essays 250-257

1. #257 To Dye For
2. #256 Ketchup, Lucky Charms, and Fossils
3. #255 Shaking Mulberries
4. #254 Super Slow Weight Training
5. #253 Praying for Blinders
6. #252 Don’t Think about Those Bees!
7. #251 The Devil Works Overtime
8. #250 I’ll do my crying in the rain

#257 To Dye For

I finally gave in and bought a box of hair coloring. I really didn’t think I was all that gray yet until some of the girls in my former Sunday school class commented on all the gray hairs. I said, "Your class is to blame for most of the gray." Of course, no one has actual gray hairs. The ones I’ve pulled out are pure white, pigmentless. But those white hairs appear gray, when viewed on the same scalp in close proximity to brown ones. So I have a few gray hairs; a few more every week, in fact. What do I expect? I’m forty years old now, it is time to look gray. After all, I’m not going to do anything about those wrinkles I’ve earned. Besides, I had too many bad memories from that summer of Super Sun-Inâ when I was just Seventeen. Girls at State Sunshine Camp called me "Red". They figured I was a natural red head. I’m not. But I’m growing old and foolish, and I happened to have a ten dollars burning a hole in my pocket. I cut off a swatch of my locks, compared them to the swatches on the boxes and decided I was a "dark ash blonde". I did the test swatch and it looked OK. In hindsight, I should have held it up to bright artificial incandescent light. But that’s why they call it hindsight, not foresight.

It didn’t turn out too badly, really. If I hadn’t asked the boys if my hair looked slightly red, they probably wouldn’t have even noticed—in the dark. Derek said it still looked better than gray. I’m not so sure. Stan was playing tennis while I was concocting evil-smelling chemical combinations in our windowless bathroom. I didn’t say anything to him when he returned home but he noticed that I seemed to avoid any direct light. "Maybe it will look better outside in the sunlight. Or will that make it even more red?" Such encouragement. But it doesn’t look that bad. Really.

They call it permanent hair color and it is, except for the hair that is still growing under your scalp. Gray roots are a dead giveaway that the hair color is not real. Because hair dye, no matter how expensive or attractively packaged, cannot take away gray. It can’t take away gray, no matter what they claim. It only covers up the gray. That is the best it can do.

It is the same thing with those sacrifices offered by the children of Israel in the Old Testament. The very word "Kippur" (as in "Yom Kippur", Day of Attonement) really means covering. The blood shed by those countless lambs and goats was only a temporary covering for sin. They covered, but they could not take away. Read Hebrews chapter ten. Read the gospel of John, chapter one. Did you do the comparison and contrast? Here is are the main two verses:

Those sacrifices in the first covenant pointed ahead toward the cross; the sacrifices in the 1000 year reign (see Ezekiel 46) point back to the cross. But the cross is the crux. Everything centers there. We can’t earn our salvation by doing good works; how would we even know when we’d done enough? We have all sinned and fallen short. We can’t cover up our sins; we need to have them removed. Our own blood can’t remove our own sins; neither can the blood of goats and lambs. But the blood of the unspotted, sinless Lamb of God is sufficient. Can you believe that?

Jesus didn’t dye our sins, He died for them. He didn’t just cover them up, He took them away. (Where did those sins go? See Micah 6:19 and Psalm 103:12)

Lori Fiechter
June 30, 2000

p.s. Soft ash brown ended up being a much better shade for me. The red is much darker.

#256 Ketchup, Lucky Charmsâ , and Fossils

I found an illustration for the limits of scientific observation in my sink the other day. Maybe I wouldn’t even have given the glob of ketchup mixed with cereal another thought if I hadn’t just been reading my newest issue of Creation magazine. My sons were still sitting around the table, so I addressed them:

"Who ate ketchup on his Lucky Charmsâ ?" They gave me a puzzled look. I’m used to that.

"Well, then; who mixed his ketchup and Lucky Charmsâ together?

They gave me a look that said, "Mom is really losing it this time; we’d better humor her."  One of them answered me, "We didn’t eat it that way; it wasn’t even on the same plate. It just got mixed up in the sink."

I seized the educational opportunity. Homeschool moms are particularly adept at this.
"Ah," I said. "So all we can say about these fossils is that they were buried together. Just because we found their jumbled bones in the sink, we can’t assume that they lived together, or even that they died together. All we know is that they were buried together."

