glimpse into the past and future of the world we ultimately leave behind.

Most of us are watching what’s going on in the world and are wondering what, if anything, this pandemic has to do with the last-days run-up to the ultimate end of the world. Listening to the news it certainly feels apocalyptic!

North Americans have historically weathered financial problems from time to time but were spared from the devastation of cities during World War I and II. More recently, Korea, Vietnam and the Middle Eastern conflicts were a long way away. So even a “stay home order” is new to most of us.

And boy, there are a lot of wild theories circulating about the root cause of Covid-19 and its variants. Some of the articles and videos on the subject are mind-boggling. But most are just wild unbiblical theories that should be ignored.

So it’s important to step back a bit and look at what is, and isn’t, going on from a Biblical perspective.

The first thing to keep in mind is that “THE END OF THE WORLD” is at least a thousand years away. So it doesn’t end anytime soon and it certainly doesn’t end by disease. Our concern then need not be on how close we are to the end of it all, not that any of us will be around to witness it anyway.

When addressing Christians in the Church Age, the Bible does not say the world will get worse and worse and then the end will come. Rather, just the opposite. Jesus, in fact said His coming for the Church will be “just like” the days of Noah. Not leaving anything to possible incorrect interpretation, Jesus went on to explain what it was like during the days of Noah. He said:

“For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” Matt. 24:38,39

The parallel passages in Luke 17 pointedly say people will be eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, and building.

Then Jesus concludes with: “It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed.” Luke 17:30

Therefore, what Believers should understand from what Jesus taught is that life will be relatively normal before the big bang happens. Paul even adds that will be a time of peace and safety, but adds that day would come as a surprise only to evil, unsaved people; rapture or no rapture.

So whatever the Coronavirus pandemic is, it’s temporary and not the end of the world with everything slowly but surely grinding to a halt. God is ideally fully in control, therefore Covid-19 can be construed as part of his permissive will. This life is not heaven and we experience both laughter and sorrow, hardships and accomplishments, between birth and death.

But this latest pandemic could be a warning of things to come in the future when famine, floods, hail and earthquakes will be 100 times worse than anything ever seen in the past.

Meantime, currently we’re all sitting in temperature-controlled homes with electricity, Internet and plenty to eat. Most expect this is just a temporary situation so they patiently wait for the stay-home orders to be reversed and when restaurants will be open for all and sundry once again with no proof of vaccination required.

O how we love to eat out, right?

A few of us can't wait to attend church services once again too, sans those God forsaken face masks.

Ah, back to normal again! Or at least a new normal, whatever that may be.

We don't know the half of it...thank God!

We humans have a short life span. Let's make the most of it while we can.

And start being kinder, more conscious custodians of the land we have been given to nurture and to call home. Do it for the sake of our children's children and generations to follow.

BRAVO! THE SIMPSONS WAVE UKRAINIAN FLAG

The Simpsons just released a commissioned image of the animated cartoon family in support of Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

A photo tweet sent from the Simpson’s official account depicts Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and baby Maggie holding Ukrainian flags in unison with a caption reading, “#TheSimpsons #Simpsons #Ukraine.”

Al Jean, Simpson’s executive producer, said the creation of political images isn’t common in the animated sitcom’s repertoire. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine proved to be an appropriate exception.

“We don’t do this very often, only very rarely when there’s something… extremely important for a cause that could not be bigger,” Jean said.

The cartoon was drawn by animator and director David Silverman who has been with the show since its inception in 1989. Show producer Jim Brooks called creator Matt Groening, Jean and Silverman to create the image to express their solidarity with the independent Eastern European nation.

“It’s meant to show we care about what’s going on and have enormous sympathy for the people of Ukraine and want this to stop,” Jean added.

The animated Fox sitcom has gained a reputation in recent years for predicting historical events with uncanny accuracy years, even decades, ahead.

Recently, Twitter users unearthed a clip from an episode titled “Simpson Tide” from 1998, joking the Soviet Union never dissolved and that the Berlin Wall magically resurfaced.

