Love this Earth: Five Actions for Any Time —Carolyn R. Wilker

Photo by James Woo, at Huron Natural Park

A recent Record article, Windblown recyclable litter aggravates Kitchener couple, shows garbage blown against a chain-link fence. The couple, frustrated over the garbage blown into their backyard, contacted the paper and suggested that the Blue Bin be redesigned so that it has a lid. They’re getting tired of cleaning up the mess from week to week.

I’ve seen strong gusts of wind dump a can set out for garbage day, sending its contents flying onto the street, and things blowing from the recycling box. Scavenging racoons might also dump garbage, looking for a  late-night snack.

But not everything is blown by the wind. There are also the pop cans and plastic food wrappers tossed aside as people walk. What’s more, some of that garbage floats into gutters and ends up in our streams. Not a pretty sight and ultimately hurtful to wildlife as well.

 When my parents took us on an outing, my mother always took along a bag for any garbage we might have. All refuse was disposed of once we got home. We learned quite young not to litter. My parents owned a farm, took pride in their land and taught us to honour it too. Maybe that’s why garbage tossed about bothers me so much. We are after all the stewards of the earth. If we do not take care of it, we destroy a priceless gift.

This past week, I noticed a sign about an annual Earth day event at our local natural reserve. My husband and I have been to the place. It’s a peaceful place to walk and a great place to learn more about our natural history.

Earth Day Network reminds us to pay attention to our earth and offers us ways to rethink actions that impact the environment. Climate change is a hotly contested topic too, and we don’t have to go far to recognize things that have gone wrong.

We need to work at undoing the damage and returning the earth to the beauty it comes by naturally. It means protection of natural resources, such as the work of Streamkeepers in British Columbia, Canada, to protect the salmon, or in your own area by planting new trees.

 Here are five things you can do where you are to keep our earth beautiful and clean:

·         Keep a bag in your car or backpack and put your garbage into it. Teach children in your care to put wrappers from their lunch back into the lunch bag and bring it home for disposal or use the recycle and garbage containers at their schools.

·         Take paints, toxic cleaners to depots where someone will dispose of them properly. Pharmacies will take old prescription medicines and syringes, including epipens.

·         Reuse where possible. Cloth bags or lunch boxes and reusable shopping bags are a good way to cut down on garbage.

·         Bundle newspapers and use cereal boxes to hold smaller pieces of cardboard that have been flattened. Place heavy items atop light ones in the recycle bin (where these services are offered).

·       Make sure your garbage bin closes tightly so you don’t have to clean up after raccoons.

We all have a stake in our planet. While it may take time to turn around larger issues such as converting buses to electric or solar power and restoring our natural canopy by planting trees, everyone can do something. Even a young child can learn to put garbage in the right bin.

 This Earth day, I will be enjoying the natural beauty at our church camp, where we celebrate creation and our part as stewards of the earth. Enjoy the day and honour what was created for us.

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” 

-Psalm of David 24:1

Carolyn Wilker, editor, speaker and author of Once Upon a Sandbox

www.carolynwilker.ca

 Come and see me at Waterloo Chapters, King Street N, Waterloo, ON, on Saturday, May 4th,  for a book signing from 11 am–1 pm. Once Upon a Sandbox makes a great gift for a mother or grandmother.

Who Hallows God's Name? - Arends

I appreciate the opportunity to occasionally share my Christianity Today columns here. As always, your feedback means much.

Carolyn

So, Who Hallows God's Name?

We usually think it's our job. Think twice.

Carolyn Arends

[ January/February Issue- posted online at CT on 2/20/2013 8:08AM ]

On a recent trip, I had a conversation with a man who learned I was from Vancouver. He had lived there years earlier, and after asking if a particular music shop was still in the city, he told me a story.

His wife was a piano major at the University of British Columbia. When they went piano shopping as newlyweds, the saleswoman led them straight to the entry-level models. "She had us pegged exactly right," the man told me. "We didn't have two nickels to rub together. We were going to have to borrow the money to get the cheapest instrument there."

Everything changed, however, when the name of the prospective buyer's mentor—a world-renowned master teaching at the university—came up in conversation. The saleswoman was panic-stricken. "Not these pianos!" she exclaimed, herding the couple away from the economy section and into a private showroom of gleaming Steinways. "I'm so sorry," she kept repeating, horrified at the thought of the teacher finding out she'd shown one of his students an inferior instrument. Try as they might, they couldn't persuade her to take them back to the pianos they could afford. Once the master's name came up, only the best would do.

