I have had an interesting day. It is an unusual Saturday for me in that I am not in the throes of extreme sermon preparation for tomorrow. I am, indeed, speaking, but for no longer than seven minutes. It is our Bible College promotion service, and the Dean, Tasha, is Queen of the run sheet. When she organizes ANYTHING, from a three day conference to a one hour SNL (Sunday Night Live) service, every person involved is given TASHA'S RUN SHEET. Woe betide anyone who disregards it.
A couple of weeks ago our leadership team was away with the leaders of our relating churches, when this idiosyncrasy of Tasha's came under discussion. Hilton Greig, the strongly anointed worship leader of Kloof Harvest, related his first experience of leading worship at one of our conferences. Hilton was under the impression that worship was half an hour long, but he hadn't received or read THE RUN SHEET. He had just immersed himself and the congregation in deep worship, when he heard Tasha's voice in his earpiece. "This is lovely, Hilton, but you need to stop now," said the voice. Hilton said he was so taken aback that he ended abruptly, said AMEN, and got off the stage as quickly as he could.
So when Tasha asked me to speak in her CBI promotion service, she emphasized, very respectfully, that I had to speak for five to seven minutes. She told me that she had two students each speaking for seven minutes, so the three of us together would equal twenty-one minutes, and then the second half was devoted to something else. I was all ready to have a quiet time, prepare for my seven minutes, which is harder than it sounds, write my end of month blog, and do a lot of very un-Saturday activities, like going onto Facebook to find out whose birthdays I have missed, (Happy birthday Vashti), and generally let people who are not in His Church find out that I am alive. That was the plan. God's word says "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." That didn't seem to apply today. I can't see the Lord's purpose in messing up my plans. Robert Burns, one of my father's favourite poets put it another way. Translation follows. "The best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley!" ( The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.") This is by memory. Because my own mental run sheet is ganging agley, I haven't got time to check out the RRROBBEEE Burrrnnnss quote. No, my fingers didn't run away from me. To the best of my ability that is a phonetic spelling of my father's verbal pronunciation of the poet's name. I am fairly sure that a few of my friends will be on google in a flash to correct me if I am wrong.
Anyway, to return to my Saturday, I tend to go with Robert Burns on this. I had plans that went sadly awry. (Pronounced a-rye, as in rye bread, and NOT aw-ree, as I heard on a newscast last year.) Here comes a digression, but I am sure you will enjoy hearing how I made a far worse faux pas some years back. I was preaching on the New Age, which was becoming the new form of deception to hit the church. I wanted to read quotes from New Age writers to prove their agendas. There was a problem. A word constantly appeared in these quotes, and in those days I had never heard of it, though now everyone and his budgie knows it, and knows how to pronounce it. I hadn't heard it and didn't know that it carries a "silent g." Sometimes I hate English. Why oh why do we insist on silent letters? To what purpose? I am on tape in someone's archives, waiting to embarrass me, as I pronounce "paradigm shift" as "PARA-DID-JIM shift." Of course I say it with full authority! So who am I to criticize a newscaster for announcing that things have gone aw-ree at the voting booths?
As I type this, it is nearly 4 pm. My best laid plans were ganging agley and a-wry as early as ten this morning, and the cause is still around. A very determined little bird has been on my deck for at least eight hours. It is a baby toppie, if you know what that is. It is the closest thing to a sparrow that lives in my garden among many exotic varieties. It has done everything in its limited power to drive me mad. It has flown into the sliding glass doors at least thirty times. Poor René was required to hang a colourful towel from an awning to persuade it to go away to where birds should be. All it did was fly through and around the towel to hit the glass once more with a resounding DOOF. I closed the curtains. DOOF. DOOF. DOOF. I closed the blackouts behind the curtains. DOOF. DOOF. DOOF. I opened the curtains, the blackouts, and the door. DOOF. DOOF. DOOF. As I am typing - DOOF. DOOF. DOOF. My windows are open, I am going to open the door, even though it is raining and a storm is starting.
