Walking with Pongo and Wendell by Wil Triggs

Wendell Hawley’s book of prayers, ones he first prayed at College Church during his time of pastoral ministry here, are in the process of being printed into a new edition. I think it’s going to be beautiful, something many of us will want for our bookshelves and our hearts.
 
It’s not ready yet, but the publisher I’ve been working with on behalf of Wendell has sent the author’s proof, and I’ve been reading his prayers again. We used to use the prayers in our musings, but Wendell at some point told us to stop. He wanted to encourage Lorraine and me to write more of our own musings. He wanted to see what we would say week after week. So, we have respected his wishes. Until now.
 
Wendell, it’s just a few lines. This small portion of the first prayer in the section for October jumped out at me:
 
“Sovereign Lord, your greatness is unsearchable.
                Your goodness is infinite.
                Your compassion unfailing.
                Your mercies ever new.”
 
I walk my dog in the morning and consider the unsearchable greatness of the one Sovereign Lord. As my little min pin dodges through the grass to the tree trunks in the parkway and what bushes he can reach, I find myself thinking of greatness, goodness, compassion, mercies.
 
Unsearchable greatness, yes, but not unknowable. There are ways that we can know God. And we are invited to search the Scriptures and, in that sense, we do know him through a kind of searching. Never completely to know, but always a little bit more, day by day, to know him whom we cannot see, the One whose greatness we cannot search.
 
My dog cannot be outside unleashed. It’s his breed, impossible to catch if he gets loose without his leash. I want to be as tethered to God and his infinite greatness as my dog must be to his leash.
 
As I watch my dog sniffing, the walk turns into a run to whatever happens to be in front of us, to whatever smells good. The dog is intent on finding this goodness in the moment. And though I may be oblivious, he is attuned to all kinds of good things I can’t smell or hear.
 
What to make of infinite goodness? We might strive for a few acts of true goodness. Maybe try to do something good every day. Yes, let us all try for something good on this day. But our goodness, or maybe I’ll just speak for myself and say, my goodness is definitely finite. Short-lived goodness. That’s my kind. It is at its best when it knows that it really isn’t mine at all, but an echo or a shadow of the only good and wise One.
 
My dog has a different idea of goodness from Lorraine or me.
 
When we had two dogs and we were out of the house, they managed to break open a down-filled pillow. It was a good time, no, a great time for them, emptying out the pillow onto the bedroom floor—a foot of snow feathers blanketing a winter storm throughout our bedroom and floating down, down, down the stairs so that when we got home we saw the hint of it in the little down feather suspended in the air like the first snowflakes of the season.
 
Dog goodness and human goodness might occasionally align, but this was not one of those moments. My goodness so often falls under the category of down feathers let loose from their pillow-home. We come home and find the mess of goodness and clean it up as quickly as possible. By the time we’re done, the dogs have forgotten the feathers and moved on to a master-given chew toy. God’s goodness is not my goodness. His goodness follows us all the days of our lives, and cleanses us, not the other way around.
 
If goodness is in short supply, it seems like compassion, not to mention “unfailing compassion,” is even more of a rarity.
 
And the mercy of Jesus, wait, Wendell is saying mercies. Plural. These are ever new, not because they need to be but because every day of my whack-a-mole world requires a new mercy. Or two. Make that three or more.

My little dog breed was created to catch mice on farms in Germany, but here in Winfield, we don’t want him bringing us mice. We don’t want mice dead or alive dangling down the side of his mouth. Thankfully he hasn’t been doing that.
 
But here we are on our walk in the almost sun-up shadows of early morning.
 
I think of the dog of a former work colleague of Lorraine’s, who once proudly presented her with the pet parakeet bird in its mouth. Fortunately (for the dog), they loved the dog more than the bird.
 
