Ode to Joy

Now is where I ask what do we do to bring it on home? For me we just need to embrace Joy.

Here’s Beethoven’s Ode to Joy played on the Hammered Dulcimer by YouTube’s dulcimermonk.

Just listen or reflect on the lyrics.

Joyful, joyful
We adore Thee
God of glory
Lord of love
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee
Hail Thee to the sun above
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness
Drive the dark of doubt away
Giver of immortal gladness
Fill us with the light of day

With light
With light

Mortals join the mighty chorus
Which the morning stars began
Father love is reigning o’er us
Brother love binds man to man
Ever singing march we onward
Victors in the midst of strife
Joyful music lifts us Son ward
In the triumph song of life

Can we embrace it, return it to him and watch it grow? Pay it forward, bring joy to someone, not just happiness. Can you protect someone? Can you help make them stronger?

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Today I recount a personal joy and from what I’m learning about joy it is definitely an experience that relates having a faithful relationship with Jesus and knowing that we are not alone. We are given joy and can find it when we need it.

Fruit of the Spirit Joy Podcast
…and if you’d like to read along I’m reading Psalm 30 from the New King James Version of the bible.

Have you found joy in similar circumstances, as a profound gift from Jesus that is inexplicable? Is it always there and we just need to accept it as the gift from the Holy Spirit or is it something we have to seek?

To families and soldiers, to the past, present and future…

In reflection on Memorial Day, we should remember for more than just a day. While it was instituted for us to remember those who made a great sacrifice to this nation and its people we should note that it is much more than that.

From An Army Wife’s Life we read:

And this day is also about their families–who carry the weight of that sacrifice.

This day is about those who have passed, but it is also about our living veterans.

And these are the days. So, let’s move forward and remember the sacrifices that our soldiers and their families continue to make.

This weekend we will be celebrating and honoring our veterans and fallen heroes in church. We sing Christian songs and invite veterans in our community to stand up for recognition. We may even go to a local parade. Some other ideas to observe Memorial Day include the following:

- Visit cemeteries and place flags or flowers on the graves of our fallen heroes.

- Visit memorials.

- Fly the U.S. Flag at half-staff until noon.

- Fly the ‘POW/MIA Flag’ as well.

- Participate in the “National Moment of Remembrance” at 3 p.m. to pause and think upon the true meaning of the day, and for Taps to be played.

- Renew a pledge to aid the widows, widowers, and orphans of our fallen dead, and to aid the disabled veterans.

“…gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime….let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us as sacred charges upon the Nation’s gratitude,–the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.” –General John Logan, General Order No. 11, 5 May 1868

For further reflection, here is a Memorial Day tribute called American Medley from GodTube.com.

For additional ideas visit Military Moms. She recounts a few of her Memorial Day holidays including:

We’ve also visited the Florence American Military Cemetery in Italy; my great-uncle is buried there, and we took flowers to leave on his grave for Memorial Day in 2004.

Have you made plans for Memorial Day related to honoring relatives or our current military? What ways do you think you support the military during this holiday set aside for our heroes?

While this Christian book may be hard to find I wanted to share the snippet I pulled from it when I wrote this Christian book review for my church newsletter. As we reflect on the fruit of the Spirit and love, loving God, loving ourselves and loving our neighbors I thought this story might hit home. So, with help from our esteemed librarian Evelyn, I borrowed this book which at first look reminded me of Lake Wobegon.

The East Burlap Parables by Richard N. Rinker, a collection of 74 “parables”, is humorous. However if we find ourselves open to the humor hopefully we too will find ourselves open to the issues behind the satire.

East Burlap, an imaginary church Rinker wrote about in 1969 (some of the parables are timely), has something for everyone but I should also say that everything in The East Burlap Parables is not for everyone. Rinker who is a Minister, chooses satire not to amuse as much as to send a message about problems he sees in the church. Along with his parables divided into five sections, he closes out each section with commentary on problems in the church and attitudes of its members. This is a Christian book that is perfect for Adult Sunday School.

