Five Memories

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Thinking back over the school year, sorting through goals, piling themes around in my mind, weaving a few related ones together, a conversation with my piano teacher surfaces more than once, perhaps in more mental stacks than she imagined it would.

One stack, the obvious one, is what I call the "How in the world am I going to do this graduate school thing, recital and all, for another year?" pile. The other, the one even closer to my heart of hearts, is what I call the "How in the world am I going to get this whole book of the Bible stay in my mind for a lifetime?" pile. And somehow, her words ring true not just for school, but also for life.

When it comes to the music (the hour of it I've begun to learn in preparation for my graduate recital), I struggle to stay focused, play the details I know are there without getting distracted by other thoughts.

When it comes to the words (the Revelation, and now parts of Daniel, that I've quietly been tucking away inside myself for several years now), I struggle to review enough, keep them fresh, feel like they're ingrained to the point that I could honestly look you in the eye and tell you I've memorized a book of the Bible and be able to recite all its sentences and paragraphs to you at the drop of a hat.

How do I make a memory? One that really stays? One that I can communicate effectively and accurately to others around me when I need to or want to?

She gives me words, ideas about making memories. I write them down, feeling that I might otherwise forget them.

There are five kinds, she says. Five memories to build.

Most of the time, unless we force ourselves to exercise more of them, we might build two or three memories at most. She's right, I decide, because the more I think about what she says, I believe I use only two, and I figure out how those two without the others set me up for some of the fumbles I make in the recital hall.

These are they:

1. Visual: what the music looks like in the score (on the page). Or, in memorizing Scripture, this would be what the words look like in my Bible.


2. Visual: what the notes look like on the keyboard as I play them. Or, in memorizing Scripture, this might be the mental picture of what the words are describing.


3. Aural: what the music sounds like. Or, what the words sound like aloud.


4. Muscular: what the music feels like in my hands as I play it. Or, what the words feel like in my mouth as I speak them. (I know that might seem strange, but if you've ever sung formally, like in a choir, you generally begin to recognize not just how something sounds when it sounds good, but how it feels in your mouth and vocal chords when you sing it.)


5. Theoretical: how the music (individual notes, chords, phrases, etc.) functions as it moves from one section to the next. Or, how the words string together to form phrases, sentences, verses, paragraphs, chapters, books...

Point being this: whether I'm working toward playing a recital or putting memory verses away for the long term, have I gone through the passage thinking specifically about sound? Is my visual memory built only on what the notes look like as my hands play them, or could I also "see" what they look like on the page and play them from memory as if I'm actually reading them from the score?

If I could turn one piano piece, or one verse of the Bible, into five different memories in my mind, wouldn't I increase my chances of reproducing it accurately? Even if I'm tired? Even if something in the moment distracts me?

It would cost me, to be sure--time, energy, mental exploration. But somehow it strikes me that the potential payoff would be well worth the effort.

Bring what you have {not what you don't have} to Jesus

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Maybe the whole crowd--the thousands gathered at Christ's feet--could see the waters of Galilee from their mountain perch. Drawn more to Him than to the water, more to Him than to lunch, more to Him than to supper, and as that mealtime approaches again on the third day, He knows when their hearts have had enough to digest for the present.


The Master of all trades, He calls the disciples to Himself, and turns from spoken food to thoughts of another kind of meal: The crowds don't have anything to eat. I have compassion on them. They are hungry. I can't send them away without food.


At this moment, the disciples get very realistic, logical, economical, reasonable. They don't have enough bread to feed a crowd of four thousand men, let alone all the women and children also in their midst.


Instead of asking whether they trust Him, whether they think He can do another miracle after everything they've already seen Him do, or where their faith is (although sometimes He asks that, too), Jesus responds with a basic, concrete question.


How many loaves do you have?





Seven. The answer, small, tiny, hardly significant, yet beautiful like a little wildflower, is also concrete.


You and I have heard this story a million times. I don't even need to tell you what happens next--how everyone gets their fill and there are leftovers.


But this time as I read, I noticed something. Maybe even the solution to my constant sense of inadequacy, the intense feeling that what I have to offer the world, my neighbor, my classmate, my friend, my husband, my God, is never going to be enough.


They bring the loaves--all seven of them--to Jesus. They bring the fishes--the few little ones--to Jesus.


I can't think of a way to shout this to you across the screen loudly enough. They don't take the little bits of food to the multitude, expecting any miracle. They work for Jesus, and they report directly to Him, bringing Him everything they have. They don't go looking for anything they don't have.


He asks what they have, and they bring it to Him. All of it. Not one disciple keeps back one of the little fish to snack on later if something doesn't work out. Everything goes into Jesus' {very capable} hands.

