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The Curious Witness of Marguerite Cormier

Good morning church family,

The closer Kelly got to school, the more aware she became that something wasn’t right. The long ribbon of sidewalk she traveled every day to Evermonde High was usually filled with other kids like her. On any normal school day, scores of teenagers could be seen trudging to class; bent over under bulging backpacks, walled up behind ear buds, and chewing breakfast bars with sleepy, bovine expressions on their faces. But today, Kelly walked the sidewalk all alone.

As she rounded the corner of Lyons and Lafayette, Kelly caught her first glimpse of the high school that lay a couple-hundred yards down the street. The broad and sloping concrete stairway that led up to a large covered portico near the school’s entrance was absent its usual flood of climbing students. Looking at the pedestals sitting beneath the school’s large and stately columns, Kelly saw no one sitting down to scribble out his homework assignment or to scroll on her phone. Most striking of all, the line of school buses that usually stretched down Lafayette like a locomotive idling in the depot yard, was nowhere to be found. The proud school building looked almost sad and hollow. “What’s going on?” Kelly wondered to herself; standing still now and trying to process the sight. “Am I way late? Way early?”

Kelly had been out sick the day before. “I had a high fever,” she suggested with furrowed brow, “but I wouldn’t have lost complete track of…”

Just then she noticed Mr. Saunders, Evermonde’s principal, coming down the school steps. Kelly quickly continued her procession, hoping to get within earshot of the administrator before he was out of sight. “Mr. Saunders,” Kelly called out as her principal hit the bottom step. He didn’t hear her but it didn’t matter. He’d turned and was walking toward her.

“Good morning,” the principal said once their paths eventually crossed. He had looked up from a folder full of paperwork he was studying and saw Kelly walking toward him as though she was headed to class. The principal couldn’t hide the quizzical expression on his face.

“Good morning, Mr. Saunders,” Kelly said somewhat sheepishly. It didn’t appear that Mr. Saunders had recognized her. “What’s going on today? Where is everybody?”

“Oh – there’s no school today,” the principal said; a bit too eagerly. “Today’s a holiday – it’s Good Friday.”

“Oh yeah, of course,” Kelly replied; lying. She had no idea what a “Good Friday” was. Since moving from Chicago to Louisiana the previous fall, she’d been initiated in all kinds of odd and curious things. “Well, thank you Mr. Saunders,” Kelly said, looking down and pulling her phone out of her back pocket. “I guess I’ll just head on back home then.”

“Okay, sorry about that,” Mr. Saunders said, smiling and picking back up his gait. “See you on Monday!”

Kelly suddenly felt conspicuous standing there with her backpack on and dressed in school clothes. She now noticed all the squinting glances she was receiving from drivers of cars passing by. Eager to get off the main road, Kelly took a side street she was fairly sure would wind around through neighborhoods and dump her out closer to home on Lyons. The sun was coming up now and the mid-April morning in the Bayou was quickly turning warm. Feeling hot, Kelly spied a concrete picnic table sitting under a large magnolia tree near the entrance to a cemetery. Feeling hungry all of a sudden, she decided to sit for a spell and have her lunch for breakfast.

The late-morning air was still cool under the shade of the magnolia and the light breeze clapping the leaves overhead felt refreshing on Kelly’s neck. She sat on the table’s top and let her feet rest on the bench below. Looking out over the cemetery, she breathed out a long sigh and let her shoulders drop. Her heart was turning light as she began to glory in the unexpected holiday. As she ate her turkey and cheese sandwich and sipped on her iced coffee, a meditative mood settled on her head. The quiet stillness of the cemetery park was proving peculiar food for her soul. But the faint hum of the morning traffic back on Lafayette, had her desiring to press further into the park in search of a sanctity she couldn’t articulate but knew she needed.