An excerpt from The East Burlap Parables:

Number Three

As they were bound to do sooner or later, the national office of The Denomination has come out with a system for calculating the final destinations of individual Christians.

Based on computerized analysis, E.D.E.N. (Eventual Destination–Extrapolationally Nuanced) uses punched cards for church members. Every person at our East Burlap Church received a computer card to punch for every other person in the local church there. On each card the individual replies to the question “Do you think he/she will end up in heaven or hell?”

(1) Heaven
(2) Hell
(3) Don’t really know him/her
well enough to say

When all cards are in for a particular church, they are fed to a computer for tabulation.

Contrary to common supposition, the E.D. for a person is not arrived at by totaling replies about him/her from all others in his/her church. The “heaven” and “hell” replies are insignificant in the final results.

Each person, in replying about all other persons in his/her church, actually establishes his/her own E.D. on this basis of how many times he/she has punched number three on his/her cards. If you can find it anywhere.… CHECK IT OUT!

So how many 3′s do you think you have given out? Do you think that living in the Spirit could help you apply more 1′s in your life, maybe change some 2′s to 1′s if God gives you the chance?

Love, He said the greatest of these is love. In my reflection it does seem that without love it is hard to accomplish any of the fruit of the Spirit.

Love is crucial to carrying out the remainder of the fruit of the Spirit. Isn’t it easier to forgive someone when we love them? We find ourselves more patient with those we love, in particular our spouses, children and our elderly relatives. Take any other fruit of the Spirit and add love to it and see how it changes the expectations of your actions.

To me, love doubles joy and peace and when someone who loves me follows through on acts of kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control in seems more genuine when done in with a loving heart.

While it is hard work we should strive to nurture the fruit of the Spirit. Utilizing this gift helps us to grow and deepens our relationship with God. The starting foundation is love, genuine and generous. Love cannot be ignored, when it is apparent, it cannot be denied.

So, after loving God and loving ourselves, we love our neighbors. Not the ones that we like alone, but even the difficult ones that challenge us. Maybe they’ve never known love, maybe our turning of the cheek would be the first act of kindness, goodness or gentleness they have ever known.

How would that make you feel to make a different that like in someone’s life? Like offering food to a homeless man, you could be offering love to a neglected heart. You could even be bringing someone to God’s house.

I know that when I’ve felt down sometimes, love has come from the most unexpected of places. And on a daily basis the love the unconditionally flows from my family and friends is an incredible gift to me, strengthening me to carry on even when times are difficult.

How do you expect to be treated by those who “love” you? Do you think the love you share with others projects a Christian life and enhances the gift the Holy Spirit has given you?

What have I learned about Pentecost and how will I incorporate it into my life? I’ve been reminded of the fruit of the Spirit. I need to reflect the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control that is the Holy Spirit. I need to remember the warning in Galatians 5:23 to not grieve the Spirit.

I hope we can reflect together on all that is the Holy Spirit. With God’s guidance and reading scripture we should be able to gather all we need to bring the Spirit into our lives and be better stewards of God’s love.

That is probably the most important lesson here. God gave us the Holy Spirit. It is a divine gift and it is ours. We can keep it by recognizing and developing the fruit of the Spirit. How simple is that? Is it as easy as remembering a bible verse? Can we remember to nurture love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control in our lives? Can we teach our children to do the same?

I hope so. I want and need all the goodness that is part of that promise so I will focus on Galatians 5:16-26 that calls us to live by the Spirit.

Galatians 5:16-26

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

How will you incorporate the Holy Spirit into your life?

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
Psalm 19:1-2 (NIV)

“Deep sky is, of all visual impressions, the nearest akin to a feeling.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notebooks – selected from The Hand of God.