No one gets fed that day because of anything the disciples have or do. They get fed because Jesus blesses the food and multiplies it. It's simple food, but everyone has enough.


Did you ever wonder why He, who would have know how to make just exactly enough with no more and no less, made so many leftovers? From seven small loaves of bread to seven baskets full of them. And where did they find all the baskets?


I'll be honest. That boggles my mind. Such abundance, such bounty, from something that seemed like such nothingness.


Or did you ever wonder if you had anything of value to offer those around you? Whether your grasp of the gospel was enough to feed your hungering neighbor? Whether your energy was enough to give a bit of extra attention to the {husband, child, friend} who needs your {ears, helping hand, time, love}? Whether you ought to bother offer yourself, when you think others have more to give?

I wonder some of these things every day. And some days, I wonder all of them at once.


But today, thinking of how Jesus fed the multitude, I wonder if I should stop wondering these things. Maybe today I shouldn't offer scraps to everyone around me, or worry about everything I don't have to offer them.


Maybe I should use the energy and focus to gather up the scraps and bits and pieces, bringing them all to Jesus. And after He blesses and multipies them, handing them out to the crowds who really come to His feet and not mine anyway, maybe my biggest and most pressing wonder will be what He wants me to do with the baskets and baskets of leftovers there are at the end of the meal.

Shedding Abroad

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Of late, I have been thinking of where love comes from--the kind of love that I am supposed to have in the humility of Christ for souls, for people.

I'm not thinking of the people I naturally connect with, form deep bonds with right from the start, who bless me just by being in the room. No, not those. I'm thinking of the ones Jesus had to tell me to love. The ones who, sometimes or all the time, feel like my enemies, or worse yet, God's enemies.

Meanwhile, I keep chipping away at my long-term memory projects (I hope to post more about these soon), in this case the book of Daniel, one verse at a time. I come to chapter four, where king Nebuchadnezzar has another disturbing dream. He calls all the sorcerers in his kingdom, seeking some kind of interpretation for the dream.

None of them can help.

Just like last time, I think to myself. Why doesn't he call Daniel first, since at least this time he knows Daniel's God was the only one who could interpret the dream last time? Why does he fall so easily back to these vain babblers? He has had all the evidence a person could ask for--even seeing God rescue His followers from a fiery furnace--and yet he STILL goes back to the false gods for counsel? This man makes no sense.

Soon, of course, the king does call for Daniel, in this moment the king's one connection with the Most High. The last resort.

The thought strikes. How many times do I make the true God my last resort instead of my first one?

Daniel hears the dream. It's the huge tree, the strong tree, the tree that bears a lot of fruit and provides shelter for all the beasts and birds, the tree that is so tall it reaches to heaven and can be seen through the whole earth. Yet a God larger than the tree, the God of heaven, decrees that the tree should be cut down, and that Nebuchadnezzar (symbolized by this tree) would be like a wild beast for seven years, with no human capacity to reason.

And Daniel is the one who gets to tell the king this crazy, disparaging news. He pauses. The verse (Daniel 4:19) is long, and I have to take it in small sections to get it into my mind, into my memory.

"Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was astonied for one hour, and his thoughts troubled him. The king spake, and said, Let not the dream, or the interpretation thereof trouble thee. Belteshazzar answered and said, My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies."

At this slow-motion pace, the words sink in deeply, and I catch a glimpse of the astonished Daniel that in turn astonishes me.

Maybe it's the hour that it takes for Daniel to speak. Maybe it's the king's plea for him to speak combined with his attempt to assure Daniel that he is brave to hear the interpretation no matter how bad it is. Because I am sure he knows it's going to be bad.

Whatever it is, when Daniel wishes the dream on the king's enemies, I see it: the astounding love of Christ for an enemy. Who has more reason to hate the king than Daniel and his people, who have been torn from their homeland, who have seen the king destroy many of their people as well as the house of the true God?

Sure. I know this king has given Daniel position and honor and education. But Daniel still has every reason to be the one who hates this king. Does he realize that when he wishes, at least figuratively, this dream on those that hate the king, he could easily have been, except for this strange and godly love and forgiveness in his heart, wishing this dream, the seven years of beasthood, on himself?

Yet I see him there. Unable to speak for an hour. More overcome with his grief and astonishment for the king's heart and mind than by the embarrassment of standing before the expectant king without saying anything, not even speaking immediately to prove that the Most High God is the only one who can interpret the dream He has given.

They both know that already anyway, and the king can only take so much of this loving silence. He reaches out to comfort the heart that is breaking for him, and just before diving into the strange and heavy glimpse into Nebuchadnezzar's future, he expresses this soul-love for one who has shunned repeated invitations of grace.

Jesus said to love these enemies, but how did this happen in Daniel's heart? How can this happen in my heart? Can this happen in my heart?

