Author: larry.maugel

The Lesson of the Mulberry Tree

 

When I was growing up in a small town in rural Ohio, in our side yard we had a large Mulberry tree. It served many purposes, but the most important one was that it was first base in our little side yard baseball field. After hitting the wiffle ball, we would race beneath its sheltering branches for safety.

As important as it was to our passions of playing ball, it was later to reveal to us some lessons of life that we did not learn within the game of  baseball.

The mulberry tree was a large tree which generated an abundant amount of shade in the heat of summer time. Later, it would yield large blackberry-like fruits that were much larger than blackberries, promising the richness of even larger sweet berries to be enjoyed.

These large, juicy berries promised all the joys of desire… juiciness, sweetness, abundance… for the tree was loaded with these berries in autumn.

As children, our Grandma Maugel, would go out to her fence row and pick blackberries for us to enjoy. Though sweet, these were small, sometimes seedy, and not anywhere near as enticing as these large juicy mulberry fruits, though they may have looked similar.

In some ways, it was a rite of passage in our family, to introduce the younger members to their first taste of mulberries. Having been raised on my grandmother’s sweet and delicious backberries, these mulberries looked to one like “super berries”… certainly larger and juicier than blackberries. 

So it was that we would place a small bowl full of mulberries in a dish and add a little milk. Everyone would stand around to watch the youngest member of the family dig in with a full mouthful of mulberries with the expectancy of a explosion of sweetness and juiciness.

But mulberries have a personality of their very own. They can be very tart and sour, despite looking sumptuous. Much laughter was enjoyed by the family as they witnessed the younger member wrinkling up their face in surprise with the sourness and tartness of the mulberries. For some that was the last taste of mulberries in their entire life!

Nature has a way of teaching us life lessons. Those things which are small and unattractive can be the sweetest and most nourishing of all. To the contrast, those things which are the largest and most promising, can result in the most disappointing and unforeseen harsh consequences.

Many philosophers and sages have expressed their opinions of life, it’s attractions, and it’s consequences. But I would say that none more eloquently than the lesson of the Mulberry tree.

LEM

Year-end Desk Organization

Year-end Desk Organization

It’s December 2nd, and I’ve begun to implement my annual year-end discipline of sorting and organizing all my paperwork. This usually involves confronting multiple stacks of poorly arranged beshoven piles of paperwork, books, articles, advertisements, newspapers, ad magazines, and leftover popcorn bags. It’s not that I mind the appearance so much, but it’s almost cost prohibitive to add another room to our home to store it all. And my wife wouldn’t let me anyway.

I understand that the younger generation stores everything on their computers, the cloud, thumb drives, and peripheral hard drives. In our family, we are not there yet. My wife, as much as I love her, requires that every receipt or interesting article be copied and typically triple filed in at least three separate places. That must be for in the event our house burns completely down there might be at least one of the several files that will survive. I’m thinking this redundancy must satisfy some womanly innate desire for propagation. She would have done very well in the military where everything there has to be done in triplicate.

I tend to be of a bit different mindset. My desire is not to feel some sense of accomplishment by filing three of the same pieces of paper in separate files, but to be able to “find things.”

Because of this desire, over the years I have developed a rather sophisticated process of organizing and filing the things that I need very quick access to. I try to keep it simple and streamlined, believing everything should be at my fingertips at ready notice.

Rather than file articles and paperwork in skinny folders, hidden in a cabinet, I prefer to use my desk surface. Rather than having 48 or more separate folders, I have simply 7 piles of paperwork on my desk. Admittedly, I’m not always certain the article that I’m looking for is in which pile, but I know that it’s in one of the seven piles. For this reason, it’s only fair that you have a relatively large desk. My favorites are those desks which have pull out sideboards to add further temporary piles if needed. Additionally, it’s always wise to have your desk close to a wall surface to keep the piles from falling over. A room corner is perfect because it supports your filing system from two sides.

Now, a bit about the organization of these seven stacks of very important paperwork. It is imperative to realize that the seven pillars of data on your desk are only for “high priority” material which you have had some exposure to over the past five years or so. Anything other than that can be relegated to the floor or on shelves in front of the books on your bookshelves.

Please don’t think that these columns of receipts and articles upon the desk are static. It is an ever dynamic process of moving information from one stack of paperwork to another. This serves a couple of very important purposes. The most important is that while awaiting the football game to come on television, you can go to your desk and move papers from one stack to another, clearly demonstrating to your wife that you are doing some purposeful activity. This at least buys you some brownie points for watching football the rest of the afternoon and into the evening and Monday evening if you’re lucky.

Furthermore, there is something innately gratifying about moving paperwork from one stack to the other without having to actually “file” it anyplace. I am of the firm conviction that once filed, it is forgotten. With the desk surface system that I have, I know exactly where it is, on my desk…somewhere.