When my visitor is not hitting the glass, it is sitting, pitifully chirping, on the deck floor outside the glass. I have had a wonderful woman who rescues birds and dogs, cats, geese, and a variety of wildlife, come in response to my begging. She came with her two sons, waited an age, then left. I am now blogging in my bedroom alone. René has the dogs with her in another part of the house. My door and windows are open and my bedroom is being rained upon. And my persistent little birdie is sitting just outside my open window, chirping at me. Long ago, when Christie was about three, I read her a book called "Are you my mother?" It was about a little bird that got blown out of its nest, and went on a quest to find its mother. It would plaintively ask everything it met, "Are YOU my mother?" It had a happy ending. I read only happy-ending books to my soft-hearted daughter, who now watches heartrending movies like "Blood Diamonds" and "The Killing Fields" without a qualm. I refuse to watch them, but she tries to force me to see them "because they are REAL LIFE." I don't get that. I want fiction and non-fiction alike to feel good. I refuse to pay to cry.
I digress. The happy ending was that the fictional little bird was found by its mother, it was tucked up in its nest, given a worm for dinner, THE END, and we could happily say our prayers and go to sleep. Oh how I pray for an equally happy ending for this little creature. It is now happily eating some Diwali biscuit given to me which I have devoted to other causes, it has flown into my room through the open door, and two minutes ago through the open window. I am just waiting for it to land on my shoulder, look me in the eye, and ask, "Are YOU my mother?" But now it is storming, I am a chicken, and I am going to close my doors, windows and curtains, and abandon the stray. No, I am NOT your mother, though I have spent an entire Saturday trying to help you. Don't worry. I haven't actually done that. I am just threatening at this stage.
At some point during this long Saturday I began to think of a well-known scripture in a new light. God says that not even a sparrow falls to the ground that he doesn't know about it. He said that five sparrows are sold for two small coins. The purpose of the fifth sparrow is to show us of how little value a sparrow was to the seller. If you bought four sparrows, the fifth one was added as a freebie. God says that we are not to fear because our worth is far greater than many sparrows. In fact, even the hairs of our head are numbered. This scripture inspired the beautiful song, "His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches over me." So maybe my little bird visitor HAS served a purpose today. I think of my human concern for a common little garden bird, and my very real distress that it has eluded my efforts to help. Then I think that just maybe some of my readers need to remember that God's eye is on YOU, and He is more than able to find you, give you your equivalent of a tasty worm, and say to you, "Sleep in peace, my child. Your Dad is watching over you."
Till next month, God bless. Fiona.
A couple of weeks ago our leadership team was away with the leaders of our relating churches, when this idiosyncrasy of Tasha's came under discussion. Hilton Greig, the strongly anointed worship leader of Kloof Harvest, related his first experience of leading worship at one of our conferences. Hilton was under the impression that worship was half an hour long, but he hadn't received or read THE RUN SHEET. He had just immersed himself and the congregation in deep worship, when he heard Tasha's voice in his earpiece. "This is lovely, Hilton, but you need to stop now," said the voice. Hilton said he was so taken aback that he ended abruptly, said AMEN, and got off the stage as quickly as he could.
So when Tasha asked me to speak in her CBI promotion service, she emphasized, very respectfully, that I had to speak for five to seven minutes. She told me that she had two students each speaking for seven minutes, so the three of us together would equal twenty-one minutes, and then the second half was devoted to something else. I was all ready to have a quiet time, prepare for my seven minutes, which is harder than it sounds, write my end of month blog, and do a lot of very un-Saturday activities, like going onto Facebook to find out whose birthdays I have missed, (Happy birthday Vashti), and generally let people who are not in His Church find out that I am alive. That was the plan. God's word says "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." That didn't seem to apply today. I can't see the Lord's purpose in messing up my plans. Robert Burns, one of my father's favourite poets put it another way. Translation follows. "The best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley!" ( The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.") This is by memory. Because my own mental run sheet is ganging agley, I haven't got time to check out the RRROBBEEE Burrrnnnss quote. No, my fingers didn't run away from me. To the best of my ability that is a phonetic spelling of my father's verbal pronunciation of the poet's name. I am fairly sure that a few of my friends will be on google in a flash to correct me if I am wrong.