"Hallowed be thy name," I said this morning, mumbling my way through the Lord's Prayer. I've prayed that phrase countless times. But today, I find myself thinking about the reverence a flustered piano saleswoman had for a teacher's name, and the prayer begins to change shape.

What does it mean to "hallow" God's name? I was raised to flinch whenever someone uses it as a mindless exclamation or, worse, a curse. I've heard about the extreme care taken in branches of Judaism: Pages containing the name of YHWH are never thoughtlessly discarded but rather buried or ritually burned. When I've prayed the Lord's Prayer, I've tried to cultivate that kind of personal reverence for his name—even while living in a world prone to profane it, and a church apt to make puns with it on T-shirts.

I'm glad I was taught to avoid blasphemy. But I'm beginning to suspect that my understanding of what it means to hallow God's name has barely scratched the surface.

Names are a big deal in the Bible. From Abraham ("Father of Many") to Jacob ("Heel-grasper") to Peter ("Rock"), monikers don't merely identify, they reveal. Moses understood this. So he asked God (whom he knew by the generic deity designation Elohim) for his personal name. "Yahweh," God told him, offering Moses the kind of intimacy that only comes on a first-name basis—and revealing his covenant with his people in the process.

Every name we have for God is a revelation of his character. So making his name holy must have something to do with revealing him here on earth. But a review of the human track record tells us this isn't our specialty.

There is a scene in the 1999 CBS miniseries Jesus that haunts me. Jesus is in agony in Gethsemane, and Satan comes to tempt him one last time. In a devastating move, he shows the Lord a preview of the evils that will be done in his name, and asks if his sacrifice will be worth it.

The scene is not from Scripture, but the scenario it proposes is powerful. In the shadow of the Cross, did Jesus observe all the wrongs—catastrophic and petty—we'd credit to him? Did he see inquisitions and gas chambers, defenses of slavery and "God hates fags" placards? Did he anticipate the way we'd use his name as a political trump card, or speak for him and pronounce his judgments in the wake of tragedies? Did he hear us mutter, when confronted with need, "God helps those who help themselves"? Did he want to shout that he'd said no such thing?

We can only guess at all he endured in the garden, but we know for certain that when one of his friends sliced off a soldier's ear, Jesus put it back on. "You can't hallow my name," the gesture seems to say, "if you're associating it with something I would never do." Thanks be to God, many of his disciples have altered the course of human history with the good done in his name. And yet, 2,000 years later, we still have a propensity to wield our swords—rhetorical and otherwise—on his behalf.

In light of all this, the Lord's Prayer takes on new urgency. None of the six petitions Jesus taught—for God's name, kingdom, will, bread, forgiveness, and deliverance—are things we can obtain on our own. In fact, all the verbs are passive. This means that the first request is not really, "Let us hallow your name." It's more, "Father, do what we can't—make your name holy in all the earth."

Only God can reveal himself to the world. But if we pray as he taught us, our reverence and care for his name will grow. That's when we'll begin to exchange our cheap instruments of self-interest and power for the costly cross of Christ—the only instrument worthy of our Master's name.

Carolyn

What Jesus Can Teach Us About Marketing

One of the things I simply detest about being an author is marketing. There is nothing more embarrassing than to have to explain to someone why they should buy my book. "Because I wrote it and it's about Jesus and I think it's really cool," does not really pique anyone's interest, much less my own.

I prefer to hand out a bookmark, or postcard and let that do all the explaining. Better yet, read the back of the cover - that will save me from having to explain what it's all about. Sadly, this technique will not sell many books. There are of course many other options for marketing your book like newspaper ads, book signings, radio interviews, etc.,... But if you are someone who doesn't have a lot of money, perhaps you could rely on Jesus' marketing techniques.

Jesus had marketing techniques? Well, not in the sense of what we have today, but he did use a few principles we could learn from and incorporate into our own marketing plans. 