The longest-running American sitcom has also forecasted events like Donald Trump’s presidency, the Disney-Fox merger, Super Bowl victors, and even Tom Hanks endorsing the United States government.

Sometimes life is not stranger than fiction.

A PERCEIVED DESTINY DRIVES RUSSIA'S PUTIN

Ukraine demonstrators protest invasion by Russia.

It is incredible to me how one demagogic individual can wreck devastating havoc on the world with little regard for the cost implications of massive armed invasion, let alone resultant loss of lives and the destruction of entire societies.


It is beyond conception when considering so much death and violence has been caused because man believes he has a destiny. To be sure, the one thing that causes so much turmoil in the world, is when man thinks he has a destiny, and will do anything to achieve it, good or bad. The thing is, however, there is no destiny, it's all in their head.

We're talking of course about Russian President Vladimir Putin. What in the world is he thinking?

A report in the National Post this morning went a long way toward answering that question when it explained that Putin’s march into Ukraine this week was about ensuring no one in his country sees the emerging democracy as a model to follow combined with a belief the West won’t have the resolve to stop him.

Putin, a former KGB officer, has been ruling Russia since 1999 when he became acting president after Boris Yeltsin resigned. He has seen four U.S. presidents come and go and has held onto his power and position for more than two decades.

Putin served two full terms as president between 2000 and 2008 and stepped down due to term limits that didn’t allow someone to serve three consecutive terms as Russian president. But he didn’t move far from power, staying on as prime minister until 2012, when he became president again. The 69-year-old has successfully pushed for changes to the Russian constitution allowing him to now stay as president until 2036.

In the last decade, Putin has fought wars in Georgia and annexed Crimea from Ukraine. He has helped prop up leaders in Belarus and Kazakhstan from internal dissent and drives toward democracy.

Aurel Braun, a professor of international relations and political science at the University of Toronto, said the invasion of Ukraine was about making sure the country doesn’t prosper.

“His larger goal is to make sure that either he captures all the Ukraine or he makes sure that Ukraine is a failed state,” Braun said.

Braun added that Putin’s long reign has not significantly improved the lives of the Russian people, the country is riddled with corruption and despite its many advantages its economy sputters. “Russia is a failed state in many ways. It’s the largest geographical state in the world that has astonishing natural wealth, great scientific talent. And the per capita GDP in Russia is lower than in Romania or Turkey,” he said.

Russia’s GDP per capita is still higher than Ukraine’s, but the country has been growing in recent years. It has received western help to diversify and to strengthen and train its military. Braun said Putin can’t afford to live next to a success story like that.

“He does not want to have an alternate model of a successful, stable democracy next door in Ukraine, that would risk contamination.”

Roland Paris, a former foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and now professor at the University of Ottawa, said Putin also views Ukraine as a historic part of Russia and still views the fall of the Soviet Union as a calamity.

“Vladimir Putin is trying to reestablish a politically compliant Ukraine, which he sees as both a historic part of the Russian nation, and as a potential threat to Russia, unless it’s governed by a compliant regime.”

He said pushing back against NATO expansion and any attempt at democratization among his neighbours fits with Putin’s world view, which sees both as a threat to Russia.

“Another part of it is a very deep resentment he holds towards the west, which he thinks exploited Russian weakness after the end of the Cold War.”

Putin’s move this week was met with swift sanction and condemnations, as western countries including Canada have been warning for weeks would happen if Russia invaded Ukraine.

But will sanctions be enough to stop a very determined Putin? Certainly not likely with Russia's key ally in foreign relations, China's Xi Jinping, endorsing Putin's right to do whatever he wants.

Meantime, we in North America wait and see...and pray for our Ukrainian friends in the fight of, and for, their lives.

The whole world is on standby for the possible emergence of a new order. 

O CANADA: UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL

Extremists have been exploiting the pandemic to create civil unrest, according to CSIS documents released under Access to Information legislation. Ideological groups intent on overthrowing the government have been “promoting the panic” over vaccines, the spy agency said.