Leaving her backpack on the picnic table, Kelly ventured off to walk among the gravestones. As she nibbled on a granola bar and listened to the ice clink in her cup, she took note of some of the dates on the markers. This was evidently one of the older cemeteries in Houma. Most of the lifespans reported on the stones had been lived out in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With few exceptions, the granite, marble, and limestone markers leaned at funny angles; their crooked stances made more pronounced by the straight trunks of the pine, oak, and elm that flanked the ends of every row. Black mildew and flowering fungus covered the tops of the stones and were spreading down their fronts and backs. Kelly noted some of the olden-sounding names. There was a Hortense married to a Clarence, a Millicent wed to an Everett, and an Adelaide joined in conjugal bliss to a Jarvis.

But more than the funny names, curious symbols, and interesting histories untold between the hyphenated dates; what most caught Kelly’s attention were the oddly written epitaphs carved neatly into the stone on the front of the graves. Most of the inscriptions appeared to be religious in nature; seeming to Kelly to be medieval in their language and forms. She mostly just read over them as novelties; not really reading for comprehension. But when she came across the grave marker belonging to Marguerite Cormier, something that had been carved in the stone instantly captured her attention. Marguerite, who had died when she was only seventeen, had the following epitaph written under her name and above the symbol of a cross:

On Good Friday

He proved His love for me

On Good Saturday

My debt was paid in full

On Good Sunday

His resurrection secured an eternity for me

Kelly stared at the stone for a long time; reading and rereading its message. Looking around at all the graves within sight, she saw lots of crosses, crucifixes, and crowns of thorns. Over and over, Kelly saw the name of Christ carved out on the stones. Did Good Friday have something to do with Jesus? Kelly had a sense that it did. “If Jesus is the ‘He’ in Marguerite’s message,” Kelly wondered in her heart, “how did Jesus prove His love for her on Good Friday? And how did what happened on Saturday and Sunday give Marguerite the hope she seemed to have?”

Sitting carefully on the top of Marguerite’s gravestone, Kelly stuffed the granola bar wrapper in her front pocket and pulled out her phone. Into the search field on her Google app, Kelly typed: “what is good friday”.

We’re looking forward to gathering together tomorrow morning to hail the King who conquered death on our behalf. Praise Him!!! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

  • Pastor Tate
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Worship in Watercolor

Good afternoon church family,

Cyril had his wife go on into the grocery store ahead of him. “I’ve got a couple of text messages I really need to reply to,” he’d explained. “I’ll catch up with you.”

Cyril did, indeed, have a couple of unanswered text messages on his phone. He did not, however, need to reply to either of them. Nor did he need to check the headlines on Drudge, clear his Facebook notifications, watch some guy on YouTube drop a pine tree between his house and his shed, or eavesdrop on the homeless couple arguing over the proper way to pack groceries onto the side bags of a bicycle. But, for Cyril, all of these things took happy precedent over being wingman to his wife’s meanderings through the Piggly Wiggly.

By the time he finally made it into the store, Cyril’s wife was pretty well lost in the underbrush. The place was a crush of kids and coats and squeaky-wheeled buggies filling aisles that were already overcrowded with displays, promotions, and endcaps of every kind. Cyril walked the length of the store, peeking down every aisle trying to spy his bride, but wasn’t willing to plunge into the thicket himself. He knew from previous experience that such an endeavor was a fool’s errand. No, instead, he decided to post up against the little length of wall that stood between the bathrooms and the customer service desk at the front of the store. From this vantage point, he’d have a clear line of sight to all the checkout stands. Cyril knew he might get some guff for this approach but, then again, he would probably be getting guff either way. Cyril decided it best to simply wait his wife out.

Allowing himself a moment’s distraction, Cyril noticed that posted on the wall behind him was a collection of artwork on loan from the Simmonds Elementary third-grade class. At first, he gave only a passing glance at the display of watercolor paintings. They seemed little more than the unremarkable offerings of unremarkable kids. But feeling a little conspicuous just standing there, he soon turned to give his full attention to the pieces. Holding his hands behind his back and leaning in with his shoulders, he tilted his head back slightly and cast a squinting gaze down on each unframed work of art. Taking time to actually study each composition, his appreciation for the artistry of the offerings grew considerably. One painting entitled “Bird Hunt” painted by “Quinn, age 9” captured fairly well, the excitement of birds thundering to flight when flushed from bulrushes. Cyril stared at the work for some time; marveling at the movement and storytelling coming through on the wavy, water-damaged piece of paper. Cyril also studied a different painting entitled, “Umbrella Tree” painted by “Miranda, age 8”. A little girl in a bright, red raincoat stared out from under the bending boughs of a green umbrella tree. A light blue rain fell all around the little girl; waterlogging the page and drawing Cyril in under the tree. “Fascinating,” Cyril thought to himself. “I think I’d like to have this painting hanging in my house or tacked to the wall at work.”

