So I did. I’d purchased a shirt in November 2022 while in Anaheim for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Convention – royal blue in color, with a red heart and white lettering that says Your Story Matters. I took a picture of it and wrote a simple index card poem, 3×5, three lines with five syllables each:
Your Story Matters
you're a child in God's
great universe so
your story matters
Last week, I shared a post about the serendipitous steering currents of spirituality – those moments of confirmation along the way when we realize fully, without a fraction of a percent of doubt, that He is on the path ahead of us, beside us, and behind us, directing our footsteps and assuring us that He is at work in our lives and all around us, holding the pen, guiding His children.
In my travels this week, I was given the unique opportunity to visit one of my daughters and her friends who attend a devotional and women’s Bible study each morning as part of the continuing recovery and restoration of their lives. They rise early, get coffee, and come together for a time of meditation and devotion. After about 20 minutes of quiet time, one opens in prayer, and then shares insights from the devotion and quiet time, along with an I AM statement.
My daughter opened the devotions on this particular day. She had read a devotion about being a child of God, and how being born into a family of Christians didn’t buy her salvation any more than someone born in a garage made that person an automobile. Her place in the family of God comes only through her belief in him, confession of her sins, and desire to follow Him. She shared her focus verses for the morning – John 1: 12-13.
We went around the table, each sharing our thoughts, and when the last woman shared, she talked about the power of our stories in shaping others and encouraging them.
After the closing prayer, I opened my blog post and showed my daughter the poem. “Did you write that today?” she asked.
“No, I wrote this earlier in the week, ” I explained.
I wish I had a picture of her expression – a perfect photo of the serendipitous steering currents of spirituality.
As I was paring down my book collection (one of my goals this year), I discovered a surprise hiding behind a row of books. Last Christmas, Dad brought me a banker’s box full of family heirlooms wrapped in old towels – carnival glass, books, an antique milk glass lantern, silver napkin rings collected over the years, and a wooden cigar box. He’d wanted the towels back, so in my haste to get everything out of the box and return the towels, I’d set the items on the table to dust and polish later. Somehow, the cigar box ended up behind the row of books and managed to remain there for over a year untouched.
Imagine my surprise when I opened it to discover an assortment of Mom’s jewelry, along with my own beveled crystal earrings I bought as a teenager! I no longer have much of the sentimental jewelry that was given to me over the years, so these pieces from my past are pure treasure.
Angel Aura crystal earrings purchased when I was a teenager
The same week, one of my daughters sent me lepidolite and terahertz bracelets for their healing properties. Lately, she’s been learning a lot about crystals and gemstones from the rock hounding hobby she’s taken up in the Mojave Desert. Mom’s beaded jade necklace was among the cigar box treasures, and I can’t wait to explore the benefits of wearing these various stones alone and in combination with others.
Terahertz, Lepidolite, and Jade
I’ve asked my daughter to chime in on her unique hobby sometime in March, so stay tuned for more information about rock hounding and the benefits of using stones for healing and balance!
My dad, a pastor, frequently travels back to former churches to officiate at weddings or funerals or to serve as a guest speaker. Sometimes in our early morning conversations, he shares updates about people and happenings along his always-interesting encounters. Recently, we got on the topic of the serendipitous steering currents of spirituality – – those seemingly innocent coincidental moments when you realize that divine intervention has put you exactly in the right place at the right time, where long-awaited answers or answers to questions you never asked come when you least expect them.
Throughout his career, Dad collaborated with his own preacher father on a number of sermons, including one about Joseph of Arimathea. He’s recently been going through his files, deciding which hard copies to keep and which to let go. He’d set this one aside, pondering all its possibilities.
Later that same week, he’d returned to a former church for a funeral when a member asked if he remembered that particular sermon on Joseph of Arimathea he’d preached two decades earlier.
“Yes, Charles, ” he answered, “I do remember that sermon. I’ve preached it probably ten times in my career, and it’s interesting you’re mentioning it – I’ve had it on my mind lately to become part of a series I’ll be preaching in the coming weeks.”