Out of this it is clear to me how contagious and powerful social media content can be if it promotes fear or indignation, as has increasingly been the case. Companies like Twitter or Facebook could lower the temperature if they adjusted their algorithms but doing so would also lower user engagement (and revenues).

For another, it has revealed how complacent many people are about the divisions in our society.

“Yes, Canadians are divided — more than 90 per cent (vaccinated) on one side and the rest on the other,” said one respondent.

I think that is a fundamental misreading of what is happening. The vaccine mandates are a proxy for a broader values war being waged in our society and, if we don’t start to understand it and calm anxieties, the occupation of downtown Ottawa will have been merely a prelude to more chaos.

As a Maru public opinion poll for Postmedia suggested, fully one third of Canadians are prepared to resort to violence to protect what they see as their fundamental values -- a figure the poll suggested rises to 45 per cent in Alberta.

Social media is culpable, but so are our politicians.

Former federal Liberal candidate Adam Pankratz detailed his disillusionment with Justin Trudeau in an article in National Post, in which he said the prime minister’s embrace of identity politics has led to an “incredible failure of governance.” Government opponents have been called names in order to discredit them, he said. “Political opponents are not simply people who hold differing views but people who are fundamentally evil and deserve to be demonized, shunned or shamed.”

On the other side, would-be Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has been using the word “freedom” with abandon, in particular in championing the “freedom convoy.” Yet one person’s freedom fighter is another’s insurgent. Encouraging lawlessness and disorder may play well with a faction of the Conservative coalition but it’s less likely to win over the non-aligned. In the Maru poll, two thirds of respondents said they want to extract voter revenge on politicians who contributed to, or supported, the protest in Ottawa.

Both parties desperately need to start talking the language of solidarity and fairness, if the centre is to hold.

In the debate on the Emergencies Act, Trudeau belatedly recognized the imperative to conciliate, while coming as close as he is ever likely to in acknowledging his part in the downfall of civility. “In the heat of the moment we can all get carried away to win an argument,” he said. “As a country, let’s aim for more decency in our public discourse. Let’s cherish the democracy we have and let’s commit ourselves to working together to make it even better.”

On the Conservative side, Eric Melillo said he is dismayed by the Emergencies Act “but it does not make the prime minister a dictator. He is within his right to invoke it.”

His colleague Scott Aitchinson said it’s time for MPs to stop being politicians and start being leaders. “We weren’t sent here to represent only those people who put up our lawn signs. We weren’t sent here to appeal to the lowest common denominator; we were sent here to raise it,” he said.

These are not sentiments that will find reward on platforms that minimize respect, understanding and civility, but Aitchinson is right — our country is in dire need of leadership if we are to drag its politics back from the cliff’s edge.

There is a Catch 22 in this worthy, yet idealistic aspiration that in my mind shatters hope for Canada's future. What’s clear is that everyone is frustrated with the government -- the truckers, the people who oppose the truckers, the people concerned about using the emergency act...and those with contrasting views on how the COVID pandemic should have been handled in general as it spread rapidly and assuredly across Canada these past two years.

It is a worn out cliche, but increasingly these days as public frustration mounts, governments are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Sadly, the majority of us have become people of little faith and it does not auger well. Total agreement on anything is an unrealistic expectation and civil unrest is here to stay.

Get used to it my friends! Whenever you can, walk on the sunny side...Hug those close to you -- once COVID restrictions are lifted.

WHAT STORY DO WE WE TELL WITH OUR LIVES

"No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit."

It has been said, "There are no little things." Often, things we regard as "little" may be of greater value than things we regard as "big."

Could the cup of water exist without the drop of water? Could an hour exist without thirty-six hundred seconds? And as we read in the Gospels, wondrous things can result from sharing even the tiniest crust of bread or the smallest sip of water.

A kind word in a time of need; a caring smile in a time of stress; a bit of encouragement in a time of frustration; a spark of hope in a time of despair; a gesture of understanding in a time of confusion -- summed in this line from a beautiful poem: "In a moment these better things are gone -- but there are a hundred ripples circling on and on."