“There you are,” Cyril’s wife said, ripping him away from the silent reverie he was enjoying. “Don’t you dare complain when we get home that I forgot something you need. You can just drive your dawdling little self back down here and get it yourself.”

The car ride home was necessarily quiet. But the silence allowed the art display’s accidental patron to continue to ponder the impact the watercolors had on him. Cyril noted a feeling rising in his soul that had long ago been lost to him. What Cyril was experiencing was inspiration.

For the remainder of that Saturday afternoon and evening, Cyril took a fast from all the stuff that normally filled his free time. He silenced his phone and left it charging beside his bed. He gave the remote control a rest and kept the car in the garage. Trundling down the basement stairs instead, Cyril began a search for his old 35 millimeter Canon camera. Like an archaeologist doing a dig on the tel of his former life, he sifted through the layers of all the previous civilizations that had thrived underneath that roof. Finally getting his hands on the camera, Cyril moved a camp chair under the single light bulb that was illuminating the room and sat down. Examining the artifact, he became reacquainted with the fineness of the thing. The camera came in a leather case and soft, worn leather was wrapped neatly around the body of the camera. He manipulated all the dials, operated the lens and focus ring, peered through the viewfinder, and clicked the shutter button. The whole experience sent thrills down his spine. He drank in the smell of the leather, gloried in the crisp clicks and snaps of the camera’s levers, dials, and counters, and delighted in the absence of any screen or digital display. “I’m going to order some film,” Cyril whispered to himself; deciding to begin scoping out some subjects to shoot. “I should go for a hike and do some reconnaissance.”

Carefully putting the camera back in its case and holding it securely in his lap, Cyril noticed the guitar case sitting on the floor beneath a pile of family suitcases. “My old six string,” he muttered with a sigh. Standing up and putting the camera down in the seat of the camp chair, he walked over and uncovered the guitar case. Kneeling down, he unhooked the clasps and swung open the lid. The sight of the old, acoustic filled his mind with thoughts of campfire smoke, the memory of glowing smiles, and the distant echo of friends singing in chorus. He reverently picked the guitar out of the case and, kneeling on one knee, propped the guitar on the other. Cyril began pinching the frets and picking at the keys. The only tune he could summon from the thing was the first one he ever learned to play. Fumbling at first but then falling into time and rhythm, Cyril made Sweet Home Alabama come to life; filling the basement with the song. It was glorious. “I’m going to have to get this thing tuned up,” Cyril determined in his heart as he gazed down on the instrument. “And I’m going to get callouses back on these fingers!”

But before he could gather up the treasures and head back up the stairs with them, one more thing caught Cyril’s eye. Beside the metal rack against the far wall was the wooden easel that he’d given to his daughter for Christmas years ago. Beside it, he saw the clear plastic tote filled with all her art supplies and one of the large sketch books he liked to buy for her. He quickly set up the easel under the light bulb and perched the sketch book on the little stand. Rummaging through the tote, he found a paint brush and a collection of paints in little wells with lids. He opened the sketch book to a blank sheet, set the paints up on a makeshift table made of stacked-up storage bins, and took the lids off of the paint.

Standing back, Cyril crossed his arms, put the tip of the brush to his lips, and stared at the blank page. Soon, a broad smile began to spread across his face and a “Thank you, Lord” sprung from his heart and came tumbling out of his mouth.