The first thing the Lord did when he began His ministry was to observe his cousin John the Baptist at work. He listened to him preach, then when the moment was right, He had John baptize Him. That moment was marked and etched on everyone's mind who saw Him get baptized too. Why? Because when Jesus came up out of the water the Holy Spirit rested on him in the form of a dove and a voice from heaven called out, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." After that, Jesus was lead by the Holy Spirit out into the desert for 40 days and nights. No one had contact with him.

Marketing Tip #1 - Create a buzz about your book before it comes out. Before you are finished writing it, talk about it with your friends, family, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, etc. Drop hints about it's subject matter. Share just enough to get them interested and do this months in advance of its release.

When Jesus came back from his sojourn in the desert he began to preach nine powerful words, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Marketing Tip #2 - Get your elevator pitch ready. Think Twitter. Tell me about your book in 10 seconds or less. Your elevator pitch will address what your book is about (repenting) and explain why it's important (the kingdom of heaven is at hand). Your opening line should intrigue your listener so much that they say, "That sounds interesting. Tell me more." 

Once Jesus began preaching he then gathered around him people who believed in Him and His message.

Marketing Tip #3 - Gather together at least 12 family members and friends (try to include other writers) who can support you in various ways. First and most importantly, you will need a prayer team. These precious people will cover you and your book in prayer as you begin final edits and get ready to submit it to a publisher. These will be the people who give you honest feedback on your book. They will critique it and not be afraid to tell you what they like or dislike. By the time you submit your manuscript to an editor, your book should appeal to more than one type of person and should have most of the kinks out of it. In addition to being your prayer support and critique group, these people will believe in you so much, that they will talk about your book to others - even before it's in print. Word of mouth spreads fast.

Jesus had one big advantage on spreading his message - he could heal people, he could even raise them from the dead. Once this news got out, people were clamouring to hear him and touch him. And those in authority wanted him dead because of his teachings.

Marketing Tip #4 - Create a stir. Dan Brown created a stir with The DaVinci Code - he got Christians so riled up that when the movie version of the book came out, they boycotted it and any companies who sponsored it. That made everyone else who wasn't a Christian, want to see it all the more. Am I suggesting you do something offensive? Of course not! However, we all know that almost everything Jesus said was controversial for His time. He angered quite a few people. When my book first came out, I was lambasted by Catholics because I did not venerate Mary and leave her as a perpetual virgin. One Catholic reviewer said Come to Me was "Just as bad as The DaVinci Code - highly offensive." Ouch! I was horrified! And wondered what to do to "fix my book". But my wise father said, "This is not a bad thing. People like controversy. Wait and see what happens." And he was right. Anyone who wasn't Catholic wanted to buy it and some who were Catholic and heard about it from their Protestant friends, decided to give it a chance anyway. I was relieved to receive a few emails of praise from them because I had made the Holy Family seem "real". Come to Me has been a consistent Amazon bestseller since its release.

These are just a few of the things I learned on marketing from looking at Jesus' life and ministry. In the end you will have to do what is best for you and your book. Personally, I prefer the old-fashioned way - Word of Mouth.

Until Next Time,

What Story is God Writing in Your Life? by Rose McCormick Brandon

 A few weeks ago, I began teaching an evening class called, Write Your God Story.
At the first class, we sat at a round table and introduced ourselves to one another. Then I asked, "What stories do you want to tell?" I nodded to the woman on my left to begin. She told of leading a double life; nursing by day, drinking by night, sitting in the pew like a holy person on Sundays. She continued this hypocritical existence until one night she was stopped by police and her car impounded. Fearful of losing her job, the following Sunday she knelt alone in the church sanctuary and begged God to free her from alcohol. In one holy moment, the need for alcohol left her and she hasn't had a drink since. That's only part of her story. The bulk is about what drove her to alcohol in the first place. Her story made us all teary.
Tears continued as my students told of childhood sufferings, sexual abuse, addictions and abandonment. Profound sadness for them kept me awake that night.
I instructed them to choose one experience and begin writing about it. The following week, they took turns reading. That's when I learned that each had had a transforming experience, a moment in time when God had swooped into their lives and rescued them.
This transforming moment is the nugget of their God stories.
My students are writing their stories and I hope to move them all to the publishing stage. With God's grace this will happen. People need to read their stories. Readers' hearts will be moved as mine is being moved. If you saw them, you wouldn't believe where they've come from. You might gape as I almost did when one by one they read their work.
The Bible tells a story of Jesus healing a man of mental illness. Afterwards, the man wanted to travel with Jesus but Jesus told him to go home and tell his family and everyone he knew about the miracle he'd experienced. (Read this story in Mark 5)
That's what my evening class is doing through writing their stories - telling about the new life Jesus has given them.
What story is God writing in your life? Is it a story of finding daily strength to face difficult circumstances? Whatever it is, don't let anything diminish the power of your personal story.
God is writing a story in each life. A story of Grace. Grace overlooks our faults, takes pity on our sufferings, reaches into the darkness and rescues us. Grace hugs the unhuggable. Grace sees the inside and doesn't judge the outside. Each of our small stories has a special place in His big story. Each one is important.
Even if you consider yourself a poor writer, take the time to sit down and write out what God has done for you.
Then pass your story on . . .
One of my students has been published already. Here's a link to Shari James's story.