We can't judge which good and well-intentioned deeds, large or small, are genuinely worthwhile. It is not for us to judge which actions, large or small, are of enduring value. Hence the introduction line to this post: "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit" (Luke 6:43).

There is an old Jewish parable about a traveler who comes upon an older man planting a carob tree. "When will the tree bear fruit?" the traveler asks. "Perhaps in 70 years," the old man replies. "Do you expect to eat of the fruit of that tree?" the traveler asks. "No," the man replies, "but I didn't find the world desolate when I came unto it, and as my fathers planted (it) for me before I was born, so do I plant for those who come after me."

That parable proclaims the Good News that, as far as God is concerned, a simple act of selfless service is worth more than all the pious prayers or showy gestures of praise in the world. God is interested only in the story we are telling with our lives.

I often wonder what kind of a read my story will result in, not that there is much I can do about it now.

All I can say is Lord, have mercy on me a sinner!

A TIME FOR REFLECTION AND MEDITATION

 A video prepared for my Wrights Lane friends and any visitors who may just happen to drop in at any time.

WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR...

 

Okay folks, I promised!

Just wanted to share one of my favorite songs and invite you to sing along with this video. When ready, just click on the above ☝ prompt. I even printed out the words to 'When You Wish Upon a Star' for you to follow. Here they are!

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you.


If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you with upon a star
Like dreamers do.

(Pause for refrain)


Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and pulls you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dream comes true.

P.S. You might want to initially watch the video through on enlarged screen and then revert to the small screen for singing the words a second time. That is...if you feel like it by then.

IF YOU'RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT...

 Hi folks! Join me in a happy exercise. Just clap your hands, stomp your feet, shout "hur-ray"...and sing along with me. *Enlarge the view if you dare.

IT WOULD BE A BETTER WORLD IF WE LISTENED MORE

Listen folks, I have devoted considerable space on Wrights Lane recently to heralding love and its true meaning. I am reminded, however, that there is an aspect of love that has been overlooked.

A woman recalls the following frustrating experience. After dinner, her husband set out on his usual thirty-minute walk. After an hour, she began to worry since it was getting dark, and her husband had forgotten to bring his phone. Two long hours passed before he finally returned. "Sorry I'm so late," he said, "but I stopped to talk to a neighbor, and he just wouldn't stop listening."

Those of us who identify with Christianity learn an extraordinary kind of love, which among other things, is a "listening" love. It's not the kind of love that says, "How can I use you for me, or how can I use you to make me happy, or how can I use you to exalt me?" It is the love that asks, "How can I give you my attention so that you can be fulfilled?"

The famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, designed some unusual buildings. On a university campus in Florida stands a library designed by Wright with an extremely low ceiling, so low that if you are six feet tall and not careful, you keep bumping your head. A man who was having this trouble asked why it was that Frank Lloyd Wright, who himself was short in stature, had designed such a building. And the answer was, "This is a characteristic of his architecture because he had a bias against tall people." How sad this is. In a manner of speaking, don't we often try to cut others down to our size. Ideally, we make them fit into our mould.

We express this attitude by using others (husbands, wives, children and friends) to shape them into what we think they ought to be. But it is contrary to the attitude which biblical scriptures call forth -- the love that is for the other, the love that affirms the life of the other, the love that rejoices in the differences of others. 

We talk too much -- all of us. Even when we're not talking, we're not listening.

A skill, according the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, is a learned power of doing something competently: a developed aptitude or ability. The skill of listening is a skill that I believe everyone should have but most people lack. 

Many people do not realize that listening is not merely the act of hearing a sound but of paying close attention to what someone is saying and trying to understand the message that they are attempting to relate. Most times people say they are listening when in all actuality they are merely hearing, but not even attempting to understand what is being spoken of. Worse still, is the individual that listens with just one ear while busily conjuring up what clever thing they are going to say next.