We’re looking forward to gathering together in the morning to enjoy fellowship with one another and communion with the Lord. What a blessing to be traveling light; with destruction behind us and glory ahead of us. And how grand to walk this pilgrim way with each other! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

  • Pastor Tate
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Smoked Out

Good morning church family,

Holding the FedEx package in her hands, Aubrey’s heart thumped in her chest like a kick drum. Her mouth went dry and her ears got hot. But despite her telltale body bearing witness against her; Aubrey clung to the belief that what she was doing was more noble than naughty.

Aubrey Fender had recently moved fifteen-hundred miles away from home; settling in a little, second-story apartment in Birmingham, Alabama. Graduating from Wheaton with a communications degree, she’d turned a senior-year internship into a full-time job in the human relations department of a large aerospace company located there. She was twenty-three, unattached, and prone to wandering. Life, for Aubrey, was suddenly a moss-covered log to traverse. She was stepping gingerly, heel to toe; trying hard not to look down at the swift river below.

Growing up in a reverent, Presbyterian home, Aubrey had been taught to hold God and His Word in high regard. She’d also been taught to be wary of any Christian expression that seemed overly warmhearted. She was much more comfortable, for instance, giving indirect praise to God. Singing, “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise” was just the sort of measured, declarative worship that she was comfortable with. But only an uncouth, unchecked romantic would dare look God in the face while singing to Him, “I love you Lord and I lift my voice to worship you”. At least no one should dare sing such a thing out loud. Most modern, evangelical praise and worship music made Aubrey squirm.

No, Aubrey was determined to worship God in her own way. And the instrument she needed for this unique form of worship was sitting there in the package in her hands. Aubrey took no small pleasure in knowing that her worship would likely make all the good Southern Baptists around her squirm; setting the tongues of sisters Myrtle and Martha to clucking and those of brother Billy and Boudreaux to barking. For, inside the box was a short-stemmed, cherry wood, tobacco pipe.

From the first time she read what the Apostle Paul had written to the Corinthian and Roman Christians about the “weaker brother”, Aubrey had been taken with the idea of Christian liberty. She loved the idea of living in freedom, unbound by the hang-ups, weaknesses, and conventional mores of those she just happened to be sharing a pew with. Aubrey wanted to use colorful language, hang risqué art in her apartment, read banned books, and do a bit of tramping on the wrong side of the tracks. She didn’t want to live her life in a convent of monastic mediocrity. Aubrey wanted to live a little, embrace a red-blooded humanity, and explore God’s creation without having to stay on the tourist’s side of the ropes. She had often pondered what the exercise of her Christian liberty might look like. From all her reading out of her father’s library and from her studies at Wheaton, Aubrey had learned that many a great Christian thinker liked to have a good puff now and again. Spurgeon, Bonhoeffer, Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton; they all smoked pipes and cigars. Even Johann Sebastian Bach, Mr. “Soli Deo Gloria” himself, liked to have an evening smoke. She never quite understood it, but Aubrey had always liked the idea of her sitting down in a comfortable armchair at the close of day, warm lamplight falling on the pages of a classic tome, an inch of brandy resting neatly in a glass at arm’s-length on the end table, and moist, cherry tobacco being pressed into the smoldering bowl of her pipe. She’d deftly lift a match out of her silver tin, strike it on the file beneath, and, with the pipe held tightly in her teeth, put the flame to the tobacco. She’d flick the extinguished match into the crystal ashtray that sat beside the brandy, lean back, find her spot on the page, and envelope her head in lovely, aromatic pipe smoke. That was the kind of worship that Aubrey longed to give to the Lord.

As she unboxed the pipe; holding the lovely thing in her hands, her head went swimmy with the intoxication of independence. Walking into the bathroom, Aubrey cupped the pipe’s bowl in the palm of her left hand and put the tip of the stem between her teeth. Clenching the pipe in her jaw, she smiled crookedly into the mirror. Catching her own eye, Aubrey winked a tart, flirty wink. “I’ll have to run out to the store and get some pipe tobacco,” Aubrey thought to herself. “And maybe a little bottle of brandy, too.”

Driving to Walgreens, Aubrey turned on the radio and turned up the volume on whatever frothy, synthed-up song was playing. She knew better than to let herself think too much.