Who has not looked up at the sky in wonder? Amazement at God’s creation of the heavens and earth touches us all. Even scientists who take a great deal of time to study the why’s and how’s of science pause in this wonder and amazement.

The Hand of God, Thoughts and Images Reflecting the Spirit of the Universe is a delightful book of the Hubble Space Telescope’s Deep Field pictures interspersed with thoughts and reflections on this aspect of God’s creation. It is edited by Michael Reagan with an Introductory Essay by Sharon Begley.

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST), built at a cost of about 1.5 billion dollars and launched into space in 1990, is currently the most powerful optical telscope in the world. Initially Hubble was near-sighted due to some optical calculation errors and corrections were made in 1993 to repair the Telescope and send back images that man has longed to see for years.

As an astronomy entusiast I had to check this book out. To see close-ups of stars and planets, images of God’s design, things I could only see as specks of light at limited magnitudes with the naked eye, is a pleasure. The telescopes hobbiests use don’t compare to the big HST in the sky.

This book is for everyone. Children especially will love this book, it is probably as cool as a trip to the zoo. However, it is hard to keep their awe contained. I checked this book out of our church library before a service. My oldest was quite intent on finding Jupiter before the children’s sermon that day. She’s trying to find out the reason Mom wanders around at night looking to the heavens.

This book reminds me of the awesome power of God and the gifts he bestows upon us. At Pentecost as we are reminded of the gift of the Holy Spirit, who cannot look to the heavens and be inspired by it all?

Whether you have a fancy for the night skies or not, when skies are cloudy and you need a sky fix, this book is a view of another garden of God’s creation.… CHECK IT OUT!

As a child of God, we know that we serve a purpose and have a role to play in furthering God’s Kingdom. Whether we are the hands, feet, eyes or ears of God, our role is important. As women, we also need to note that our role may not be as traditional as we may think. In Acts 2:1-21 when Peter stands and addresses the crowd after Pentecost he quotes from the book of Joel and addresses both men and women. We have all been called to serve.

Today’s podcast is Acts 2:1-21. I hope I am as proficient in the pronunciations as my pastor, if not, read along at BibleGateway.com.

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost

Pentecost means “the fiftieth” in Greek and it represents the fiftieth day after Easter. It was fifty days after Christ’s resurrection that Jesus visited the Apostles. At this time the Holy Ghost descended upon them. Pentecost also represented the Jewish festival, “feast of weeks” where the Jews would bring the first fruits of their harvest to God, Shavuot.

In England it is called Whitsunday for the white robes worn to signify the baptism in the Holy Spirit. There are also symbols associated with Pentecost to reveal, the color red to symbolize speaking in tongues and the power of the Holy Spirit. Doves are a symbol representing the visit of the Holy Spirit as in Jesus’ baptism. Wind is another, commonly associated with the sound of the arrival of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles.

The Holy Spirit is its own entity. Scripture from the old and new testament help us to identify the Spirit as separate from God and Jesus yet all three one in the same. The Holy Spirit is a personality that we must understand and know to do God’s will.

In Ephesians 4:30-32 the bible says:

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

Paul is asking us to not shut out the Holy Spirit. To live and work with the Holy Spirit we are asked to not grieve the Holy Spirit and to do what Jesus would do, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

It makes me think of taking care of a plant. Remember how it was all the rage to talk to your plants, they would get good vibes and fair better than plants we ignored or were angry with? Well it seems that the Holy Spirit can be nurtured by how we live a Christian life and in the same; it will lead us to live an even better Christian life. We only get out of something what we put into it. If we are kind and show the Spirit our desire to lead the Christian life, it is as if we put water on a plant to grow and it gives something back and bears us fruit. So it is with the Holy Spirit.

For some more on the history and traditions of Pentecost see New Advent where you can read about Whitsunday. This article shares how Pentecost is celebrated in various churches in the east.

Also see the Lighting to Unite celebration at the Washington National Cathedral from May 9 – 11, 2008.