Like a stubborn bloodhound kind of dog, I keep digging up folly. Every day I find some new folly particular to the day. I smell it, digging and picking it up with my mouth. I look up at my master. Look what I dug up now. Mercifully, he takes the dirt-covered moldy thing I’m so proud of finding. I release my jaws to his pull and there, it’s gone by God’s new and perfect mercy. We walk together.

Grateful for the leash.
 
Wendell goes on: “You are altogether lovely—superior in all things.”
 
This is not the apex of the prayer. It’s just there in the middle, not a complete thought even in itself and yet just these few lines stay with me. Like this pre-dawn ordinary walk on this October early day, I think and don’t think. My dear little dog is faithful in ways that I’m not. He is always happy for me to come home. He is always ready for a walk, always happy to just be in the same room with me. So, there are some ways that I can learn from him, to always be ready and happy to see and love my Lord.
 
As the sun comes up and the morning grey gives way to colors, I say along with Wendell, “Lord, you truly are altogether lovely.”

The Queen of Sheba by Lorraine Triggs

My mother was no Old Testament scholar though she did have an unconventional handle on Old Testament characters, thanks in part to her upbringing in an Orthodox Jewish home. These characters were often used as standards for our behavior, sometimes as good examples, sometimes bad.

The most frequent standard bearer was the queen of Sheba, as in “And who do you think you are, the queen of Sheba?” This was not a rhetorical question and typically posed when my mother thought my sisters and I were putting on airs—acting as if we were better or more deserving than others. " No," we hemmed and hawed, "we’re not the Queen of Sheba, but…"

In 1 Kings 10 we meet the queen of Sheba. She had heard all about Solomon and came to test him with hard questions, and she "arrived in Jerusalem with a large group of attendants and a great caravan of camels loaded with spices, large quantities of gold, and precious jewels.” (10:2, NLT)

The queen wasn’t a bad queen. She told Solomon that his wisdom and prosperity surpassed what she had heard. She saw how happy his men and servants were, and she blessed Solomon’s God, acknowledging that the Lord had set him on the throne.

It’s not until I read 1 Kings 10:13 that I begin to understand what was behind my mother’s question: “King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba whatever she asked for besides all the customary gifts he had so generously given. Then she and all her attendants returned to their own land.” (NLT) Even if Mother were as wealthy as Solomon, there was no way she would have given my sibs and me whatever we asked for—hence, the comparison to the queen of Sheba—and why were we asking anyhow? My childhood was far from austere; however, my mother did not want her daughters to grow up what we label today, as entitled.

It’s a word loaded with connotations, but in the end its definition is simple: a belief that we deserve or are entitled to certain privileges—even when it comes to salvation. Say what? We don’t believe in salvation by works, but there are times when we think salvation is more by entitlement than by grace. Like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable in Luke 18, we’re impressed with ourselves and what we bring to salvation—status, wealth, achievement. Isn’t Christendom lucky to have us? Instead, let’s be more like the tax collector in the parable, overwhelmed with our sin, overwhelmed with God’s mercy and grace.  

So, who do we think we are—the queen of Sheba who came to King Solomon with her retinue of gold, camels and spices?

No, we are the not the queen of Sheba. We come, instead, with nothing in our hands, no money for food or water, to the greater eternal king and receive the bread of life, living water and words that are more precious than gold—fragrant with gospel spices of death, burial and resurrection.

Dark Glasses by Wil Triggs

Lorraine and I like to watch a television series whose sponsor is a river cruise company. Before each show starts, there’s a commercial for the cruise line. There are shots of sunny days with the cruise ship floating down the European river.
 
My only actual contact with a river cruise was when we were at a summer camp ministry in Russia, back when that kind of thing was allowed. The campsite was situated by a wide, lovely river, and whenever we went down to the river, campers and leaders alike would wave at people aboard the cruise ships passing by and the passengers would wave back at us. This idyllic scene would have made a great commercial for the cruise company.
 
The camp leaders, however, wanted us to see something different, and for some reason, were eager to take us to the evangelical church in town.
 
