June 2021 Quote of the Day Blog

Continuing my project of recording one quote I hear or read on each day. I will update this note as the month progresses

JUNE: 12:

“When I went there [to Jana Novotna's house] for the very first time I was nervous because she was such an amazing person, such a big tennis player, big athlete and everything. She was always just very nice, very warm,” Krejcikova said.

“She wasn't acting like she won so many titles, that she's somebody special. She's always acting like a normal person… She always told me like, ‘Doesn't matter how many titles you're going to win, you always have to come and say hello, please, and thank you. It's very important to behave very nice'.

“I take all of this and I really appreciate because that's what she was actually doing. She was a great athlete. She was still very humble. She's a big role model. I just want to be the same as she was.”

— From this article about the new women's French Open champion: Barbora Krejčíková. It was her first major in singles, but she has won majors in doubles and mixed doubles in the past.

JUNE 11:

@AnaCabrera on TWITTER: "I found this decision so egregious that I resigned the day they made that announcement." --Dr. Joel Perlmutter, who sat on the FDA's advisory board, explain his biggest concerns about the FDA approval of a new Alzheimer's drug.

—From this tweet with an accompanying video. Between WHO shenanigans about pressuring governments to essentially ban treatments doctors find effective for Covid, and shady FDA practices, there's a lot happening to suggest medical science is being manipulated. 

JUNE 10:

@darren_cahill on TWITTER: There's no guarantee that mark shown by Hawkeye was correct as it hasn't passed the accuracy test in trials on clay. It's why it is not used. It dangerous to use Hawkeye to replay ball marks on clay (for TV) when it's not reliable enough yet for match play.

—NBC's tennis commentators are terrible. I wish Cahill was on their team because he is a MUCH better commentator who does a much better job at presenting the game and players to an audience.

JUNE 9:

@BastienFachan on TWITTER:
2018: Schwartzman ends Nadal’s 38-set winning streak at Roland-Garros
2021: Schwartzman ends Nadal’s 36-set winning streak at Roland-Garros
Just Diego things

JUNE 8:

@joshcarlosjosh on TWITTER:
me: "Jesus, should I buy this new book?"
Jesus: “Show me the latest new books you read.”
me: "I have no new books I've read."
Jesus: "You are right in saying, ‘I have no new books I've read,' for you have twenty-six new books, and the ones you now own you have not read."

JUNE 7:

ME: Today I learned there's a Latin edition of Winnie the Pooh.

JUNE 6:

@andrewbostom on TWITTER: "Cleveland Clinic Hlth Sys Study finds ZERO C19 reinfections during 5-month follow-up among n=1359 infected employees who remained unvaccinated and concludes such persons are “unlikely to benefit from C19 vaccination”  https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v2

—People who pay attention to science know that natural immunity is a powerful thing.

JUNE 5:

The way the word knowledge is used by many intellectuals often arbitrarily limits what verified information is to be considered knowledge. This arbitrary limitation of the scope of the word was expressed in a parody verse about Benjamin Jowett, master of Balliol College at Oxford University:

 

My name is Benjamin Jowett

If it's knowledge, I know it.

I am the master of this college.

What I don't know isn't knowledge.

Someone who is considered to be a "knowledgeable" person usually has a special kind of knowledge— perhaps academic or other kinds of knowledge not widely found in the population at large. Someone who has even more knowledge of more mundane things— plumbing, carpentry, or baseball, for example— is less likely to be called "knowledgeable" by those intellectuals for whom what they don't know isn't knowledge. Although the special kind of knowledge associated with intellectuals is usually valued more, and those who have such knowledge are usually accorded more prestige, it is by no means certain that the kind of knowledge mastered by intellectuals is necessarily more consequential in its effects in the real world. The same is true even of expert knowledge. No doubt those in charge of the Titanic had far more expertise in many aspects of seafaring than most ordinary had, but what was crucial in its consequences was the mundane knowledge of where particular icebergs happened to be located on a particular night. Many major economic decisions are likewise crucially dependent on the kind of mundane knowledge that intellectuals might disdain to consider to be knowledge in the sense in which they habitually use the word.

—From Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell.

JUNE 4:

@Melanchthon61 on Twitter:

Hillsong Oceans at Assembly.
"Lord, how often do we have to sing the chorus in Oceans? 7 times?"
"No," the Lord said, "7 x 70"

JUNE 3:

@StorySlug on TWITTER: Canonically, the Lord of the Rings is a memoir by hobbits, which has several detailed descriptions of meals throughout, so maybe the whole saga is just one of those recipe blogs where they have to tell you a whole epic story before getting to the food. 

