Straight Talk

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Margaret

In 1972, my brother-in-law taught me how to hang wallpaper. Before he started on our red and blue hounds-tooth paper, he made a plumb line using a metal tool shaped like a teardrop, inside of which was a coiled string sitting in powdered chalk. Bervin pulled out the string and dangled it from ceiling to floor, a small lead weight tied to its end. One quick snap of the chalky string made a perfectly straight start-line for our wallpaper.

Today in my Michigan cottage, Drew began laying floor tiles with a similar process. After measuring and studying the floor, he stretched and snapped his plumb line in three critically important lines.

First he found the exact center of the room by criss-crossing red chalk lines wall-to-wall in both directions, making four 90 degree angles. Then he snapped a perfect 45 degree angle across the other lines so his first row of tile would line up precisely straight.

Scripture references plumb lines in several places, and Jesus, if he was a carpenter, surely had one. Biblical plumb lines were usually synonymous with God’s Word, his standard of righteousness. (The word “righteous” actually means “upright”, very close to “straight up and down,” which is what “being plumb” means.)

In Old Testament days, God measured his people against the plumb line of his Word. He hasn’t changed since then, nor has the Bible. Come to think of it, human nature is the same, too. Righteousness is as unattainable for us now as it was for them. None of us can measure up.

In building our lives as we please, our plumb lines become wobbly and wouldn’t even be good for wallpapering a room or tiling a floor. And wobbly standards make for unstable lives. In the ‘60’s young people used to say, “If it feels good, do it.” That reasoning draws a wiggly plumb line, and taken to its farthest extreme, becomes Osama Bin Laden. This man’s plumb line was a self-created standard of right and wrong having nothing to do with our God’s unchangeable measurements of righteousness.

But God has kept the books on Bin Laden, just as he keeps the books on the rest of us. Although we see ourselves as better than this evil man, Scripture puts us all in the same category. “All… are under sin. As it is written, ‘None is righteous, no not one’.” (Romans 3:9-10)

Being righteous can’t be found in our opinion of what’s good or bad. The only chance we have is to accept the righteousness of the one person who did measure up to God’s plumb line: Jesus. He offered to share his righteousness with us by dying for our sins, an offer that stood for Bin Laden, too, though he rejected it in favor of his own shaky plumb line.

Thankfully, Jesus Christ will one day return to earth as our ruling monarch. When that happens, one snap of his plumb line and everything we’ve made crooked in this world will quickly be made straight.

“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line.” (Isaiah 28:16a,17)

The Upshot of Shots

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Margaret

When newborns come into the world, they arrive with a clean slate which usually includes freedom from disease. We parents immediately jump in to keep it that way by yo-yo-ing back and forth to the pediatrician until our children virtually hate their doctor. That’s because every appointment includes a vaccination.

All 7 of our kids had the same pediatrician, a wise, gentle man we grew to love as a personal friend. When the kids would ask, “Am I having a shot today?”

He’d say, “No. Just a vaccination.”

Splitting medical hairs didn’t do much to cheer them, but by kindergarten, 99% of all needle-visits were over. The upshot of all their shots was freedom from the painful diseases former generations had to experience.

It’s been many decades since I had a vaccination. Well, until last week. Although I’ve never had a flu shot, the upcoming illnesses of old age are just ahead, and new vaccinations can prevent some of them. One virus I’d like to avoid is shingles, a painful skin rash that can hang on for months.

Even though doctors are promoting the vaccine for folks over 60, it’s not 100% effective. But a vaccinated person who does gets shingles won’t suffer the same intensity of pain.

Mom had shingles the year before she died, and nothing could soothe the fiery nerve pain on her neck and scalp. Shingles can even travel into ears and eyes, causing permanent damage. So last week, I decided to roll up my sleeve along with other shingles vaccinationees and get jabbed.

Too bad there’s not an inoculation for sorrow and heartache. We could all bop through life wearing big grins, and worries would be a thing of the past. No more middle-of-the-night anxieties or games of what-if. Happy thoughts would dominate, and contentment would be much easier to find.

The only problem would be our numbness. Being protected from the negatives would mean being deadened to the positives, too. If we couldn’t feel sadness, how could we feel happiness? Each human emotion needs its counterbalance.

On the day Nate died, all of us suffered raw pain. But would we rather not have had him at all? No, because that would have eliminated thousands of joy-filled days.

Thinking of this dilemma in a biblical way, if we were able to opt out of sorrow, we’d miss God’s special promises to the brokenhearted. If we didn’t experience affliction, we’d miss his deliverance. If we didn’t suffer guilt over sin, we’d never know the relief of forgiveness.

Even Jesus wasn’t inoculated against sorrow. If he hadn’t willingly been crushed for us, we wouldn’t now have access to spiritual healing.

So, if a vaccination against heartache did exist, we probably shouldn’t get in line for it. Just think of the counter-balancing blessings we’d have to miss.

Jesus said, “You may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Liar, Liar (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Margaret

My Aunt Agnes, Dad’s sister, never had children but had a slew of nephews and nieces, and I was glad to be one of them. She spent Sundays with our family and came over every Thursday for dinner, bringing candy from Marshall Fields. She didn’t forget our dog Toby, either, arriving with bones or biscuits to make him happy. When she died in 1980, she divided her estate between several charities and her nieces and nephews, generous to the end.

One day when I was 11, Aunt Agnes asked if I’d like a sleepover at her condo on a Saturday night, just me. I jumped at the chance to stay in her immaculate home on the 8^th floor of her building, and we had a great time.

She enjoyed beautiful things, and on her glass-topped dresser was a hand mirror and matching hair brush given to her by her husband. Because they were married only five years before he died, these were precious to her. On Sunday morning I asked if I could use the brush, and she said, “Yes, but don’t put water on it.”

Without thinking I went to the bathroom mirror, and before I knew it, I’d swished her brush under the faucet to wet my ponytail. Right away I realized what I’d done but hoped Aunt Agnes wouldn’t notice. As I put the brush back, water was already pooling beneath its gold design.

But I never said a word.

My parents picked us up for church, and in the car Aunt Agnes turned and said, “Did you wet my brush this morning?”

Immediately I lied. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I didn’t do it! Someone else must have.”

She knew the truth, but she didn’t press further. I felt awful but was bonded to my lie. Aunt Agnes never mentioned it again.

For many weeks I suffered, knowing I should confess and fully intending to, but life swept me away with school, college, marriage and children. Time dimmed the weight of my guilt, and eventually I forgot about it.

That is, until the week Aunt Agnes died. We were in her apartment packing her things, and as I stood in front of her guest room dresser, there lay the mirror and brush, the brush still wavy with water damage. It triggered my memory of never having told her the truth. Mom invited us to keep something of hers that day, so I kept the dresser set.

Every time Aunt Agnes saw that brush, she must have thought about my lie. And because she loved me unconditionally, she probably wondered why I couldn’t trust her with the truth.

God probably feels the same way, disappointed when I lean into sin rather than choose honesty. In doing so, I ignore the fact that our relationship is grounded in unconditional love.

Besides, God will never punish truth-telling (even dreadful truth) like he punishes a lie.

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked… But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10)