I’d made my point, and didn’t press it further. Think about Ketchup and Lucky Charmsâ the next time you read about a scientific fabrication woven from a few shreds of fact and a hopeful imagination. Consider these facts: A group of carnivorous dinosaur bones were found along with the fossilized remains of an herbivore. From this, it was assumed that the carnivores hunted in packs. We don’t know that. All we know is that these animals were buried together. If most fossil graveyards were the result of Noah’s flood and its after affects, it is no surprise we would find bones jumbled together in one place. Look at how debris tends to collect after a flood; it isn’t evenly scattered about. But some of these evolutionary scientists have amazing imaginations.

For example, earlier this spring, Nature, New Scientist, and Time magazine published results of a new primate fossil find. The "dawn monkey" was described as being, shy, nocturnal, with large, saucer-like eyes and spending its life flitting about the treetops of humid Asian rainforest, catching insects and drinking plant nectar. Quite a description, especially considering that the actual evidence for this dawn monkey consists of some tiny foot/ankle bones no bigger than rice grains. Artistic license is alive and well in the evolutionary scientific community.

So, think before you buy. Think before you swallow. Think before you believe everything you read. And again I say, think.

For an excellent Creation Science Web page, check out http://www.answersingenesis.org/.
I use it as my home page.

Lori Fiechter
June 30, 2000

#255 Shaking Mulberries

Mulberries are not an elite berry. They grow on trees, not bushes, they are soft and rather bland when fully ripe. And they have those little green stems sticking to them that you can’t pull off without squirting purple juice all over yourself.( I made a mulberry cobbler the other night; even though it had a great taste, those little green stems didn’t soften up at all when cooked; I felt like I was swallowing spider legs along with the fruit.) These berries are so soft, and so staining, that you can’t pick them as you would regular berries. The best way to harvest them is to put an old sheet on the ground under the tree and then give the branches a good shaking.

I was walking on a path along the Wabash last night in Bluffton when I saw mulberries on the ground. Nice, fat ones. I gathered up a few in my hands and took them to my berry-loving son. He is the one who begrudged me making a pie out of a handful of black raspberries that I picked along the road last week. Mulberries are not raspberries, however, and I wasn’t sure he’d like them. All three boys must have been hungry from playing in the park; they wanted to pick more. My husband was a good sport and so we parked along the river, grabbed an empty plastic bag and another paper one from the bottom of the van and headed down the path.

The boys had a great, messy time trying to pick off those delicate berries. They didn’t exactly have a soft touch, though. By the time we’d finished, they looked like they’d been grape stomping with their hands. We did end up shaking the branches to get more berries but we had no sheet so they landed with either a thud on the grass or a splat on the asphalt path. We had a few wetnaps along in the car to get the worst off our hands but even soap and water at the nearby public restroom couldn’t get those stains off. When we got home, I carefully washed the berries and put them in a bowl. I was told that I could put them in a pie after all. Mulberries are OK to eat when you are picking them off the tree for fun, but at home, they didn’t seem quite as appealing. I still like them, though. Not for the taste as much as the memory of mulberry jam and mulberry pies gone by.

My point? I don’t have much of one this time. I suppose I could talk about those stains but I kept thinking about the shaking. When Stan shook those branches, mulberries rained down on our heads. It made me think of those Bible verses about God shaking the earth on the Day of the Lord. Chapter 12 in the book of Hebrews compares this future shaking with the past shaking on Mt. Sinai (or Horeb) when the law was given to Moses. "Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." (quoted from Haggai 2:6)Why—"that those things (eternal things) which cannot be shaken may remain." We have received a kingdom that cannot be moved or shaken. But this old earth will be shaken. Look up the word shake in your concordance. Isaiah speaks of this shaking(see chapters 17, 24), so does David ( Psalm 28), so does Joel (3:16), so does Jesus (Matthew 24: 29) There will be a terrible shaking in that day "as the shaking of an olive tree" but we in Christ are not to be shaken in mind, or troubled as we see that day approaching (see II Thessalonians 2: 2 and Hebrews 10:25). We know that shaking cannot shake the eternal treasures we have store up. We know that the shaking, dissolving and melting is necessary to bring forth that new heavens and earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. (II Peter 3) When all the world around you seems to be shaking loose from its moorings, remember those things the world can’t take away from you. And don’t worry too much about all those mulberries or olives falling to the ground.

Lori Fiechter
June 29, 2000

Postscript: My friend Pat Bloomfield wrote a poem to go along with this essay. I think you'll like it.

#253 Praying for Blinders

We live in Amish Country here in Northeast Indiana; Old-Order Amish that still drive in open buggies. I have plenty of chances to observe these buggies and their horses while I am out walking. I saw some horses in the pasture field the other day with gray masks covering their heads—just their ears and noses stuck out. There weren’t even eye holes. I’ve seen blinders, but this is ridiculous! Maybe it was to keep bugs off? I don’t know.