Anyway, to return to my Saturday, I tend to go with Robert Burns on this. I had plans that went sadly awry. (Pronounced a-rye, as in rye bread, and NOT aw-ree, as I heard on a newscast last year.) Here comes a digression, but I am sure you will enjoy hearing how I made a far worse faux pas some years back. I was preaching on the New Age, which was becoming the new form of deception to hit the church. I wanted to read quotes from New Age writers to prove their agendas. There was a problem. A word constantly appeared in these quotes, and in those days I had never heard of it, though now everyone and his budgie knows it, and knows how to pronounce it. I hadn't heard it and didn't know that it carries a "silent g." Sometimes I hate English. Why oh why do we insist on silent letters? To what purpose? I am on tape in someone's archives, waiting to embarrass me, as I pronounce "paradigm shift" as "PARA-DID-JIM shift." Of course I say it with full authority! So who am I to criticize a newscaster for announcing that things have gone aw-ree at the voting booths?
As I type this, it is nearly 4 pm. My best laid plans were ganging agley and a-wry as early as ten this morning, and the cause is still around. A very determined little bird has been on my deck for at least eight hours. It is a baby toppie, if you know what that is. It is the closest thing to a sparrow that lives in my garden among many exotic varieties. It has done everything in its limited power to drive me mad. It has flown into the sliding glass doors at least thirty times. Poor René was required to hang a colourful towel from an awning to persuade it to go away to where birds should be. All it did was fly through and around the towel to hit the glass once more with a resounding DOOF. I closed the curtains. DOOF. DOOF. DOOF. I closed the blackouts behind the curtains. DOOF. DOOF. DOOF. I opened the curtains, the blackouts, and the door. DOOF. DOOF. DOOF. As I am typing - DOOF. DOOF. DOOF. My windows are open, I am going to open the door, even though it is raining and a storm is starting.
When my visitor is not hitting the glass, it is sitting, pitifully chirping, on the deck floor outside the glass. I have had a wonderful woman who rescues birds and dogs, cats, geese, and a variety of wildlife, come in response to my begging. She came with her two sons, waited an age, then left. I am now blogging in my bedroom alone. René has the dogs with her in another part of the house. My door and windows are open and my bedroom is being rained upon. And my persistent little birdie is sitting just outside my open window, chirping at me. Long ago, when Christie was about three, I read her a book called "Are you my mother?" It was about a little bird that got blown out of its nest, and went on a quest to find its mother. It would plaintively ask everything it met, "Are YOU my mother?" It had a happy ending. I read only happy-ending books to my soft-hearted daughter, who now watches heartrending movies like "Blood Diamonds" and "The Killing Fields" without a qualm. I refuse to watch them, but she tries to force me to see them "because they are REAL LIFE." I don't get that. I want fiction and non-fiction alike to feel good. I refuse to pay to cry.
I digress. The happy ending was that the fictional little bird was found by its mother, it was tucked up in its nest, given a worm for dinner, THE END, and we could happily say our prayers and go to sleep. Oh how I pray for an equally happy ending for this little creature. It is now happily eating some Diwali biscuit given to me which I have devoted to other causes, it has flown into my room through the open door, and two minutes ago through the open window. I am just waiting for it to land on my shoulder, look me in the eye, and ask, "Are YOU my mother?" But now it is storming, I am a chicken, and I am going to close my doors, windows and curtains, and abandon the stray. No, I am NOT your mother, though I have spent an entire Saturday trying to help you. Don't worry. I haven't actually done that. I am just threatening at this stage.
At some point during this long Saturday I began to think of a well-known scripture in a new light. God says that not even a sparrow falls to the ground that he doesn't know about it. He said that five sparrows are sold for two small coins. The purpose of the fifth sparrow is to show us of how little value a sparrow was to the seller. If you bought four sparrows, the fifth one was added as a freebie. God says that we are not to fear because our worth is far greater than many sparrows. In fact, even the hairs of our head are numbered. This scripture inspired the beautiful song, "His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches over me." So maybe my little bird visitor HAS served a purpose today. I think of my human concern for a common little garden bird, and my very real distress that it has eluded my efforts to help. Then I think that just maybe some of my readers need to remember that God's eye is on YOU, and He is more than able to find you, give you your equivalent of a tasty worm, and say to you, "Sleep in peace, my child. Your Dad is watching over you."
Till next month, God bless. Fiona.
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