http://writingfromtheheart.webs.com

Rose McCormick Brandon is an award-winning writer who specializes in personal experience, faith, life stories and the British Home Child Immigration period of Canadian history. Rose is married to Doug, an investment consultant, with whom she also co-authors articles on finances. Visit her blogs: The Promise of Home and Listening to My Hair Grow. Contact address: rosembrandon

Supreme Symbol of Help and Hope (by Peter Black)

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A disaster happens somewhere in the world, and it’s likely that—where political systems allow—Red Cross personnel and vehicles, bearing the large emblem of a red cross on a white background, are dispatched in response, bearing emergency supplies to help people in desperate need of life-sustaining essentials. (Of course, we acknowledge that much good work is also contributed under the emblems of the Red Crescent and Red Crystal, among others.)

Scores of Christian-based NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) are often there helping, funded by donations from people like many of you, who embrace the message and meaning of the Cross. My niece Gillian works for a Christian-based NGO, and recently returned from central America, where she was involved in coordinating humanitarian projects. 

Hitler’s Nazi Swastika, with its angled (let’s say, bent and broken) arms, is perhaps the most widely reviled form of cross—the antithesis of the Cross of Christ; not of help and hope, but of hate and genocide.

I’m glad the Cross is the supreme symbol of help and hope in the world. Good Friday’s commemoration of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ reminds me that out of the ugliness of crucifixion—among the most excruciating, slow and painful forms of execution ever devised—has come healing, help and hope to countless millions.

It is reckoned that as many as 1,000,000 crucifixions took place throughout the provinces of the Roman Empire during the first century AD. Intended as punishment for criminals and rebels, it also served as a warning to others. Yet, only one crucifixion, one victim and one cross led to the ugliness of crucifixion’s becoming this revered symbol of help and hope. And that was when Jesus of Nazareth—the helper, the healer, the friend—died on an old rugged cross. 

Why should this stake of barbaric execution, with its dark and bloody association with the torture of the worst of criminals, be revered and embraced as a beloved symbol? The cross is forever beautified by the One who hung upon it—the sinless Son of God incarnate who, through His sufferings and death, paid the price of all humanity’s sin and rebellion and resistance to God’s grace. 

Jesus was betrayed by a close associate, abandoned by those of His close circle, rejected by a frenzied crowd, and mocked by bigoted religious leaders who plotted his death, and forsaken by God His Heavenly Father. It was all in the divine plan, predicted centuries beforehand in various scriptures (e.g. as in Psalm 22; 41:9; Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Zechariah 12:10).

The Cross is offensive to some people, but it’s not so much the symbol, as its message (see 1 Corinthians 1:18-30). Is it offensive to your view of yourself and God? Does the biblical teaching that we humans have so offended God that we need to be redeemed and reconciled to Him, and forgiven and cleansed, offend you? Do you have difficulty accepting the assertion that we can’t do it by our own effort, all by ourselves?

The Cross strikes at our sense of self-sufficiency and self-dependence; knocks the notion that self-improvement is our pathway to our ultimate destiny and eventual delight. 

How wonderful the understanding that, since we’re unable to atone for our own sins (faults, failings, self-willed thoughts and actions, arising from human weakness) which separate us from a ‘right’ relationship with God, He in mercy provided the solution. In Jesus, God paid the debt, making possible our restoration to personal relationship with Him. 

The means was the Cross and the One who gave up His life on it: “. . . God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!” (Romans 5:8-9).  