Camp felt a long way from town, but it really wasn’t that far. It was just a short ride to the center where the church was, so they took us there for a short visit in between camps when one batch of campers had gone and other one would soon arrive.
 
We went in and the church had a display of its former pastors who had been arrested and sent to the Gulag. It was like a little museum. Each pastor had preached the gospel and been sent off to prison. Some died there. Others returned to some form of normal life. The church cherished them enough to remember them in this public way. It was the first thing you saw when you walked through the front doors.
 
This church and their persecuted pastors came to mind this week, as our Bible study looked at Paul writing to the church in Philippi while he was in prison. The mutual prayer support, the words of assurance, the call to faithful living and unity in Christ shine across the Roman world and through the ages to the church and those pastors in the Gulag, and to us.
 
I’ve read of different descriptions of Paul in prison, different ways the ancient world treated their criminals. Prisoners were chained, as Paul describes himself “in chains.” Sometimes attached at the foot, sometimes at the neck. The rooms that were dark, with little or no light and little or no air circulation. Unsanitary conditions would have been an understatement, with rats and vermin. Little or no food. Guards exacting bribes for food or better treatment.
 
Some house arrest situations seem not as horrific. A prisoner of lesser crimes awaiting trial might be held in house arrest, but always with a guard, allowed visitors and food. It wasn’t freedom exactly. For our modern life sensibilities, the upper-story prison would be plenty bad enough. Still, in was no picnic.

Whatever Paul faced, the chains, darkness, lack of privacy, toilet indignities and the mocking and beating from other prisoners or guards themselves--even just one or two of these would easily give our weak constitutions more than we can handle.
 
I think probably Paul experienced many prison variations over the course of his ministry. His witness to the imperial guard and the household of Caesar happened through chains.
 
This week, I received photos of another sort. A friend and missionary sent me a photo of pastors at his church in Ukraine. It was an ordination that took place at an outdoor service of thanks. Each man is kneeling and the pastors behind them are praying as they commit their lives and future work to God and his ministry at church. You can see the fervor and faith as they kneel and close their eyes looking forward to futures of ministry and gospel outreach. Something’s coming for each of them. They have a future.

What will become of these people called to ministry in time of war? What of their families and their congregations? How many will com to faith under the ministries of these men? They may also be called into military service--what then? What if their country falls to their invader? These are open questions as the nation of Ukraine calls up more men to fight in their war. Yet there they are kneeling in prayer and faith.
 
It’s not this life but the next that motivates. It’s not an earthly father but the heavenly one we honor and serve. It’s not bad news but good that is our message. May we each carry it and speak it in whatever this day brings. I look at these four men an saw, "Yes." God's path is best and they are all in. May we be too. 
 
When we put on the glasses of faith, the lenses are dark. We are not yet seeing face to face, but with faith we know Jesus and follow him wherever the path may lead. Let us lean on his everlasting arms no matter what.

We celebrate and rejoice in Paul, even Paul in chains, we celebrate the pastors memorialized in the Russian church. We look forward with eager hearts to see how God will bless others through the pastors in Ukraine and us and and others all over the world, stepping forward, kneeling in service, willing to give themselves, body and soul, to Jesus and his gospel, our only hope and only reason to live at all.
 
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have. Philippians 1:29-30
 
What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms?
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
 
Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Blind Leading the Blind by Lorraine Triggs

It began with a simple, low-prep opening activity to the Bible story, “Abraham Followed God” for Kindergarten Bible school. Blindfold Teacher Wil and ask a few kids to give him directions to his promised coffee on the window ledge in our room.

It was a fine activity, until I thought it through a bit more on Sunday morning. You see, unlike adults' aversion to volunteering, I knew I would have 30 eager volunteers wanting to give directions to Teacher Wil. The question was how could I involve all of them? Then I walked into the preschool resource room for inspiration, and spotted the answer clearly labeled on a bin: foam hopscotch squares.