Well, we know the answer to the second question right away: "With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26)

I turn to Romans 5:5, studied with my Sabbath school class a few weeks ago, where I find the answer: "...the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."

This is how my heart gets love for souls. I cannot generate it. All I can do is see how empty my efforts are to obtain it and follow Christ's command, and ask by faith for the Holy Spirit, who is promised to me when I ask. And when He comes to my heart, one of the things He does there is give me Christ's love, filling my heart to overflowing.

This is righteousness by faith, new birth. This is the faith that lives and produces good fruit, good works, a deep love for even the enemies.

Mowing the Lawn

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The husband's research was long....and really high quality....and really time-consuming. And our poor grass got long, too....because wife didn't manage to make room in her schedule for that and didn't try very hard to make room, even though the rain and the sun gave the grass all the attention it could desire in two weeks' time.

I've mown plenty of lawn in my time, and somehow, having a husband these days, I basked in the knowing that he would do the chore as soon as all the citations were edited properly.

And now that he's tending the lawn, rejoicing in the research well done, the paper well written, he's reveling in the fresh air.

Since we have a small lawn, we opted for the small mower without motor, which means he hears the birds singing and the neighborhood children playing while he works. Relationships get caught up on, too--he manages phone calls to Grandma, Mom, Dad, leaving message for Twin. And receives calls from soon-to-be-missionary we get to visit with this weekend. (Yay!)

How he ever manages to call all those people in such a short time is beyond me--I would be talking for hours with each one. But his cup and theirs get filled, and I enjoy a quiet moment of writing before our moments together, walking by our river.

A Sign of Success

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Your husband has been outside editing his {30+ pages of} research paper and soaking up the sun while he works. You have been inside cooking and cleaning, preparing the home for Sabbath.


You know you're doing well with all your little jobs when he comes in and says, "I don't know how you can focus on anything else when that bread smells so good in here!"

Blooming

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"No one can give place in his own heart and life for the stream of God's blessing to flow to others, without receiving in himself a rich reward. The hillsides and plains that furnish a channel for the mountain streams to reach the sea suffer no loss thereby. That which they give is repaid a hundredfold. For the stream that goes singing on its way leaves behind its gift of verdure and fruitfulness. The grass on its banks is a fresher green, the trees have a richer verdure, the flowers are more abundant. When the earth lies bare and brown under the summer's parching heat, a line of verdure marks the river's course; and the plain that opened her bosom to bear the mountain's treasure to the sea is clothed with freshness and beauty, a witness to the recompense that God's grace imparts to all who give themselves as a channel for its outflow to the world."

White, Ellen. Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing. 81-82.

Family Worship

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Recently, my husband and I attended the last vespers of the school year--we could hardly believe how fast the time had flown! But that is beside the point, because they had indeed saved one of the best topics for last. A brother and sister, both students at our university and renting a small house together, shared their testimony about family worship, which went something like the following.

They had been busy, squeezing every bit of life into every day, but missing something. One particularly busy morning, seminary student brother bounced into speech pathology student sister's bedroom, where she was frantically studying for an exam.

"Let's have family worship!" he said.

"I don't have time!" she replied.

Both siblings showing a bit of their strong personalities, sister eventually gave in and they had family worship. In fact, that morning they began having family worship together twice, I believe, every day, just as they had done in childhood with their parents.

They started noticing something: a line from the reading would give them needed strength for a trial; a snippet from a hymn sung together that morning would encourage their tired steps; the Lord blessed each with greater efficiency in their regular studies and tasks throughout the day.

The principles and ideas? A set time in the morning and evening that works well for all the members of the family. A set length of time, ensuring a non-rushed morning. Variety. Prayer--for each family member. Singing. Bible reading, or reading from another trusted book. Brief discussion of things read.

They also encouraged family members to have their own private devotional times before the beginning of family worship, and to have family worship before anyone leaves the house for the day.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful things of the presentation was that at the end of a concise presentation, they pretended we were not in the room, and had a family worship so that we could all, in our mixed group of singles, couples, and parents with children, see how they did it. And they applied the principle to everyone, saying that no matter what your life circumstances, it's important to connect daily with others, encouraging and building each other up.

Our couple-family has always had morning prayer together, and a wonderful evening worship. Since this vespers, we have filled out our morning prayer to a morning worship, complete with singing. What a blessing it has already been to our lives, and how grateful we are to be learning and practicing these principles early in our lives and marriage.

(Note: Something else we like to do, as shown in the above photo, is to take a little pocket Bible along on hikes and walks, and at a pretty stopping place, pause to reflect on our Creator and His words for us.)

(If you would like more ideas for family worship, you might reference, as the brother/sister team mentioned above did, a little book called Child Guidance, by Ellen White.)