The reason I believe that listening is of such importance is because nowadays people have developed the mentality of “every man for himself.” People are not concerned about others anymore. We are only concerned about our own issues and problems. 

People should be taught from childhood the importance of learning how to listen. If we realized how much we would benefit from being good listeners -- respectful and sensitive -- I believe that a lot of things would change. Lack of listening skills affects marriages, parents and children, teachers and students, employers and employees, foreign affairs, and the list goes on. 

Have you listened to what I'm trying to say?

INTERPRETING THE SONG OF SONGS' BEGINNING

I started this post about "The Song of Songs" late in the afternoon of Valentine's Day because of its emphasis on love, but soon determined that I would never finish it before the day was over. It is simply not something to be dashed off on a whim, or without due backgrounding and consideration.

The Song of Songs, more correctly called the Song of Solomon, is one of two books in the Bible that do not mention God. The other is the Book of Esther. King Solomon is generally acknowledged as the author.

Written approximately 940-960 B.C., it is today believed to be intended for married couples and singles contemplating marriage. Not too surprisingly, it is rarely used as fodder for church sermons primarily, I suppose, because it is a stretch to consider it the word of God.

In short, the plot is about the courtship and marriage of a maiden referred to as the Shulammite and takes place in ancient Israel, in the woman's garden of the king's palace. Some interpreters think this young woman may have been Abishag, who nursed King David in the last days of his life. Although she slept with David to keep him warm, she remained a virgin. After David's death, his son Adonijah wanted Abishag for his wife, which would have implied he had a claim to be king. Solomon, the true heir to the throne, had Adonijah killed and took Abishag for himself.

Early in his reign, King Solomon found love a thrilling experience, as reflected in this piece of work. Later, however, he ruined the mystique by taking hundreds of wives and concubines. His despair is a central theme of the Book of Ecclesiastes.

The Song of Songs is a sensuous expression of spiritual and sexual love between a future husband and wife. While some of its metaphors and descriptions may seem odd to us today, in ancient times they were considered elegant.

Because of the passionate allusions, ancient interpreters insisted it contained a deeper, symbolic meaning, such as God's love for Old Testament Israel or Christ's love for the church. It is true the reader can find verses in Song of Songs to support those ideas, but modern Bible scholars say the book has a simpler, practical application -- how a husband and wife should react to each other.

Now there are some people who consider the Song of Solomon no more than just an erotic, oriental love song and feel that it has no place in the scriptures. But others have found tremendous inspiration in the Song of Solomon by seeing it as a spiritual allegory.

The basic interpretation of the Song of Solomon is that this is a young Shulamite girl that Solomon has fallen deeply in love with. And he addresses himself to her declaring his love, embellishing her beauty and prompting the object of his affections to respond rather coyly to him. 

Actually, again, it's a song so you see it in a dramatic kind of opera setting. You have Solomon standing there singing in his rich baritone voice of his love for his intended bride. And she with her high soprano answering him by singing, "Come, my beloved into my garden and drink. Taste of its fruits." And then you have the women's chorus interjecting, "Tell us of thy beloved. Where is he grazing his flocks at this time?" 

There is another basic interpretation of the Song of Solomon in the Amplified Bible. And that is, that here is the same beautiful young Shulamite girl that Solomon has fallen madly in love with and he is seeking to make her a part of his harem which was second to none. He seeks by his wealth, by his grandeur, by all of the gifts and wealth to woo and seduce her to become a part of his vast harem. She is brought in with the other virgins and she is telling them that she has a true love, a shepherd. And she doesn't really respond to Solomon's love because her heart is with another, her shepherd lover who she longs for, who she seeks after.

In the spiritual allegories to this other way of looking at it, Solomon represents the world and the Shulamite woman, the Christian, whom the world is seeking to lure away from her love for her Shepherd, Jesus Christ. And she has this deep fervent commitment to her "shepherd" and cannot be enticed by all of the wealth, glory and grandeur of Solomon.