Back in the room, I randomly placed the squares on the floor. When it was time for large group and the activity, I grouped two-three kids around each square, the teachers strategically placed themselves between the squares, and Teacher Wil tied the blindfold over his eyes.

I stood by one of the squares and explained that when I stood by your square, it was your turn to guide Teacher Wil to the next square and number. They could say go straight, turn right, go back two steps and so on. We wanted Wil to get to his coffee at the last square.

It turned out to be a game of the blind leading the blind, as all the children shouted directions, clueless to right or left or straight—or the chairs until Wil crashed into them. We teachers added to the chorus, “Only give directions when it’s your turn. Teacher Wil can’t hear you.”

Despite the chaos, I am happy to report that Wil made it to his coffee without injury.

For a people who walk by faith, there are times we walk around more like the blind leading the blind, stumbling in the chaos that surrounds us. Unlike Abraham, who “went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8), we want to know where we’re going. This uncertainty makes it easier to listen to other voices who promise to deliver the tangible results we want now, not later as we trek to a distant land. It can be tough to hear the right voice to follow when there are so many other voices shouting well-meaning but incorrect instructions.

Full disclosure here: I can handle the external chaos; it’s the loose ends in my life that I want tied up and neatly packaged. But what if those loose ends aren’t tied to the results I want, but tied, say to a shepherd’s staff that comforts me in the shadow of death. And what if that staff belongs to a very Good Shepherd who calls his own sheep by name, leads them to green pastures and still waters—who lays his life down for those sheep.

His is the only voice we need to hear and heed—the voice who calls us to follow him and his goodness and mercy all the days of our lives.

The Master has called us; the road may be dreary,
and dangers and sorrows are strewn on the track;
but God's Holy Spirit shall comfort the weary;
we follow the Savior and cannot turn back;
The Master has called us: though doubt and temptation
may compass our journey, we cheerfully sing:
"press onward, look upward," thru much tribulation;
the children of Zion must follow their King.
“The Master Hath Come”, verse two, Sarah Doudney

Engraved Invitation by Wil Triggs

It’s September, the month Lorraine and I got married.
 
We’ve been married for a lot of years, but not so many that I’ve forgotten the stress of not being married and planning our wedding. I remember it well. We had a weekly meeting to go over all of the nuts and bolts of our wedding plan.
 
The way we invite people to weddings has totally changed. We had engraved invitations sent out by mail with little reply cards enclosed so people could say if they were coming. 
 
Some might remember this response to a question with another albeit sarcastic question, “What do you want—an engraved invitation?” This is a rejoinder that has lost its meaning, I’m afraid.
 
So now would be the right time to tell you that our engraved invitation had a typo in it. It wasn’t either of our names. Most people might not notice or even know that it was wrong. But as two people working in communications, this was embarrassing to say the least. 
 
When Lorraine saw it, she said to me, “We can’t get married.” There wasn’t time to correct the mistake, so her answer was simple. No wedding.
 
From my way of thinking, we had two choices, mail the invitations out and live with it. Or don’t mail them and opt for a smaller venue. Not getting married was not one of the two options before us.
 
We mailed them out. People were gracious. We got married.
 
Most of the time now invitations are predictably electronic. We recently got a nicely designed announcement of a relative’s wedding. It’s on our refrigerator, and it directs us to the website where we can reply and also see their wedding registry. We are excited for them.
 
I have no idea how much their wedding is going to cost, but I know it will be a lot. 
 
One New York City couple featured in Brides magazine had an invitation list of 350 people. They would get married in a big cathedral, ride around the city in a double decker bus, stopping for photo ops at various landmarks, eat steak and lobster dinner in One Trade Center. The cost was about $150,000.
 
News agencies picked up the story, and the couple explained that they needed to figure out a way to winnow the guest from 350 to 60, the number of people who would fit on the double decker bus. “It was stressful,” the groom told the reporter. “We had to figure out a way for them to choose us, because we can’t choose them.”
 