JUNE 2:

In Christ, all things hold together
All things in heaven or on earth
The beginning and the end are His,
He the ground and fruit of all that's good.

—The verse from this song by Ami Andersen. I included some of her videos in my last Lent playlist, and they were some of my favorite finds on the list. I have very happy to discover she had put out new videos including this one.

JUNE 1:

"When sports and theology are two major interests, I've learned to read any Tweet containing "Kyrie" at least twice to see if we're talking more liturgy or layups."
—Seen on Twitter

May 2021 Quote of the Day Log

I went through a multi-year period a few years back where I recorded a quote that I heard or read for every day of the year. I have decided to resurrect this starting today. I will update this note as the month goes along with additional quotes as appropriate.

MAY 31:

MARY: ....."California Citrus" sounds like orange...?
RICHIE: You'd think that, but it doesn't have any orange in it.
—Talking about a flavor of kombucha I got to try.

MAY 30:

This evening, regretfully, our Secretary Mr. Seth Mahiga made the decision to resign from his position as Secretary of our society.

Seth's reason for resigning is that he has found Jesus Christ and is no longer interested in promoting atheism in Kenya.

—Tweeted out as an announcement by the Atheists in Kenya Society (@AtheistsInKenya)

MAY 29:

The three Nordic countries have all done much better than the United States in preventing excess deaths, and there’s one especially troubling difference: the rate of excess mortality among younger people. That rate soared last year among Americans in lockdown, but not among the Swedes, Norwegians, and Finns, who kept going to school, working, and socializing without masks during the pandemic. In fact, among people aged 15 to 64 in each of the Nordic countries, there have been fewer deaths than normal since the pandemic began.

—From this article.

MAY 28:

@TitaniaMcGrath on Twitter: Since it is impossible for black people to be racist, any white person who is not being racist is committing behavioural blackface.
Therefore, all non-racist white people are racist.

 —This is probably my favorite satire account on Twitter.

MAY 27:

"Do not pet the floofy cows."

—Seen in a tweet with a photo containing a sign with a picture of a bison and the above instruction. 

MAY 26:

@Stopnconsider on TWITTER: The world is working overtime to train up children in the way it wants them to go..are you doing the same, Christian parent?

MAY 25:

@HansFiene on TWITTER: Spent about 3 minutes listening to a self-help chat group on Clubhouse and good gimlet gravy, do people need Jesus.

MAY 24:

@Stopnconsider on TWITTER: Grass-fed beef is plant based.

MAY 23:

From the beginning of the pandemic, the hospitals that Marik and Varon led had COVID-19 beat. They achieved remarkably high survival rates at their hospitals at a time when 40 to 80 percent of patients in the U.S. and Europe were dying from the disease. Their success was achieved with the group’s now-famous MATH+ protocol for hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

The cocktail of safe, cheap, FDA-approved generic drugs—the steroid Methylprednisolone, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Thiamine (Vitamin B1), and the blood thinner Heparin—was the first comprehensive treatment using aggressive corticosteroid and anti-coagulant treatments to stop COVID-19 deaths. Both were novel approaches strongly recommended against by all national and international health care agencies throughout the world, but later studies made both therapies the global standard of hospital care. In addition, Kory, Marik, et. al published the first comprehensive COVID-19 prevention and early treatment protocol (which they would eventually call I-MASK). It is centered around the drug Ivermectin, which President Trump used at Walter Reed hospital, unreported by the press, though it may well have saved the president’s life while he was instead touting new big pharma drugs.

 —From this article. There is a lot more in the article about Ivermectin and how established medicine ignores positive outcomes from "unproven" sources. This is why I get annoyed when people take government agency health advice and recommended treatment protocols as the only viable science. In some cases, government agencies are aware of the valid science behind alternatives, and knowingly decide to suppress it anyway. Some "alternative" therapies are extremely effective for certain populations that react very badly to recommended treatments, but politics decides to sacrifice these people to bad outcomes for the sake of power and money.