Charles paused briefly, then shared, “It changed my life.”
The serendipitous steering currents of spirituality come when we least expect them, whether we’ve searched the clouds looking for answers to burning questions in words written like skywriting from airplanes or whether we never even got as far as asking the question and felt only the gentle nudge that caused us to set aside an idea to return to it later.
And no matter how they establish their presence, we recognize these divine connections and welcome them as guiding lights along the path.
It may seem strange to have so many One Little Word reminders in my life. Remembering to pray should come naturally and not require all the visual nudges I have placed strategically in my sights. I find, though, that my word permeates my life more when I am constantly face to face with it. Pray. An action verb that bears repeating. Again and again.
To some, I may look like a Holy Roller. Anyone who knows me well will assure folks I’m not.
I wear a bracelet with a prayer verse on my arm, place a small prayer card over my visor, have a painted rock on display at my work computer and a sticker on my laptop, have a black wooden word cutout in my kitchen windowsill, and a painted tile in my bathroom window. Despite the high visibility of my word, there are days I need it to flash like Swarovski-studded Christmas tree lights to remind me to engage in conversation with God – to listen, to ask, to seek direction, to ask forgiveness, to beg for an attitude adjustment or for Him to help me hold my tongue in this phase of 56-year-old-female life when what comes up comes out in hormonal hot flash bolts of venomous scorpion-stinging lightning.
When my phone rings in the early morning hours, I don’t panic and wonder what in the world has happened. A feeling of calm prevails. Things are as they have always been. There’s Dad.
I have a story I need to tell while it’s fresh on my mind, before I forget, he tells me. I grab my pen, the closest piece of paper, and listen, feverishly writing all that he shares.
It was back in the old days in rural Georgia when I was preaching at Ohoopee, he began. This was down around Highway 19, where you’d go through Wrightsville, meander over to Tennille, and then on out to Sandersville, where there were cotton fields everywhere and all the roads were red clay. And Ohoopee was a church of miracles. A cured drunk who loved the Lord led the singing, and the first time I stepped in there, they were singing “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks,” only he pronounced it Jurdan’s. And, as they say, “he weren’t wrong.”
There was a fellow by the name of Noah in the church, married to a lady named Nora, and Noah was having trouble finding where to dig his well. He needed help finding water. And back in those days, people were people and folks’ existence was all about helping their neighbors out.
Another couple in the church, Elvis and Helen, heard about it.“I’m coming over to hope you out,” Elvis told Noah, and when I heard that, I went over there too.
It wasn’t uncommon in those days to hear regional idioms and think of them as words misspoken, but these weren’t misspoken words – this was intentional language packed with meaning. Elvis was coming to hope his neighbor out.
Elvis said he had a divining rod – a hickory branch – that he could use to help him find water. Now Kim, believe what you will, but Elvis walked the grounds with that stick, and suddenly it tremored. I saw it with my own eyes. Right there, he said, was water. They marked the spot for the well and dug right there.
“Where exactly was this spot?” I was curious and had to know.
They called this area Possum Scuffle, he explained. It was back over in Harrison by Raines Store where they called it Deep Step and Goat Town, where a lady named Margaret Holmes had a cannery for black eyed peas and collards. They were the best you could get then and still are today.
“I believe you, Dad,” I assured him. “I’ve read about this. It’s a real thing.”
I had flashbacks to visiting the Foxfire Museum in Clayton, Georgia at the foot of Black Rock Mountain last April, where I saw in the holler the ways of a simpler way of life with a harder work ethic and more relying on God to bless the land – and people depending on each other – and wished that part of the world still existed.
Who am I to doubt a divining rod?
Now, I’m telling you all this because I’ve had one of those mornings where I’ve been playing with words, and I know you do the same thing, he continued. I’m still dwelling on the shipwreck passage in Acts 27, and there’s a Biblical connection I’ve discovered. Luke is the most likely author of the book, and he describes the ship being in a storm out in the Adriatic Sea near Malta. They used stabilizing ropes. In mariner’s terms, these are called hawsers. Today, we also call them helps, or help ropes.