Walking into the store, she grabbed a handbasket from off of the stack inside the door and tried to appear as casual as she possibly could. To calm her nerves and to not come off as too desperate or craven to the cashier, Aubrey decided to shop for toiletries, makeup, and some other home goods first. Once she’d collected enough products for her shopping to own an air of plausibility, she made her way to the corner of the store where the tobacco products and spirits were shelved. She quickly chose the most expensive and elegant-looking tobacco tin she saw and then picked up the loveliest little liquor bottle full of brandy.

At the register, there was a bit of a line spaced along the racks of gum, chocolate bars, and candy. Aubrey took her place at the back of the line. Holding the handles together in both hands, the basket rested comfortably against the fronts of her legs. The man standing in front of her in line attracted her attention. Sizing him up from the back, he appeared to Aubrey to be in his fifties or maybe even sixties. Either way, he certainly looked like he had a lot of miles on him. His salt and pepper hair was thinning and cut tight to his head. His skin had the appearance of well-tanned leather and his black boots, the wear and tear from years of clod kicking. He wore a biker’s jacket with a number of patches she didn’t recognize. But the thing that instantly caught her eye was the “1Peter 2:16” tattooed onto his left bicep.

The line moved forward and the man in front of Aubrey turned slightly; shooting a sideways glance back at her. Her heady, nervous energy prompted her to engage the biker man. “I see you have a Bible verse tattoo on your arm there,” Aubrey said, pointing her basket in the general direction of the man’s arm. “What’s it say?”

The man turned around and Aubrey saw his face for the first time. She was surprised to find that set into his earnest face were the keenest, kindest eyes she’d ever seen. His manner was calm and sweet as he looked first into Aubrey’s eyes and then unashamedly down into her basket. Looking again into her eyes, he had the demeanor of a loving grandfather. “It’s a paradox,” the man said, the faintest glint of a smile forming at the corners of his mouth. “It’s talking about how the only real freedom any of us can find is in slavery to Christ.” The man maintained a placid stare as Aubrey smiled and nodded her head. “Are you a believer?” the man kindly asked.

“Oh yes,” Aubrey said, rocking the basket back and forth on her legs. “Absolutely.”

“Do you love Jesus?” the man said, seemingly unsatisfied with Aubrey’s confession.

Aubrey hesitated. “Yeah,” she said, her eyes escaping to the packs of gum for a moment, “I love God.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” the man said; casting a pointed glance again into Aubrey’s basket.

Just then the line moved again and the man turned to put his items onto the counter. Aubrey looked down into her basket and wavered on the purchase. She was suddenly ashamed and quickly stepped out of line; feigning that she’d forgotten something. Once hidden within the aisles, she doubled back to the rear of the store; resolved to return the alcohol and tobacco to the shelf. Walking back to the front, her basket free of device, she was haunted by the man’s question.

“Do I love Jesus?” Aubrey whispered aloud. “I guess I don’t know,” she wondered to herself. “But I suppose I ought to find that out before I try and worship Him.”

It’s going to be so good to love, adore, and worship the Lord together tomorrow morning. I can’t wait to hear all that He has to say and to learn my heart’s response. What a blessing to walk the pilgrim way with a good Shepherd to lead us. May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us! See you in the morning!

  • Pastor Tate
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Acknowledging God

Good morning church family,

Feeling cagey and exposed, he looked down to see if his arms were tied to the chair. They weren’t. But still, he couldn’t lift them. He couldn’t even make a fist.

His freshly-shorn hair lay in clumps on the floor and the faint smell of shaving cream was in the air. His bald head itched and stung from the tight passes made with the straight razor. Wind from the fan mounted on the wall behind, blew over his wet head; sending a chill down his spine.

Was it a barber’s chair under him? He would have been glad for a mirror to offer a view of his surroundings, but the wall in front of him was bare. Behind him stood a man smelling of tonic. He thought he saw a white coat out of the corner of his eye.