MAY 22:

Here the Christian is a larva dei, a mask of God, by which God gives daily bread to the inhabitants of the world. In this sense the Christian is a "little Christ" to his neighbor. Again in [The Freedom of the Christian] Luther writes: "Just as our neighbor is in need and lacks that in which we abound, so we were in need before God and lacked his mercy. Hence, as our heavenly Father has in Christ freely come to our aid, we also ought freely to help our neighbor through our body and its works, and each one become as it were a Christ to the other that we may be Christ to one another." Just as Christ sacrificed Himself for us on the cross, we give ourselves sacrificially to the neighbor in love.

 —From Praying Luther's Small Catechism by John T. Pless

MAY 21:

NEWS ANCHOR: "The Red Cross said anyone who has received their COVID-19 vaccine cannot donate convalescent plasma to help other COVID-19 patients in hospitals. That plasma is made up of antibodies from people who have recovered from the virus, but the vaccine wiped out those antibodies, making the convalescent plasma ineffective in treating other COVID-19 patients."

—From a video seen in this tweet.

MAY 20:

@ThyGeekdomCome on TWITTER:
My wife discovered a salsa today labeled “extra medium.” If that ain’t a description of my personality, I don’t know what is.

MAY 19:

ME: I like how when they said, "Do something funny," your first thought was: "Murder."

 —Said to a middle schooler. They were doing a group choir photo, and she pretended to choke her friend for the picture.

MAY 18:

TWEET:

me: I need tires
michelin: here you go
me: now if only someone could rate my restaurant
michelin: you're not gonna believe this

 MAY 17:

The final petition of the Lord's Prayer ["but deliver us from evil"] is uttered against the eschatological horizon: "and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven" [quoted from a prayer expanding upon the Lord's Prayer petition]. Werner Elert wisely noted: "Some live in the light of the Last Day, others in its shadow." Christians live in its light and so pray with confident hope for the final deliverance through the darkness of death into the radiance of heaven's unfailing light.

—From Praying Luther's Small Catechism by John T. Pless

MAY 16:

TWITCH CHATTER: Is this a blind playthrough?
CARLSAGAN42: This is a thab playthrough.

—Thabeast721 started a blind playthrough of the game Celeste last night. He beat the main game (getting about half of the secrets) in a little over 4 hours. This was, apparently, wildly impressive for many watchers who thought he was not playing blind based on how good he was doing.

MAY 15:

"Morawska had spent more than two decades advising a different branch of the WHO on the impacts of air pollution. When it came to flecks of soot and ash belched out by smokestacks and tailpipes, the organization readily accepted the physics she was describing—that particles of many sizes can hang aloft, travel far, and be inhaled. Now, though, the WHO’s advisers seemed to be saying those same laws didn’t apply to virus-laced respiratory particles. To them, the word airborne only applied to particles smaller than 5 microns. Trapped in their group-specific jargon, the two camps on Zoom literally couldn’t understand one another.

"When the call ended, Marr sat back heavily, feeling an old frustration coiling tighter in her body. She itched to go for a run, to pound it out footfall by footfall into the pavement. “It felt like they had already made up their minds and they were just entertaining us,” she recalls. Marr was no stranger to being ignored by members of the medical establishment. Often seen as an epistemic trespasser, she was used to persevering through skepticism and outright rejection. This time, however, so much more than her ego was at stake. The beginning of a global pandemic was a terrible time to get into a fight over words. But she had an inkling that the verbal sparring was a symptom of a bigger problem—that outdated science was underpinning public health policy. She had to get through to them. But first, she had to crack the mystery of why their communication was failing so badly."

—From this article that provides a glimpse of how doctors and scientists sometimes ignore observable phenomena and data in favor of preconceived ideas. This can be very dangerous to people who don't react to treatments like the majority, and is harder to fix over time as the "prevailing wisdom" becomes ingrained. 

MAY 14:

"Just as pathogens have different ways of infecting and affecting us, the vaccines that scientists develop employ different immunological strategies. Most of the vaccines we get in childhood prevent pathogens from replicating inside us and thereby also prevent us from transmitting the infections to others. But scientists have so far been unable to make these kinds of sterilizing vaccines for complicated pathogens like HIV, anthrax and malaria. To conquer these diseases, some researchers have been developing immunizations that prevent disease without actually preventing infections — what are called “leaky” vaccines. And these new vaccines may incite a different, and potentially scarier, kind of microbial evolution.