I began to see where he was going with all of this. “Ah, I see. So hoping someone out is like using a help rope. Help is a hope rope.”
Exactly, he confirmed. Hope ropes tie it all together and make things possible. In Acts 27, the imperiled ship could have been dashed, save for the hope ropes.
That’s exactly what we need today in our communities – – to hope our neighbors out. We need to adopt the mindset of rural Georgia thinking back in the good days when folks extended not just a hand, but their whole selves – – divining rods and all.
Dad holding my brother Ken, with me (blue dress) and a friend (yellow dress) on the steps of Ohoopee Baptist Church, 1972
Today’s guest blogger is my father, Rev. Dr. Wilson Felix Haynes, Jr. Pray is my One Little Word for 2023, so I asked him to share several of his favorite volumes on prayer.
The oldest biblical book in our canon contains key questions about life. From Job, we hear this question: “What profit shall we have if we pray unto him?” (Job 21:15). The topic of prayer has been explored by almost every great saint, theologian, and author of the great Christian books. I have procured many of these books, read, and reflected on them. They have left a deep imprint upon my life and thinking. Four of these volumes are particularly noteworthy.
First, I think the single best is The Meaning of Prayer (Association Press, 1916) by Harry Emerson Fosdick, the well-known “liberal” preacher whose pulpit was the Riverside Church of New York City (built by John D. Rockefeller). I read this volume during my Seminary years after the reading of his autobiography The Living of These Days. The book followed a period of depression in Fosdick’s life. Beyond those days, the impact of his life was incredible. This well-arranged book is the best purchase anyone can make to enhance biblical knowledge and provide the very best instruction about prayer. Harry Emerson Fosdick, I am proud am proud to say, has been a vital mentor in my life of continuing education.
The second is The Prayers and Meditations of Samuel Johnson. The first edition was in 1785, and it has been published subsequently in many other editions. The striking thing about this volume is that this testy old doctor was so honest and self-revealing in his “diary” parts of the book. These written prayers may become guiding forces for us in our own journeys. Incidentally, Fosdick quotes Samuel Johnson in the first sentence of his book on the meaning of prayer.
The third volume is The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence (Nicholas Hermon). Brother Lawrence was born in poverty, served as a soldier, and thereafter joined a community of Carmelites in Paris in 1666. He died at age 80, and his letters were published in 1692. The primary essence of Lawrence’s thinking was continued awareness of God. I offer a couple of quotes to whet the appetite to read his letters:
“The most Holy and impactful practice in the spiritual life is the presence of God-that is, every moment to take pleasure that God is with you.”
And this:
“I have abandoned all particular forms of devotion, all prayer techniques. My only prayer practice is attention. I carry on a habitual, silent and secret conversation with God that fills me with overwhelming joy."
Lawrence’s main job in the monastery was in the kitchen, where the lyrical sounds of pots and pans only elevated his communion with God. He said. “I turn my omelet in the pan for the love of God.” Whenever I’m in the kitchen, I try to model what Brother Lawrence did.
A forth book is Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ. Matthew Arnold said, “Next to the Bible, this is the most eloquent expression of the Christian life ever written.” A classic. Mark Twain once said, “A classic is a book everybody talks about, but nobody reads.” Change your mind on this thought. You can find an audio version of The Imitation of Christ, which greatly enhances the reading process. This is not a book to read from cover to cover, but more of a daily vitamin. Read a portion, percolate on the thoughts, and perhaps journal your impressions. The Imitation of Christ is a compelling meditations journey which prompts prayer – a searching call to imitate the way of Christ, to learn to embrace His virtues, and to stir reflection.
Today’s guest writer is my father, Rev. Dr. Felix Haynes, Jr. , who shares his thoughts on the power of books to shape lives.
THE POWER OF BOOKS
In Little Letters to God, Margaret E. Sangster includes the following letter:
Dear God: Three books came to me in this morning’s mail. They were messages from friends who wanted to share with me the pleasure of the printed word. One book was a love story, one was sparkling with inspiration, and one was a travel book that would transport me into far, forgotten places of the earth. As I unwrapped these books, I felt a sudden sense of reverence – reverence for you, God, who has given the authors a great expression. Through their eyes—and your wisdom—I shall be permitted to widen my vision.