Suddenly, the fingers and thumbs of two hands were pressing firmly all about his shaven head. The pressing was more probing than therapeutic; the work of a doctor and not a masseuse. Then a dialogue between the white-coated man and an unseen assistant began. “Some cratering indicative of neurosis,” the man said in a cold, analytical tone; his assessment finding an echo in the assistant’s scratching on a clipboard. “Strong indications of megalomania in the frontal cortex,” he continued. “No signs of psychopathy. Hmmm…that’s odd,” the man said in a whisper. The man’s hands suddenly leapt off of his head as though it had turned white hot and he heard the sounds of feet shuffling backward.

And there the dream ended. Casey Freiling woke up with a start, his pajama shirt wet with sweat; his mind alert and racing. It was the third such time he’d dreamt this exact dream in the last two weeks. Like Pharaoh in Egypt long ago or Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, he knew intuitively that the dream was not the normal nocturnal scribblings of the subconscious. No, this had to be a vision. Casey was determined to learn the interpretation.

He started with his church. Casey had been a believer for over twenty years; coming to Christ as a young man and serving his local church faithfully ever since. He never missed a Sunday, always tithed the first fruits of his paycheck, was forever working his way through a stack of recommended texts, and kept his church’s code of ethics as well as he could.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it,” was his pastor’s reply. “It’s probably something you ate. Many a ‘vision’ you hear about today is probably nothing more than indigestion.” The pastor was trying to be lighthearted about it but Casey wasn’t joining in the chuckling. “Either way, Casey; just keep your mind on God’s Word and trust in Him.”

Unsatisfied with this processed counsel, Casey sought out a couple other leaders in the church. They listened intently and even went so far as to cross their arms, hold their chins in hand, and furrow their brows in feigned concern. But their counsel was little different from the pastor’s. “Hard to tell, Casey,” one of them said. “Maybe it’s a riff on something you saw on TV or something.” The other picked up on something Casey had said, “You said you woke up sweating through your shirt, right? I don’t know about you, but I’ve had some pretty wild fever dreams in my day.”

Casey wanted to push back by reminding them that the dream had come in triplicate, that the dream was nothing like anything he’d seen on any screen, and that he hadn’t been ill in months. But he despaired of finding wisdom in either of the men and, instead, just shook his head in time with theirs. “Alright, I guess I’ll see you next Sunday,” Casey said.

He really didn’t want to, but Casey’s next approach was to lay out a little cash and see a Christian counselor. “What do you think the dream means, Mr. Freiling?” the counselor had asked.

“I have no idea,” Casey responded, slightly agitated. “I was hoping you could help me.”

“Well, that’s what I’m aiming to do. Our dreams, you see,” the counselor sat back and brought his hands together at the fingertips, “are often us trying to talk to ourselves in notions, pictures, or ideas. I imagine you have the interpretation within your own heart and mind, Mr. Freiling. I strongly suggest you try and talk it out with me and bring it into the open.”

Casey endured the session and paid the receptionist, but left as frustrated as ever. He next scanned Amazon for titles that seemed promising. He even ordered one, but he’d hardly finished the first chapter when he knew its prospects were poor. Next, he scanned the internet for charismatic churches in the area; hoping to find one that might have someone on staff for this sort of thing. He found one about an hour away and made an appointment with someone purporting to be the church’s “Chief Armor Bearer”. But the meeting started with Casey being asked to fill out a spiritual inventory that read more like a sexual confessional. The man seemed kind and earnest enough, but the whole thing only served to further muddy the waters.

Instead of having the dream recede into the blessed nether regions of his subconscious, it only took up a more prominent position in his thinking. It was rare for Casey’s mind to dwell on anything other than the dream when it wasn’t otherwise occupied. He relived the dream often and often sought out means and methods for understanding it. He’d read as much as he could, watched videos, sought counsel, ventured out to the gnarly fringes of Christendom, and even tried something called “inductive journaling”. But nothing brought relief.

Then one day he happened to mention the dream to a coworker. It was an unguarded moment for Casey, who had worked for years to keep his work relationships as professional and impersonal as possible. But maybe it was the fact that he and Brandon were walking and not sitting and talking, that made the casual exchange possible. Whatever it was, Casey had taken the opportunity to share his dream after Brandon described a recent visit to his barber.