"Virulence, as a trait, is directly related to replication: The more pathogens that a person’s body houses, the sicker that person generally becomes. A high replication rate has evolutionary advantages — more microbes in the body lead to more microbes in snot or blood or stool, which gives the microbes more chances to infect others — but it also has costs, as it can kill hosts before they have the chance to pass on their infection. The problem with leaky vaccines, Read says, is that they enable pathogens to replicate unchecked while also protecting hosts from illness and death, thereby removing the costs associated with increased virulence. Over time, then, in a world of leaky vaccinations, a pathogen might evolve to become deadlier to unvaccinated hosts because it can reap the benefits of virulence without the costs — much as Marek’s disease has slowly become more lethal to unvaccinated chickens. This virulence can also cause the vaccine to start failing by causing illness in vaccinated hosts."

—From this 2018 article. From what I've heard about the new Covid vaccines, it sounds like they are not fully "sterilizing," and consequently have at least an element of "leaky" vaccines. Combine this with vaccine scientists who have voiced concerns about the vaccines causing faster and worse mutations and a greater problem than if we didn't use them, and you see my concern. Yet, the prevailing narrative is that the vaccines will stop mutations, and it is the unvaccinated that are a "threat." I don't think this view is grounded in scientific thinking.

MAY 13:

"Special no thanks to:
Whales,
The vermin of the ocean"

—In the credits of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Seen while watching Thabeast721 play it as part of his challenge to beat every game on the N64.

MAY 12:

"Oh, grant, dear Lord, this grace to me,
Recalling your ascension,
That I may serve you faithfully,
Adorning your redemption;
And then, when all my days will cease,
Let me depart in joy and peace
In answer to my pleading."                       
                                            LSB 492:3

—This was one of the hymns for the chapel service I played for this morning.

MAY 11:

"This camera angle doesn't allow us to see if Dr. Fauci's pants are on fire, or if his fingers are crossed, but do note his sense of urgency in replacing his mask at the end, presumably to conceal his suddenly expanding nose."

—Quoted from this tweet. This tweet thread provides additional documentation that Rand Paul was correct and Dr. Fauci was lying.

MAY 10:

YOUTUBE COMMENT: The civilized way of taking Ma’moul out of the mold 😂 we don’t usually use plastic wrap we smash it till the neighbors know that we are making Ma’moul 😂

—Comment on this emmymade video

MAY 9:

TEXT-TO-SPEECH: If you competed against a shark in a triathlon, the shark would win the swimming and you would win the running, so would it come down to the cycling?

THABEAST721: Thanks [screen-name] for the [whatever Twitch donation]. I think you're right. That makes sense.

MAY 8:

"Timmy, if you show up in my run one more time..............no more.......things...that Timmy.....likes. I don't know. Bad Timmy!"

—From the intro of this YouTube video by Thabeast721.

 MAY 7:

"I eat more cereal at night than in the morning and that’s just who I am now."
—Seen on Twitter

MAY 6:

[In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,] Deep Magic lays out a standard of expected moral and civil behavior, and the Witch's comments on it clarify the consequences of failure to live up to that standard. But the moral law itself is not the property of one religion. Only when Aslan volunteers to take Edmund's place does Christian significance emerge. Again the story treats the matter in terms of magic. Transcending Deep Magic is "Deeper Magic from before the Dawn of Time," a magic inherent not in created things but in their creator, the greater magic of God's grace, love, and forgiveness.

That Deep magic appears in the story before Deeper Magic is important. Lewis had said in his radio talks that for the latter to make sense they must be considered in that order: "It is after you have realised that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power — it is after all this, and not a moment sooner that Christianity begins to talk." So it is too in Narnia. Readers of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe are first made aware of the fundamental moral law — by recognizing Edmund's treachery first to Lucy and then to the others
— in order that Aslan's death may convey it's full meaning.

—From The Way into Narnia: A Reader's Guide by Peter J. Schakel.
As a Lutheran, the above quote makes me think of Law of Gospel. Lutheran theology's hermeneutic of Law and Gospel is something I value greatly because it is basically an even more focused version of what is discussed above.

MAY 5:

MARY: What are the people who patrol the forest called......?
ME: Park ranger.
MARY: Yes! You look like a ranger on their day off.
ME: I could hear your brain trying to think of "ranger" like: "Mountie.....no......mountie.........no......."
MARY: *Laughs in agreement*

—Mary was watching a DVD of "When Calls the Heart" when this exchange happened.

MAY 4:

Third Commandment

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

What does this mean?

We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.