Reading good books becomes a tool to widen our horizons and expand the depth of human experience. The poet Frances Thompson said books became to him “trumpet sounds from the hidden battlements of eternity.”
Books are forces to deepen our lives through spiritual and human development. Well-selected books can push us towards a greater grasp of human maturity. Robert Browning wrote, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
Christian growth is a process, an alluring quest – exciting and fulfilling. Delving into the spirit of reading and study prevents stagnation. Life is an adventure, when we dare to climb, with compelling vistas that beckon us to new heights of understanding. Books are rungs on the ladder.
I have frequently used the metaphor of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s poem The Chambered Nautilus as an example of an ever-maturing growth pattern. This beautiful seashell is gradually enlarging compartments in which the mollusk lives as it grows larger and larger. The snail-like creature that lives inside grows and moves into the next compartment, where further growth and development occurs. This process continues in ever-increasing sized chambers, until finally, in the largest compartment, it moves out. The shell it leaves is a thing of great beauty – a fascinating analogy of the human spirit, continually growing and expanding, building ever more stately mansions.
In life, we travel various avenues in the quest of expanding our fulfillment on the journey. The power of the printed page is one such avenue, and when you combine this tool with dialogue and discussion about a book, it becomes a significant life-shaping kind of experience.
Dr. E. Glenn Hinson was one of the most probing professors of my seminary experience. His book Seekers After a Mature Faith states in the Preface:
“I have written this book with a firm conviction that private devotion is essential to the life of the {Christian} and that devotional classics have much to contribute to that devotion. The Bible holds many expressions about the power of the printed page. In the oldest of all biblical documents, the Book of Job, Job says:
'Oh, that my words were now written! Oh, that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever. For I know that my redeemer lived, and He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth.” (Job 19:23-25).'
Job’s passion was to remind those who would suffer of the greatness of God. The best of books that convey life-messages are prompted by a deep desire to help others along their journey.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson commented in one of his essays that reading books molds an individual. Any casual reading of biography will confirm this truth of the value of books on one’s life. For example, Charles Colson in his biography Born Again attributes much of his conversion to Christianity to reading C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity.
Samuel Miller of Harvard Divinity School has cited three things that a book may do to nurture faith. First, he says that a book can help “name” an experience. A book can help one see the reality of some experience in a manner that helps in some way to better deal with a situation. The “word is made flesh” and we weave the insight into character. A second benefit in the book’s nurturing of faith is that it can “resurrect certain levels or dimensions of our consciousness from a dormant condition.” In other words, self- understanding ~ in this respect, a book becomes the stimulus to an honest appraisal of one’s life. Authenticity emerges in a healthier manner. We can see ourselves in the pilgrimage of others. Another’s experience can bring about an awareness of some repressed areas which we many have neglected. The book leads to an understanding necessary to the revelation of a new vision. A third benefit is that a well selected book encourages productive reflection. We stretch and improve our spiritual posture.
A book that provides a good reading experience baffles and embraces us, inspires and challenges; and it can startle and unsettle. The values are inestimable intellectually and fuels the imagination causing one to reach for new heights. We should expect occasions in the reading of good books which cause us to rethink opinions and face new truths that change our path on the journey.
Charles Kingsley, a revered English writer says, “Except a living man, there is nothing more wonderful than a book.” I would be quick to add this observation, based on my Doctor of Ministry work: The two things that most affect a person’s life are the people we meet and the books we read. I think Thomas a Kempis said the most appropriate word about the power of Books:
"If he should not lose his reward who gives a cup of cold water to his thirsty neighbor, what will not be the reward of those who by putting good books into the hands of those neighbors, open to them the fountains of eternal life?"