But more about those blinders. I think they are meant to keep the horses eyes on the road ahead; undistracted from whatever is passing on the side. They don’t always work. A horse and buggy came up behind me a couple of weeks ago while I was walking over in the side ditch. As soon as he saw me (weren’t those blinders working?), he reared up and fell over sideways in the opposite side ditch. He ended up being OK, although I was sure he must have broken a leg or something. His skittishness has made me a bit skittish myself. How would you like to have the moniker, "One who scares horses"?

You need to be careful when picking out a pair of spiritual blinders. We don’t want blinders like two of the three main characters in the parable of the good Samaritan. We don’t want to be blind to those around us who are suffering. We shouldn’t turn a blind eye to injustice, when we have the ability to do something about it. We should, however, try a little harder to be blind to the petty faults (not outright sins) of our friends and family. Recall the recommendation to singles looking for a mate: before marriage, keep your eyes wide open; after marriage, keep them half-shut. We are in for a rough ride if we expect everyone around us to be perfect. We can’t hold everyone else to our standards. Allow people to make mistakes and learn to forgive yourself as well as others.

But I was really thinking about a different kind of blinders. The kind that Jesus was talking about in the Lord’s prayer: lead me not into temptation. Give me blinders, Lord. You know my areas of weakness, give me the self-discipline to stay away from those danger zones. And if I have to cross that street of temptation, give me blinders. Or make me walk that street alongside someone to whom I can be accountable. (Someone without my same weakness, or it will be the "blind leading the blind into the ditch"). I don’t want to fall sideways into that ditch as that poor old horse did. I don’t want to be frightened, either, of dangers on either side of the path of life. For there are dangers—just like those chained lions that Christian had to pass by in Pilgrim’s Progress.

Just keep me on the strait (yes, it is strait--compressed, not straight—look it up) and narrow. I’ve been wandering all over the place in this essay. Don’t let me wander all over the path of life like that. Let me be blind to the petty faults of others so that I can get along with them; Let me be blind to temptations that beckon from the sidelines—although not blind to Satan’s traps. Lead me on a straight path. As the old spiritual states, "Don’t you run to the right, don’t you run to the left; Just keep in the middle of the road"

Lori Fiechter
June 29, 2000

#250 I’ll do my crying in the rain

I think that the drought here in Northern Indiana is nearly over; at least at the upper soil levels. We had five inches of rain in seven days last week. There were rivers of runoff cutting through the soybean fields and water standing in the corn rows. Things have dried up a bit by now, although the ground was still soft in places where I mowed the grass yesterday. The tires got slick.

When we had day after day of gloomy weather, it reminded me of a song sung by the Everly Brothers back in the 1960’s. It was called, "I’ll do my crying in the rain". I don’t remember the lyrics exactly. His girl had broken up with him but he didn’t want anyone to see his pain so he did his crying in the rain. Catchy, huh?

Are you a stoic? The stoics of ancient Greece believed that people should control their emotions to obtain happiness and wisdom; they refused to demonstrate either joy or sorrow. They wouldn’t even cry in the rain, so to speak. Are you like that? Do you keep your emotions bottled up inside you? Do you act like everything is just fine, while inside you’re dying? Does it seem unspiritual to you to admit that you feel lousy? One prescription could be to read one Psalm a day; learn how to go to God with your negative emotions. You don’t have to cry in the rain, you can cry out to God. If you think you don’t have a friend with whom you can be open and vulnerable, you are wrong. You have David’s friend.

Listen to these words from Psalm 13:
"How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? For ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?…"

Or from Psalm 27: "Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me." David was not afraid to pour out his whole heart to God—to cry out to Him. Neither was Job. Read his complaints to God in chapters 29 and 30.

You don’t have to do your crying in the rain. Talk to God. Or talk with someone you can trust. Now, there is the other extreme, of course. There is the person who is constantly blubbering and whining to everyone about how awful her life is. If you are that kind of person, perhaps you need to talk to someone who is in worse straits than you are to get a little perspective.

Someday, God’s word promises that our tears will all be wiped away. (Isaiah 25:8, Revelation 7:17 and 21:4) But if there were no tears, there would be nothing to wipe away. We will have tears and sorrow. That’s life. But you don’t have to bottle up those tears (did you know that God has our tears in His bottle—Psalm 56:8) and you don’t have to do your crying in the rain. Whatever your problem or heartache, you can always "Tell it to Jesus". (click to hear this hymn)