By Your Word and Spirit, draw us away from our restless labor that we might find rest in You alone, merciful God. Grant that, fearing and loving You above all things, we may never despise the preaching of Your Word of Life, but hold it sacred an gladly hear and learn it; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

[. . .]

The Third Commandment builds a protective fence, as it were, around time so that there is a space to hear God's Word. Human busyness—even devotion to the necessary tasks of life—is not allowed to interfere with the one thing that is needful, the hearing of the words of Jesus, which are spirit and life.

This commandment is fulfilled when the triune God is doing His life-giving work through His Word.

[. . .]

When this commandment is fulfilled, hearts are set free and lips are open to call upon God in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. But for this to take place, God's Word must first be heard, for faith comes only by hearing this saving message (Romans 10:17).

—From "Praying Luther's Small Catechism" by John T. Pless

MAY 3:

Prayer learns how to listen to the Word of the Lord and out of that listening to speak to Him. In so doing, prayer is the Christian's engagement in battle against Satan. There is no neutrality here; either one is aligned with the triune God or with the devil.

Positively, to pray the catechism is to learn how to speak to God the Father in the name of the Son through the Holy Spirit who calls us to faith in the Gospel. It is based on God's command and promise. Negatively, the same prayer is directed against the devil as he would pull us away from the Father through distrust of the Son, causing us to doubt the promises of the Gospel. For Luther, prayer involves spiritual warfare, and the catechism is weaponry for this battle, both defensively and offensively.

The power of the catechism is the power of the Word of God which, it carries.

—From the opening chapter of "Praying Luther's Small Catechism" by John T. Pless

MAY 2:

LITURGIST: Oh, now you set up out here.

—The sound tech at church for the parking lot service had set up inside due to weather to protect equipment (cold and threat of rain) the last time I played for the service. The pastor and liturgist still had to be outside for that service, and they were unhappy about freezing that day. We could set up outside today since it was a very nice day, so the same pastor and liturgist gave the sound tech a hard time.

 MAY 1:

MARY [to me]: The door might close on you.
*Door immediately attacks me*
ME: It did.

Summer Series: Influences #1—"What Shall I Render to the Lord"

I've decided I'm going to do a series of posts over the summer about specific influences I recognize as having a large impact in shaping my outlook, behavior, or taste. Some will be musical examples, some will be book passages, some might be events. Some I will have realized their impact at the time, and others I will have only recognized the impact looking back.

I'm starting with "What Shall I Render to the Lord" by Richard Hillert. It is the Offertory from Divine Service Setting 1 in Lutheran Service Book. I wish I could find a good video that has good singing in it, but the organ-only video below is the best I can do. The text is below and is drawn from Psalm 116:

What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me?

I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call on the name of the Lord.

I will take the cup of salvation and will call on the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people,in the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem.

I grew up singing this in church roughly every other week. I always liked it, but I don't think I appreciated it as much as I should have until the churches I attend/work for stopped using it for various reasons. I've probably only sang it in services ten times or so in the last decade, and I miss singing it.

One great thing about the liturgy is that you memorize the texts since you sing them so regularly. I still have the text of this canticle memorized even though I rarely sing it anymore. I consider this a great thing because this text helped me properly value three ideas linked to three phrases in the canticle:

     

     1.  "I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving..."

         Many people talk about what we must give to God for Him to be pleased with us. They say belief and faith is all well and good, but it is nothing without some sort of additional work, or effort, or sacrifice. Contrast that with how Psalm 116 and, consequently, the canticle deal with the idea of a sacrifice in response to the benefits God gives to us. The sacrifice offered is thanksgiving. We have nothing to give to God. God is the one doing the giving. We receive and give thanks, recognizing that all good gifts come from God, and nothing we have is our own.

            

      2. "...and will call on the name of the Lord."

          This phrase being repeated twice in a short canticle really drives home the point that all times are the right time to call on the name of the Lord. God has created us, saved us, sustains us, protects us, does all things for us, and gives all things to us. There is never a bad time to call on the name of the One who holds the entire universe in His hands.

     
     3.  "I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem."

          The ending of the canticle helped teach me to value attending church. Some people think they can do it on their own apart from attending church, but it is a huge gift to have the support and accountability of gathering corporately. It holds us accountable to ourselves in helping us realize when we are breaking the 1st commandment and valuing other things above God in our lives and in how we are using the gifts God has given us. It provides encouragement and witness to others within the Lord's house, while also giving us accountability with them to be faithful together. And it provides witness to the greater community around the church of our recognition that we are not our own—that we and our time, talents, and treasures belong to God. This means our priorities and behaviors might seem very strange to those outside the church, but having them notice and witness this "strangeness" is a great thing and an opportunity to provide further witness.