Another major benefit of my desk surface filing system is that if a person needs to move some of the top 50 sheets of paper or so to get to something residing at the very bottom of the stack and places the upper sheets on another different stack of data, you don’t need to worry about replacing it exactly where it came from. One doesn’t have to be worried about messing up the prior organization of your system because there’s no organization to disrupt anyway! Those papers can just stay where they are, and that can save a lot of time refiling stuff.

There are some limitations of this system, ceiling height, and floor load bearing restrictions. Dust can be a problem but I use a leaf blower for that. 

Another caution I would express after years of experience is to never, I repeat never, place a full cup of coffee on your desk surface. I am convinced that there is some mysterious magnetism between stacks of paper and a full cup of coffee that soon leads to a real mess. Be forewarned!

Some wives might have a problem with this system…mine does. One suggestion is to wait until all of your magazines and ads stack up on all of your seven piles. You can wait until things get almost unmanageable, or when your wife says something, and then you can throw away all of your magazines quickly. Start with the magazines because they’re thicker and tossing them lowers your stacks substantially, appears that you’re actually doing something productive, and fills up the waste basket. That way your wife thinks you’ve actually performed some task that day, and you can go on to watch your football game with a sense of accomplishment and hopefully some measure of your wife’s blessing.

Speaking of football, on the other hand the game is about to start and I think I’ll just start an eighth pile. I’ll do the sorting “tomorrow,” it’s my favorite day of the week.

 

Family Quips

Every family has them..those memories of childhood created by favorite family  expressions and anecdotes. Most lay long forgotten, startled awake only occasionally by a recent event or comment. Yet, their wisdom and joyful images remain a part of who we are. Sadly, we revisit them all too rarely. Now is an attempt to change that. Here are some of the memories we have of growing up as the Maugel family in the small rural village of Farmer, Ohio. We’ll entitle this “Family Quips.”

 

Dad’s favorite expression when I had done something wrong and I tried to explain it by saying I didn’t think that it would happen: He would quickly reply, “That’s just it, you didn’t THINK.”

“Hard work never hurt anyone.”

“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.”

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

“You need to gather your hay when the sun is shining.”

“He who lives in a glass house should not throw stones.”

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.””

“Caution is the better part of valor.”

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

“It’s no use crying over spilled milk.”

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

“She took off like a horse heading for the barn.”

My brother was a very good basketball player; and he tells the story, after a particular difficult loss, turning to Dad and asking, “Dad, I just don’t understand. I try to honor God and do the right thing, why did he allow us to lose such an important game?” To which my father quickly responded, “I know, but he’s not going to move your feet for you.”

Another quip from Dad is said to one of my brothers who will remain nameless, “You know, you do two things really well…telling other people what to do and standing there and watching them do it.”

Dad’s response to us kids getting home late on weekends: “Son, if it can’t get done before midnight, it doesn’t need done.”

 

 

 

Meditations on the Stations of the Cross:

The Stations of the Cross:

“Stations of the Cross” refers to the key moments of Christ’s last days before his crucifixion and resurrection. In the Latin, Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) or via Dolorosa (Way of Sorrows), it has become a fixture of meditation upon Christ’s Passion.  Beginning with St. Francis of Assisi and later throughout the Roman Catholic Church it now consists of a series of paintings or sculptures that portray the events of Christ’s “Way” to the cross. These images are often used during Lent as focuses for devotions or meditations individually or corporately.

Initially there were a varied number of stations of the cross, (at one time up to 36), but in 1731 there were fixed at 14 by Clement XII.
Traditional form: (usually a series of 14 pictures or sculptures depicting the following scenes):[1]
1. Jesus is condemned to death
2. Jesus is given His cross
3. Jesus falls the first time
4. Jesus meets His Mother
5. Simon of Cyrene carries the cross
6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
7. Jesus falls the second time
8. Jesus meets the daughters of Jerusalem
9. Jesus falls the third time
10. Jesus is stripped of His garments
11. Crucifixion: Jesus is nailed to the cross
12. Jesus dies on the cross
13. Jesus’ body is removed from the cross
14. Jesus is laid in the tomb and covered in incense.