The basic problem of spiritualizing the text and seeing it in an allegorical sense, is because as you go through the book, either interpretation fits. But surely they are diametrically opposed as far as an interpretation goes. Either Solomon is the one she loves and they are expressing their love for each other, or she is sort of rejecting the love of Solomon because of her true love for her shepherd lover.

If you want my opinion, I do not see anything of a spiritual nature in any of Solomon's work and certainly nothing inspirational for aspiring newlyweds. At best, King Solomon was a rather kinky creative writer ahead of his time. He would have played well in Playboy Magazine today.

So anyway, ta da, here is a peek at what we have been reviewing! The Song of Songs begins with the first vocalist who is the aforementioned young Shulamite girl, or bridesmaid.

"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Because of the savor of your good ointments [or your perfume] thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. Draw me, we will run after thee: the King hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee." (Solomon 1:2-4)

Now speaking of herself, she adds, "I am black, yet beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, and as the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me, because I am black." (Solomon 1:5-6)

This does not mean that she was an Ethiopian, but she explains, "Because the sun hath looked upon me, my mother's children [my step brothers, actually] were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard (or complexion) I have not kept." (Solomon 1:6)

"Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where you make your flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?" (Solomon 1:7)

The opening declaration is really a Cinderella kind of scenario. The wicked sisters made the young woman do all of the work and she wasn't able to keep up her own appearance.

Now the king responds to her. "If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents. I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots. Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold. We will make thee borders." (Solomon 1:8-11)

The daughters of Jerusalem, the virginal chorus, responds: "We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver." (Solomon 1:11)

And the maiden responds: "While the King sits at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof. A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts. My beloved is to me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi." (Solomon 1:12-14)

Imagine here the camphire trees or cypress trees, and just that beautiful smell of the out-of-doors and trees in blossom there in Engedi.

"Behold, thou art fair, [the king answers] my love; behold, thou art fair; you have doves' eyes." (Solomon 1:15)

She replies: "Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant; also our bed is green. The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir." (Solomon 1:16-1).

So there you have the opening of this ancient love drama, the Song of Songs of Solomon. There are seven additional chapters or scenes in The Song and the language gets even juicier i.e. concluding Chapter 8 begins: 1)"O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. 2) I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate."

If you still have the stomach for it, you can read more by turning to The Song of Solomon in the Old Testament of your family Bible.

This, brought to you belatedly the day after Valentine's Day.

LOYALTY TO GOD IS THE TRUE REQUIREMENT

I don't know about you my friend, but I have always had difficulty understanding the extent of the love we are told we should have for our God of the Universe. It wasn't until I started looking a little deeper into the original Hebrew texts of the Bible that I got a better understanding of what it meant to love God.

Deuteronomy 6:5 states, “You shall love (אהבת; ahavta) the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your life and with all your strength”. But what does it mean to “love” God according to ancient Israelite thought? For the biblical authors, love was not just an intense form of “liking” or some kind of “warm feeling” for another that my mind kept going to for so long; rather, the most common Hebrew word for “love” (אהבה; ahavah) expresses loyalty.

To understand love as “loyalty” in Deut 6:5, we need to read the verse in the context of what comes right before it: the Shema. Most English translations of Deut 6:4 read, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one (אחד; echad).” While the Hebrew אחד can mean “one”—as in, “and there was evening, and there was morning: day one (אחד)” (Gen 1:5) -- echad can also mean “alone.” Here’s a stronger translation of Deut 6:4: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” That is, in plain English, the Lord is our God, and we the people must “not go after (solicit or worship) other gods” (Deut 6:14); we must “love,” or be “loyal” to, the Lord our one true God and saviour alone. *(You will undoubtedly need to read this paragraph several more times in order to fully grasp the "one" God emphasis.)

The loyalty we have for the Heavenly God -- to the exclusion of all other gods -- extends to our fellow human beings, particularly those who are less familiar to us. Leviticus uses the exact same word for our “loyalty” to God in the command to love the stranger: “You shall treat the stranger who dwells with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself”.

When it comes to the heavenly realm, we are to be loyal to God alone, but here on earth, God commands us to pledge that same loyalty to those around us.