“Woah, Case,” Brandon said, kicking pebbles off the paved pathway as they walked, “that’s messed up man. But that doesn’t sound like a barber to me. I think that’s some phrenology stuff you got going on there.”

Casey had never heard of phrenology before. Later that night, he looked it up. He learned that there was once a branch of science that operated on the theory that a person’s character and mental faculty could be determined by examining the size and shape of his skull. While the practice of phrenology seemed perfectly laughable to Casey, it did seem eerily similar to what the man with the white coat was attempting to do in the dream.

“Should I go online and try and find a phrenologist somewhere?” Casey thought to himself. “Am I neurotic like the guy said in the dream? Am I a megalomaniac? Is there something wrong in my head? Should I ask my doctor to schedule an MRI or something? What does this dream mean?” Casey’s mind began to spin with questions and wild suppositions. But then came the moment of grace.

“Why haven’t you asked Me?” came the question from the voice he hadn’t heard since he first visited the altar two decades earlier.

“I’m sorry, I – – I suppose I didn’t know that I could.”

“When are you going to get out of that chair, Casey? For too long now, you’ve been allowing everything and everyone to make out your life’s pathways for you. It’s silly, child. No one else really knows you or the plans I have for you.” The Lord paused and Casey reveled in the wonderful communion for a moment. “It’s like what I had Solomon say, ‘in all your ways, acknowledge Me and I will make your paths straight.’”

Casey reflexively dropped to his knees and, with tears in his eyes, begged forgiveness. He was forgiven indeed and raised out of the “chair” to stand with Christ on his own two feet. But the best thing for Casey was that the prayer time never had an ending “amen”.

We’re looking forward to gathering together in the morning to seek and find, ask and receive, knock and have doors opened to us. It’s going to be a blessed time of encouragement and renewal – and I can’t wait to share in it with each of you! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

  • Pastor Tate
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In Stereo

Good morning church family,

From the time I was a little boy until the day I left home for college, I fell asleep most every night listening to a recording of some kind. The first bedroom I can remember sleeping in – the one I shared with two of my brothers – had a dresser with a record player and speakers sitting on top of it. At night, my brothers and I would pull on our pajamas, brush our teeth, and pile into our little, upstairs room. I would climb in the top bunk and jaw with Joel and Josh until either Mom or Dad came in to read to us. We’d hear a chapter out of Great Expectations, The Red Badge of Courage, Island of the Blue Dolphins, or The Incredible Journey and then say “goodnight” as the chair was tucked back in under the desk and the lamp’s orange glow was clicked to black. It was then that my brothers and I would decide which record to play. We’d sometimes listen to music – Hooked on Classics was a favorite and I distinctly remember borrowing a copy of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album from our Jamaican neighbors across the street for a few weeks one autumn – but most of the time we listened to comedy records. My dad had a pile of Bill Cosby and Bob Newhart albums that he’d let us listen to. We would carefully – very, very carefully – load the record through the spindle and onto the platter, start the motor, and place the needle in the outermost groove. I can’t tell you how many times I heard Cosby tell of the time he had his tonsils taken out or Newhart do his driving instructor routine. Despite the incredible storytelling and infectious sense of humor captured on these recordings– I never made it to the end of any side. I’ve always had a knack for laying back, blinking out, and falling fast asleep.

Years later, when our parents moved the family to Vermont and rented a large house with bedrooms enough for all of us, we graduated from record players to little boombox stereos that played cassettes or CDs. It was during these years that our bedtime listening really flourished. Whether it was through gifts given at Christmas or birthdays, purchases we made with money we’d earned, or donations made from church family and friends, us kids created a sizable listening library. I remember that we had a couple of shoeboxes filled with all kinds of selections. There were several episodes of Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion in there. There was also a condensed version of The Civil War read by Ken Burns himself. There were recordings of old radio broadcasts starring Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and George Burns and Gracie Allen. We also had all kinds of fables, legends, swashbuckling tales, and sweeping epics to choose from. There was one overly theatrical production of Robin Hood that we were all particularly fond of. In addition to these studio recordings, our collection boasted a bunch of oddball stuff as well. Tape recordings of a backwoods Vermonter giving his hilarious reflections on flatlanders, lectures of a college history professor, and even some captivating presentations made by a renowned cryptozoologist. We acquired an ear for it all and ended each day by picking something out of one of the shoeboxes, crawling into bed, and pressing play.