Alternate forms: although not part of the traditional set of Stations, the Resurrection of Jesus in now more and more integrated as part of The Way.
1. The Last Supper
2. The Garden of Gethsemane
3. Jesus before Pilate
4. The Scourging and the Crowning with Thorns
5. The Receiving of the Cross
6. The Fall
7. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus
8. The Women of Jerusalem
9. The Stripping of His Garments
10. The Good Thief
11. Mary and John below the Cross
12. The Death of Jesus
13. The Laying in the Tomb
14. The Resurrection

“Out of the fourteen traditional Stations of the Cross, only eight have clear scriptural foundation. Stations 3,4,6,7, and 9 are not specifically attested to in the gospels and Station 13 (representing Jesus’ body being taken down off the cross and laid in the arms of his mother, Mary) seems to embellish the gospels’ record which state that Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus down from the cross and buried him. In order to provide a version of this devotion more closely aligned with the biblical accounts, Pope John Paul II introduced a new form of devotion, called the Scriptural Way of the Cross on Good Friday 1991…they follow this sequence:”[2]

1. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
2. Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested
3. Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin
4. Jesus is denied by Peter
5. Jesus is judged by Pilate
6. Jesus is scourged and crowned with thorns
7. Jesus takes up His cross
8. Jesus is helped by Simon to carry His cross
9. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
10. Jesus is crucified
11. Jesus promises his kingdom to the good thief
12. Jesus entrusts Mary and John to each other
13. Jesus dies on the cross
14. Jesus is laid in the tomb

 

LEM’s Modified “Stations of the Cross” with meditations: 4/9/09

1. The Last Supper
2. The Garden of Gethsemane
3. Jesus is denied by Peter
4. Jesus before Pilate
5. The Scourging and the Crowning with Thorns
6. The Receiving of the Cross
7. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus
8. The Women of Jerusalem
9. The Stripping of His Garments
10. The Good Thief
11. Mary and John below the Cross
12. The Death of Jesus
13. The Laying in the Tomb
14. The Resurrection

 

Endnotes:

[1] Wikipedia, “2009 Stations of the Cross”

[2] Ibid.,  “2009 Stations of the Cross”

 

The Christian Calendar: Lent

 

“Lent begins the fortieth day prior to the Resurrection, excluding Sundays. (To determine the beginning of Lent count back 46 days from Resurrection day.) The focus of Lent is spiritual renewal through the disciplines of fasting and prayer. Early Christians never fasted on Sunday since each Sunday is a little celebration of the joy of resurrection. Thus, Sundays were excluded from Lent.”[1]

Initially, in the Catholic tradition it was a time of preparation for those who were to be baptized at Easter. However, later, this time was identified as a time of self-examination and penitence preceding Holy Week and Resurrection Day. The parallel of the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness has been used to fashion individual preparation for the celebration of Easter by focusing on fasting, self examination, and prayer.

“By celebrating Lent, we follow Jesus into the wilderness, resist temptation, pray and proceed “on the way” to Jerusalem, and the cross of Good Friday. Our Lenten journey is one of repentance, that is, changing directions from self, self-serving patterns and a myopic focus toward the others-focused way of life of following Jesus. We follow Jesus in laying down ourselves for others and trust that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is enough to guide us in repentance and renewal…”[2]

Hold a true Lent in your souls, while you sorrow over your hardness of heart. Do not stop at sorrow! Remember where you first received salvation. Go at once to the cross…this will bring back to us our first love; this will restore the simplicity of our faith, and the tenderness of our heart.[3]
-Charles Haddon Spurgeon

As a season of fasting, self-examination, and prayer, Lent may well be described as one of the most deeply devotional times of the year. Perhaps as a result, many formalized modes of worship have evolved in which to assist one to more meaningfully enter into the reality of and significance of Christ’s sacrificial death and redemptive resurrection for all humankind.
One of these traditions is the meditation of Christ’s wilderness experience as He prepares for His earthly ministry. Themes of fasting, solitude, silence, profound prayer all are demonstrated as Christ battles with the temptations of pride, power, and desire. Described in the Gospel accounts (Matt. 4: 1-11; Mark 1: 12-13 and Luke 4: 1-13) Christ, led by the Spirit is led into the wilderness for a period of testing. Satan tempts Christ with the empty promises of the lust of the flesh, pride of life, and lust of the eyes (see I John 2.16); only to be rebutted by Christ with the admonition of Scripture. As perfectly human He experienced all that each one of us suffers: the loneliness, the desires of our hearts, the weakness of humanity.
Can we walk the wilderness experience during Lent?

Resources for Celebrating Lent:
 Begin each day with a time of reflection.
 Identify sins or an area needing renewal.
 Confess a problem that needs God’s mercy.
 Make an effort to set apart time to read God’s Word and pray every day.
 Plan time to “be still and know God.”[4]…

Psalm 50:13-15, 23
“Think of ways you can honor the Lord with your praise during Lent.”
 Truly recognize and thank God.
 Keep your promises.
 Trust God in time of trouble.
 Give Him the Glory!”[5]

The Significance of the Pretzel:
By the fourth century, strict fasting was observed during Lent. People avoided meat, cheese, cream, butter, milk and eggs. By the fifth century, a tradition of eating small breads made simply from flour, water and salt was practiced. As a visual reminder that this was to be a period of prayer and fasting, the little breads were rolled and twisted to represent crossed arms over the chest, the traditional position for prayer. The breads were called “little arms” in Latin. Later, the Germans gave them the familiar name we use today, “pretzel.”[6]