So, this couple’s wedding invitation asked each invitee to purchase a ticket to the wedding day for $333 apiece. Problem solved: their guest list fell from 350 people invited to 60 who paid up. Everyone could fit on the bus.
 
A wedding between a man and a woman can be fraught--tensions with relatives or about-to-be relatives, disagreements between the bride and groom, more bills than necessary, awkwardnesses of where to seat different people, weather, food, flowers, the list could go on and on. 
 
The day comes and something new is born. The church witnesses the wonder: two become one. But there is more.
 
God’s invitation needs no whittling down. His invitation is extravagant, probably reckless from a mere human perspective. It’s a head-crushing invitation. This invitation can drown an army in a river, close the mouths of ravenous lions, keep people alive in the hottest of furnace fires. It’s a man impaled on a spike he fashioned for his enemy. It’s the hated brother who all but died rescuing the ones who threw him into a pit to die. It’s oasis in drought. It’s wine where water belongs. Its words engraved on hearts, a message written on bloodied hands and the side of the groom himself. It’s the proclaiming of love above all else. It’s the bride blushing with the realization that the groom longs for her. From betrayed to betrothed, she turns to him and says the words from the Last Supper with a new meaning, “Is it I?” (Mark 14:19)
 
Oil lamps filled in anticipation. Yes. Come.
 
Coming to the pagan jungles of Manhattan to the prisons of North Korea to the apartment churches hiding from electronic surveillance in China to the Christian widow in the Middle East who lives with her son and daughter-in-law who want her out of the apartment she gave them when her husband died, out because she believes in Jesus--all of them turning to Jesus with the blushing, humble shy beauty of a maiden who senses a love never before cast her way, looking into his eager eyes, she marvels, “Is it I?”
 
The Marriage Supper of the Lamb
Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
 
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
    the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
    and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
    and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
    with fine linen, bright and pure”—
 
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
 
And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”
(Revelation 19:6-9)

An Expert in Resiliency by Lorraine Triggs

The title of the essay caught my attention: “I Used to Be Resilient. What Happened?” The writer, Erik Vance, went on to say that defining resiliency is tricky. We often think of it as standing up to adversity or the ability to bounce back or adaptability.

Vance wanted to go deeper than what he described as a “sort of tough-guy stiff upper lip” resiliency, so he talked to Michael Ungar, a professor of social work at Dalhousie University in Canada, who said that resilience is multiple processes that will make it possible for you to thrive under stress.”

In the essay, Vance cited an expert who said that she “has found the most powerful predictor of resilience to traumatic events is your connection to something larger than your own self, whether it’s God, family, country or just the local P.T.A.”

If thriving under stress is the mark of resiliency, the Apostle Paul may have been the most resilient person ever.

Wrote the apostle to his community (another predictor of resilience) who lived in Corinth, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8‒9)

Resiliency experts also said that finding what keeps you balanced is crucial to resiliency—or not, if you’re Paul, our resident resiliency expert. He blurred the lines between work-life balance, with labors, sleepless nights, hunger, being poured out as a drink offering, all part of the job.

Paul certainly was resilient, but not for the reasons the experts gave. Paul flourished under stress because he knew that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”  (Romans 5:3‒5)

I don't always flourish under trials. I can be nagged by guilt of what I could have done to avoid the suffering, or there's a sense of shame that I am not quite up to living the victorious Christian life. Why else am I suffering?

Until I reread what Paul wrote in Romans. What? No guilt or shame there, but hope and God's love poured into my heart to his glory? I’m not ready to claim Paul’s title of the most resilient person ever, but I am ready to thrive and flourish.

The graced truth behind trials is that we never had the ability to flourish or bounce back on our own. We had to depend on another’s ability to bounce back from death to life, humility to exaltation, and along the way he calls enemies friends, makes old, new and turns light, momentary afflictions into eternal weights of glory.