And Mark Twain, who always has a bold word, appropriately reminds us that “the man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.“
When I took listen as my OLW of 2022, I ordered a bracelet with my word on it to remind me to listen when I was tempted to forget. I also ordered a wooden word cutout to go in my kitchen windowsill to keep listen at the forefront of my mind.
I ordered a bracelet for 2023 also, but I got one with a whole verse instead of a lone word. Pray without ceasing it says on the outside, and on the inside it has the scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:17. It’s one of those verses that could stand in line with the shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus wept (John 11:35).Pray ceaselessly, it might have been written, if Paul and John had been in a two-word verse challenge like on Name That Tune….”Lord, I can write that verse in two words….”. As it stands, John won the shortest verse challenge. Even though it’s not ONE little word on the bracelet, those two extra words make all the difference.
My One Little Word holds within it divine power to achieve (or not) every goal I set for myself this year, especially in the area of spirituality and inspiration. My spirituality goals for 2023 include continuing to tune in to my childhood church service on Sunday mornings (First Baptist Church, St. Simons Island, Georgia) and any churches where Dad may be preaching. I also like to “attend” where my children go to church sometimes so that I can hear the same messages that they are hearing. No matter where I “attend” in the wide world, I continue to grow spiritually from Sunday services – – the only way I am able to start each week ready to face the world.
My guidebook for this area of prayer and spirituality will be The Meaning of Prayer by Harry Emerson Fosdick. I’ll read this book from cover to cover this year and reference the quotes as I apply them to my own prayer life. I’m a fan of the Women of Faith, so I’ll also be rereading their daily devotional book as well. It’s a well-worn favorite! Today’s devotional, in fact, is by Patsy Clairmont, titled “Slathered in the Spirit,” and based on Proverbs 31:30. That’s how I want to be: Slathered in the Spirit. The devotional for January 7 ends with this prayer:
Lord, I want to be beautiful in your sight.
Slather me in your Spirit, soften my heart, and firm up my faith.
May I be taut in my resolve to please you alone.
Amen.
-Patsy Clairmont
As we move toward the beginning of a brand new year starting at midnight, on this last day of the year I'm taking time to reflect on 2022 and all the living we’ve done in its 525,600 minutes. My blessings far outweigh my challenges and setbacks.
Last December, I chose listen as my One Little Word for 2022, which Ali Edwards has made popular since 2006. I suppose it’s what daily writers do: we listen to the world around us. We listen for what inspires us and what we can take from conversations, moments, lessons, experiences - and time we share with others - to make sense of our world.
What we do with all the listening is what invites me to choose pray as my word for 2023. It wasn’t my first serious consideration, or even my second. My initial choice was believe. During my week of Covid confinement in December, I almost prematurely announced believe and all my reasons for choosing it. It’s the essence of my Christian faith, the verb of what we do with our faith to trust in God’s plan. It’s what gets us through tough times. Long moments of pondering all that I don’t want to be quick to believe led me to think more about the power of sharing. Share was my second consideration. I share what I experience and what I believe as truth, often on my blog.
Then I thought of my word listen this year, and all of the listening that happened through prayer. I wondered: what if I spent an entire year with the word pray as my guiding light word? My little Caribbean blue Rav4 has been my twice-daily prayer chamber for years as I make my way to and from work. I don't turn on the radio ~ I pray. I believe fully in the power of prayer and the difference it makes. I see miracles that have happened because of prayer, and I often wonder about the miracles that happen that we never see, also because God answers prayer.
As we step into 2023, I've chosen an action verb again. Pray. What a blessing I feel already!
If you’re taking a One Little Word as your guiding light this year, please share in the comments below or send me a Facebook message - - I love all the thinking that goes into OLW choices! Cheers to you in 2023!
Tomorrow, I will begin daily posts in the areas of my seven goal categories this year. They are: Reflection, Inspiration/Spirituality, Self-Improvement, Creativity, Literature, Experience, and Gratitude. I've never succeeded at keeping New Year's Resolutions, but what has worked for me for the past 12 years is establishing goals and adding an accountability measure in my writing through a month-end checkpoint. More on this beginning tomorrow!
Common Threads 