I can now wrap my simple mind around that.

To my way of thinking, loyalty cannot and should not be compared to love. Loyalty is consistent, reliable, and faithful. On the other hand love, while sublimely intense in the flesh and under ideal conditions, is short-lived and limited. 

Love is not guaranteed, and not everyone can experience love, but everyone can give and/or experience the loyalty of which we speak, no matter who it is.

PRAY TELL: WHAT DID THIS LUCKY GUY ASK FOR TO WIN THE SAME LOTTERY TWO SEPARATE TIMES?

I have been feeling a bit melancholy the last few days, not the greatest mood with which to strive for creative thought; or anything else for that matter. That, I believe, is the downside for one who is prone to nostalgia and sentimentality in many of the nuggets of inspiration he strives to pass on through Wrights Lane.

Nevertheless, as is so often the case, I ran across an unusual story that helped get my mind off my rather sad, pathetic self. Perhaps an answer to a silent prayer in passing...?

Apparently a man won the New York State Lottery not once but twice. The odds against winning the lottery even one time, of course, are millions to one; but twice is close to statistically impossible.

Asked by news reporters what he attributed to such an impossible two-time windfall, the man said the answer was simple: He prayed.

My first thought upon reading this was how, exactly, this unbelievably fortunate guy phrased his prayers the second time he won the lottery. i.e. "Dear God, I know I won a few million recently, and thanks, but I really need to win this next one too."?

You might well counter that a lot of people pray to win lotteries, but that not everyone who prays wins.

The question is...HOW are they praying? What are they doing when it DOES work? Do prayers of that kind really work?

A group in Scotland did studies on the effects of prayer on rye seeds. Seeds placed in a petri dish were prayed for to grow better. The dish of seeds was divided down the middle. One side was prayed for and the other side was not.

The seeds prayed for grew better than the control group. In fact, saline (salt water) was added to the soil, making growth even more of a challenge. The difference between the two groups was dramatic. 

What is exciting about this experiment is that it is completely replicable!

Test it yourself. If you really don't want to experiment with rye seeds (or bacteria, as some researchers have), then experiment with people of your acquaintance by praying that they have some wonderful thing happen to them...and then notice what happens.

Researchers also found that among those who prayed for enhanced growth of seeds, the results of people who had more experience praying was greater than with people who were less experienced. Go figure!

This is important to notice because it means the more you pray the better results you are likely to get!

Also consider, and I'm happy to report, that the people perhaps MOST experienced in saying prayers balked at participating in the research, objecting to "putting God in a laboratory" and therefore were not included in the studies.

To sum up, be careful what you selfishly pray for...you just might get it.

But chances are that you will be nothing but ridiculously lucky!

Sometimes there are no real answers to things that happen in life.

POST SCRIPT: Just FYI, after Bruce Magistro hit the jackpot the first time in 2012, his wife, Yvonne, lost a three-year battle with cancer. Much of the prize money went to pay for her medical bills.

"She passed away two years ago today," Magistro's son Nick Mayers said on the anniversary of his father's big win. He said he was sure the second jackpot was his mother's way of sending help back to the family. "This is definitely a gift, from her to him," Mayers said.

Magistro played the lottery every day. This time he plunked down $20 at Mike's Super Citgo in West Babylon for a set of the Win for Life scratch-offs. He won $1 million on a different lottery scratch-off game he played at the same gas station in 2012. The second win came the first time he had played the Win for Life game, which will pay him $1,000 each week -- with a minimum of $1 million -- for the rest of his life.

Lottery representative Yolanda Vega, who had presented Magistro with a ceremonial check for his first win, said even then she felt he could win a second time. "He was so positive and outgoing that I knew he'd win again," she said. "There was something about Bruce that I felt. There was this energy coming from his core."

State gaming officials said the odds Magistro beat to get the Win for Life grand prize were 1 in 7,745,600, and they were 1 in 2,520,000 when he won the Extreme Cash scratch-off in 2012.