I don’t know what impact, if any, all those twilight hours had on my spiritual formation as a young man. I’m sure it wasn’t nothing but I doubt it moved the needle very much in either direction. That said, there was one recording that I listened to dozens and dozens of times that I’m certain the Lord used mightily in my life.

I remember it being a creamy white cassette with labels affixed to either side that were peeling at the edges. Typewritten on these labels was the title of the recording: “’The Pineapple Story’ by Otto Koning”. The tape was a recording of a live presentation of a talk that Koning gave to a church somewhere. Koning and his wife were Dutch missionaries who’d committed their lives to serving a small community of native peoples in the jungles of Irian Jaya. Koning happened to be a fantastic storyteller who was blessed with an earnestness that was unsullied by pretention or affectation. He also had a wonderfully winsome sense of humor. “The Pineapple Story” tape was easy to listen to; Koning’s Dutch accent, staccato delivery, and dry wit really drew me into the story. The tale centered on a pineapple garden that Koning had planted on the little missionary compound they lived on. Mrs. Koning ran a clinic and Otto spent most of his time learning the language and working on a translation of the Bible into the tribal tongue. But the villagers that they lived among were chronic thieves who stole nearly everything the missionaries had. Koning tells funny stories of women wearing can openers as necklaces and men having fountain pens slid through holes in their noses. But over time, all this stealing and thieving began to create real resentment toward the villagers in Koning’s heart; stirring up an unhealthy anger and frustration within him. And the thing that frosted Koning the most was the brazen and unabashed pilfering of all his pineapples.

I remember Koning confessing to his audience that he had traveled all the way from the Netherlands to Papua New Guinea to share the good news of Jesus Christ but that he’d ended up spending most of his time fighting with the people over pineapples. His missionary life became one of threatening the people, bargaining with them, withholding goods and services, standing guard, and speaking all kinds of invective in an Irian Jayan tongue. It was both brutal and comical. But everything changed in both Otto’s heart and in the village, when the Lord spoke to Koning while attending a church service on furlough. The Lord used the words of the preacher to convict Koning of his having taken offense at what he saw as the violation of his right to those pineapples and to encourage him to give the pineapple garden to God.

There were many nights that I’d be lying there in bed, staring up at the ceiling, my imaginings of Koning’s tale being projected on the dimly moonlit canvas above, when I’d suddenly hear the tape to go to static and then snap to a stop. I’d quickly prop myself up on one elbow, eject the cassette, flip it over, and press play again. I many times listened to the entire, hour-long message. I so loved hearing Koning tell of how light his heart became once he gave everything to God – his life, his ministry, his time, efforts, can openers, fountain pens, and pineapples. I remember him telling of waving cheerfully to all the thieving villagers doing their grocery shopping in his garden while praying that the Lord would watch over the produce he’d given Him. The conclusion of the story is too long to be retold here, but it involves the villagers believing that Koning had become a Christian through the whole ordeal, believing that God was judging them for taking His pineapples, and the jungle coming to finally believe in the saving love of Jesus. It so blessed my heart! When the message was over, I’d sometimes have a hard time falling asleep.

The Lord was working in the garden of my own heart during those evening hours; preparing the soil for what He wanted to plant and nurture in my life. I didn’t know it then but some of the lessons that Koning was teaching would one day find powerful and needful application in my own life and ministry. There were nights back then in Vermont when I could have been little Samuel hearing the Lord calling his name at night in Eli’s house. The only difference for me, was that God’s voice came through the speakers of a Sony cassette player and not the air. But either way, I’m glad I heard it in heavenly stereo.

We’re looking forward to gathering in the morning that we might tend to the things of the Lord while having the Lord tend to matters of heart and soul. I can’t wait for the harvest supper of faith that we’re sure to enjoy! Isn’t it grand to be a Christian? May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

  • Pastor Tate
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