At the Door by Wil Triggs

The doorbell rings: there’s a person there.
A student worker on summer break
Selling magazines or books, siding or roof repair
Asphalt, concrete, slate, tiles or shake.
A neighbor with misdelivered mail
A man peddling a patio sail.
 
So much for my uninterrupted day
This person, I wonder, is this a job of choice?
So the knock on the door comes anyway
When no bell finds answer, the knock finds voice.
I'll open the door knowing I’ll be saying no
To whatever it is on offer saying I don’t know.
 
The thing is, I don’t understand,
I start to feel bad for the salespeople,
the student or the woman or the man;
consider the bills, the tuition, the people
Depending on something coming in
A failed penitential sort of sin.
 
A heart, not mine, a door, not me
Am I so busy with the bride
The groom I cannot see.
To the backyard garden I hide
No door or window to open up
My drink half-drunk in the plastic punch cup
 
The knocking persists. Who will it be?
If open I find there scoundrel stood
Or something else, strange and free
Peddlers of distraction, not so good
The idle idols, no to everyone,
But in the no, the enemy’s won.
 
I give in, yes, open door wide to see
Open to the rag man Christ the lamb
Open to waves and lands, new stars sea
Vanquish my stubborn rebel ram
Crushing head dead this selfish beast
Replaced by merry lamb’s wedding everfeast.
 
So goes the knocking of eternity’s door
Give away to others, hear the wounded lamb roar.

Holy Ground by Lorraine Triggs

Unlike the Illinois State Fair nestled among cornfields and the State Capitol building, the Michigan State Fair, for years, made its home along Eight Mile Road and Woodward Avenue in Detroit. For my family and me, the state fair was the ideal destination for the last summer fling—all those odd giant vegetables, livestock, cotton candy and rides just a short city bus ride from our house.

The fair became part of my childhood memories until my post-college years. Friends had rented a house right across the street from my beloved fairgrounds. I thought it was so cool that they had their own place just out of college.

One summer evening, after dinner at their house, we sat on the porch looking at the fairgrounds that were still closed for the season. Funny, how I never before noticed how tired the buildings looked or the barbed wire at the top of the fence or the cracks in the sidewalk.

Our conversation drifted from the fair to books to our shared faith in Jesus. At some point, we stopped talking, and in the silence, something happened. The night turned solemn. We had been talking about really surrendering ourselves to Christ. We all knew that this was the point of no return—either we follow Christ fully or give it up.  In that moment, those scruffy, worn-out fairgrounds had become a holy place.

What makes a place holy? A wilderness becomes holy ground when a bush burns and isn’t consumed. Exodus 3 describes a curious Moses wanting to see this great sight, but there was something greater that God wanted him to see and understand—that Moses was standing on holy ground, ground made holy because God was with him, and God saw, heard and knew the sufferings of his people.

There’s a tent that becomes a portable holy place. It wasn't just any tent. It was a spectacular tent, and when covered with a cloud, it was filled with the glory of the Lord. And when the cloud was taken up, the children of Israel packed up the tent and moved on—following fire, cloud and God himself.

Major world religions boast of holy cities and sacred temples where their gods reside. People go on pilgrimages, choosing to spend thousands of dollars just to get to that holy place. Just to stand or kneel, just to see it, to be there.

But a historic city or landmark, a burning bush or the tent filled with smoke don't make anything holy. It's the presence of the Lord God Almighty.

The one true God, well, he chose us. The tent in the wilderness pointed to another, better portable holy place who left heaven to pitch his tent among “us to show his glory, glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14), to bring life to the dead and light to those who walked in great darkness.

God also calls us and chooses us as holy and beloved ones to live out his grace and truth with “compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12), in places where ordinary bushes, tents, fire, clouds and fairgrounds and even our very bodies become holy ground.