 

Endnotes:

[1] Martha Zimmerman, Celebrating the Christian Year, (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1994), p. 107

[2] Lent Prayer Guide, the Evergreen community

[3] Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “Morning and Evening,” (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House), quoted in Celebrating the Christian Year by Martha Zimmerman, p. 107

[4] Martha Zimmerman, Celebrating the Christian Year, (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1994), p. 111

[5] Ibid, p.112

[6] Ibid, p. 115

 

The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross

Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross

The Last Utterances of Christ
F. W. Robertson

“Seven dying sentences” recorded in the Gospels

Categorized by the book of the Bible:

  •  “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”
    (recorded in both Matthew and Mark)
  •  “Verily, I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
  • “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
  • “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”
    (recorded in Luke)
  •  “I thirst”
  •  “Behold thy mother; behold thy son.”
  •   “It is finished”
    (recorded in John)

Categorized as 1) the natural exclamations of the man; and, 2) the utterances of the Savior

1) The Natural Exclamations of the Man
a. “I thirst”
b. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
c. “Father, into Thy hand I commend My spirit.”

2) The Utterances of the Savior
a. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
b. “Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.”
c. “Behold thy mother.”
d. “It is finished.”

Chronological arrangement:

1. “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)
2. “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
3. “Woman, behold thy son…Behold thy mother.” (John 19: 26,27)
4. “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34)
5. “I thirst.” (John 19:28)
6. “It is finished.” (John 19:30)
7. “Father, into Thy hand I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)

F. W. Robertson, James Stalker, et. al., ” Sermons and Outlines on the Seven Words”, F. W. Robertson, James Stalker, et. al., (Grand Rapids: Baker Press, 1965)

The Christian Calendar: Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday has traditionally been the beginning of Lent. It derives its name from the common Biblical tradition of ashing, which is the burning of palm or olive branches to later apply the ashes upon the head or forehead to signify great mourning or deep repentance. In profound surrender Job cries out, “Therefore I retract, and repent in dust and ashes.”(Job 42:6) Because Scripture associates the use of ashes as an icon of repentance, it is fitting that Ash Wednesday heralds the season of Lent as the season so characterized by the practices of fasting, self-examination, and prayer.

The Catholic tradition of Ash Wednesday dates back to Aelfric (c.955-c.1020) a great Benedictine English scholar, [1] and was later adopted by the Roman Catholic Church. It was established that on the first day of Lent, each person would apply ashes as a demonstration of solemn repentance.
Since that time the applying of ashes on Ash Wednesday has been in and out of favor within the various Christian traditions. Nonetheless, it serves as a valuable role in announcing the season of Lent by introducing and engendering a spirit of repentance as a prelude to the Lenten season practices of fasting, self-examination and prayer.

[1] Metford, J. The Christian Year. (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1991) p.45-46

 

New Year’s Day – 1/1/2020

A New Year’s Reflection – 1/1/2020

Of all the Lord’s blessings that He has given, the one that I am most likely to take for granted, but still very much appreciate, is that of New Year’s Day. I say that because it’s only one day a year amongst the other 364 days of busyness and preoccupation with things to do and places to go. Though easily forgotten after it has passed, for me this day has always been one of quiet reflection. It is a pause day. It is a day of assessment. It is a day to reset.
This holiday is like the old magic slates we would write upon as children with our wooden leadless pencils or fingertips. We would draw and write and scribble. And when we made a mistake, or were disappointed in our image-drawn, or tired, we would lift the waxed paper to see all of our little thoughts and and poorly drawn images effortlessly lifted away to disappear, left to discover a fresh page on which to write our futures.
New Year’s Day is like that magic slate for me. I look back upon the previous year’s activities and preoccupations, its successes and disappointments, the joys and sorrows; and though all will be gratefully remembered, it is time today to lift the paper, to start with a fresh page, to begin a new year. It is to be given the gift of anticipation and expectation for what might be. It is to slowly unwrap a fresh bundle of opportunity and hopefulness. It is to write a fresh page.
And as we begin to write the story of another year, a gradual sense of resolve emerges. From the ashes of yesteryear’s misgivings emerges a hopeful resolve. Wistful musings tease our thoughts to imagine what might lay beyond this day. What forks in the road will cause me to ponder my next steps? Upon which stones will I stumble? How many sunrises will I enjoy? What dreams will I pursue?
New Year’s Day seems like when a year chooses to pause, as though catching its breath before the unfolding of its next days. But more than that, it is a day that offers new beginnings..new hopes and dreams. A fresh start, a new page.