Another reason I'm starting with this canticle in this series is I've told multiple people that I blame this canticle and the liturgy setting it is from for why I'm a professional musician. I've also come to the realization that it had a huge impact on my musical taste and musicianship. First, It is very crafted music, and it has some difficulty to it. It is very difficult to hear once and have completely in your head. It is music that must be lived with. The melody requires vocal flexibility to sing, and the long phrases require good breath support and control to make it through.  I had to train myself to become a good musician to sing it properly, and I was singing this canticle long before I had any formal musical training.

Second, it blends new and old wonderfully. It has qualities of chant and modal writing indicative of centuries ago, but it also shows elements of a more modern harmonic approach indicative to 20th century classical music. It creates a sort of timeless sound. Much of my favorite music has this same sort of timeless quality and blend of old and new.

Lastly, it is thoughtful music. It helped teach me that music doesn't have to be flashy to be powerful—it doesn't have to be fast, it doesn't have to be loud, it doesn't have to be triumphant. Sometimes the most powerful music is the music that gives a sense of quiet resolve. There is power in music when there is recognition that some will miss the point or not understand, but it holds true to its underlying priorities of service to a text and the truth it conveys anyway. Thoughtful music is in it for the long game. Flash comes and goes, but the truth thoughtful music centers itself around will not.

Throwback Thursday: The stupidest thing I've ever done.

Today is exactly two years since I did the stupidest thing I've ever done. What is that you ask? Oh, you know, just driving back from Indy in horrific conditions after driving down to Indy during a snow emergency in -22 degree F weather with steady winds of 20+ miles per hour the previous day.

It was an adventure all right.

2015 Year in Review

This was a weird year for me and my 2015 did its best to defy summation. That said, let's just jump right in.

The little that never runs out

I'm a bit behind in writing this, but the Old Testament reading in the lectionary last week was the story of Elijah and The Widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17: 8-16 [ESV]:

Then the word of the Lord came to him, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’” And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

God told Elijah that he had commanded a widow there to feed him, but the widow didn't seem to know this when Elijah asked for food. She only had a little flour and a little oil, and was prepared to make one last meal of bread, eat it, and die! It appears like she had so little she had despaired of earthly provision. But God was there nonetheless.

She heard the promises of Elijah about what the Lord would do for her, and the little she had became the little that did not run out.

The world tends to measure provision in money, food, or possessions, or even good health, happiness, or lack of suffering. But plenty of God's children find themselves without some or all of these things. Yet, God surely provides for His children, even if the world is blind in seeing His provision.

God provides and sustains faith--sometimes maybe only the size of a mustard seed. But even just a little faith provided and sustained by God becomes the little that never runs out, even when all of the things the world looks to are gone. Even in death.

The closing stanza of the hymn "Jesus Lives! The Victory's Won" comes to mind:

Jesus lives! And now is death

       But the gate of life immortal;

This shall calm my trembling breath

       When I pass its gloomy portal.

Faith shall cry, as fails each sense:

Jesus is my confidence!

--Lutheran Service Book #490

I wonder if the widow was planning to eat and die out of despair, or if she planned to meet death in the knowledge faith brings that death couldn't hurt her. Maybe she was secure in accepting what God provided to sustain her, even when this means all earthly things have been taken away and meeting death in faith.

God's provision surely does sometimes include earthly wealth, health, happiness, and comfort. I'm thankful that I have been blessed with always having ample provision of my earthly needs. It is not hard to accept these gifts of provision from God. But we can learn with the widow to accept the provision God gives even when it means using up the very last of our earthly store and being unafraid of death. For with the confidence of faith provided and sustained by God, we can walk through death as the gate of life immortal.

Yes, we surely can be content in all circumstances and rejoice in the Lord always. For God provides us with and sustains us in faith, which, no matter how small a gift the world sees this faith as, is the little that never runs out.

On the Cross Our Sins Christ Carried (Baptism Hymn)

I've shared on this blog before a few of my original hymn texts, but there are many I've written that I haven't shared. The 4th hymn text I wrote was for a hymn for use at Baptisms, and I think the time has come to finally put it up here. You can find the text below, but let me explain why today is the perfect day to share it.