Let us embrace more than this supreme symbol of help and hope, and in faith embrace the Christ of the Cross who is our help and hope—our Lord and Saviour, Redeemer and Friend. 

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Peter A. Black is a freelance writer in Southwestern Ontario, and is author of “Parables from the Pond” – a children's / family book."  (Finalist -- Word Alive Press ISBN 1897373-21-X )

His inspirational column, P-Pep! appears weekly in The Guide-Advocate. His articles have appeared in 50 Plus Contact and testimony, and several newspapers in Ontario.

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With Just the Two of Them/MANN

Have you ever done something just because it seemed right and pleasing to do? This is not to achieve, to earn popular consensus or even to impress. But, just because you have the gift to communicate acceptance and show love. I saw this lived out during a mid afternoon surprise visit to old friends, a while back.

Doug and I had occasion before Christmas to drop in on some folks we hadn't seen for ten years. I went to the door first to see if they were home. After chatting for a few minutes they sent me out to the car to invite Doug to come in to 'have a bite to eat' with 'just the two of them' . I glanced behind her and saw the table formally set. An aroma of turkey filled the air. My taste buds immediately responded and I accepted her invitation.

After their gracious welcome, Doug and I sat down at their table. It was difficult to realize that what met my eyes had been 'just for the two of them'. The tall-stemmed crystal wine glasses sat to the right of warm English bone-china plates. Sterling silver cutlery placed on satin place-mats lay on a white hand-embroidered tablecloth. Linen napkins sat peaked in front of each plate. Wine rested on ice.

A centrepiece of fresh flowers adorned the table. Tall silver candles burned brightly at each end of the table. They brought an already carved duck and placed it on one end of the table and set a platter of turkey at the other end. Our hosts passed mashed potatoes, parsnips and peas followed by shredded cabbage, cranberry sauce and pickles. Freshly baked dinner-rolls peeked from a heated basket under a quilted cover.

Conversation was rich, laughter was contagious and stories continued to remind us of past experiences together. "Do you remember when you came and picked out a kitten from Tiger's litter?" she asked, "and I remember when I suggested you remove those terrible plastic flowers from your flower boxes." (I've never liked plastic flowers since - anywhere.) "And what about all those salmon-on-brown sandwiches you brought to the house," I added. One story led to another. The catch-up time was precious.

I wondered how these two dear people in their 80's would have set the table had they known we were coming? My conclusion? Just the same. They were as important to each other as we were to them. Such is love!

Blessings,
Donna Mann
http://www.donnamann.org

Looking forward to spring --Carolyn Wilker

 Today the snow falls again, lazy flakes that blow this way and that on their way to the ground, coating the road once again and covering the rooftops of the houses. From my office window, I see the ceramic birdhouse swinging from the eaves of the workshop, in tune with in the wind.

I ache for spring to arrive, for the snow to melt, for the first plant shoots to emerge from the ground. I’m tired of winter, though a bright sunny day in January or February, with fresh snow on the trees and ground, looks quite lovely.

Even as I write, the wind picks up and blows the snow across the yard before it clears again. If the groundhog really were a determiner of when winter ends, he is surely wrong this year. Perhaps it is that I’m tired of the cold, ready to shed winter boots and heavy coats, ready for warmth, and to put away snow shovels. Besides, the calendar says it’s spring, even if it doesn’t look like spring outdoors here yet.

 I look forward to seeing the first flower stems emerge from the ground and standing with my neighbours outdoors chatting. Except for shovelling snow, going outdoors to start up their cars and going to work, so many of them have stayed in their homes all winter. In spring, the snowbirds return too—those folks who flee to Florida for the winter months.

Solomon wrote, “Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.”  He understood the reawakening that comes at this time of year, even if he’d never experience cold like our Canadian winter.

Spring has always been my favourite time of year, when creation is so full of promise. It’s entirely appropriate that Easter falls in the early spring. If winter is associated with sorrow, then cannot spring associate itself with rebirth and … spring fever? The kind that gets us out of our homes and in the open more freely, the time when children get out their skipping ropes and ball gloves and enjoy the sunshine on their faces. The time for adults to also feel a new spring in their step, and in tune with nature.

 Spring is coming soon, I just know it, and I’ll be ready.

Carolyn Wilker, author, editor and storyteller
www.carolynwilker.ca