Last Words

Over the last few days I've had opportunity to spend a lot of time with Grandma Roberts.  She went home this morning (July 31, 2017) to be with her Father as well as to be reunited with her husband.  I've said it several times this week.  I think Lewie was waiting for her on a bench by the Pearly Gates.  No doubt he kept looking at his watch.  When she finally did show it he no doubt said, "Well it's about time, Jackie!"  :-)  To which God looked at him and said, "Go work on your mansion."  He no doubt has plans for a whole neighborhood up there.

The last few days have not been a struggle as some might think.  Yes.  I've had my moments.   But sitting with the family and listening to them reminisce about their mom and dad was not only a comfort to me but also opened doors to my past.  Hearing Dad talk about getting hit on the head by a dump truck by his sister Peggy when he was five and then returning the "favor" with an Indian to the cheek was not something I'd hear in an every day conversation (although Dad has brought that up before.  More for his sister's "benefit" than anything else.  The whole brotherly love thing.  For some reason she's always in earshot...) But there were also some other things that spoke to the Roberts Family Heritage that were discussed.    The 2500 plus homes that Grandpa built.  The blizzards, restaurants, building codes (or lack thereof), that Grandpa worked with.  All the history that surrounds our family.  The stories I head this weekend were incredible.  I actually felt like I became more of a Roberts as a result of it just because I knew more about our heritage.

Now, as I was sitting in Grandma's room there were a couple times when Dad left me by myself.  It was these times when I talked to her.  Thinking about it now maybe I should've felt weird about it but I didn't.  She was hours from death at that point.  I can't remember what I said but I do know one thing.  I was so grateful that God gave me the opportunity to say good bye.  Because I had that chance.  And while I won't be able to make the funeral I'm happy that I was able to give what I could.   Plus, She's not going to be there anyway.  She's got a new body, is in heaven and is even now communing with her Lord and Savior.  That is something to rejoice over!    So Grandma, until we meet again!

A Firm Foundation

The current trend in a lot of churches today has been the shift away from the hymns and the move to choruses and praise songs.   First of all let me say that most of the songs that we sing now in our worship services are fine, and it's not my intent to belittle them in any way.  That being said, there is something about the hymns of the faith that move the soul. makes them resonate.  Hymns like Blessed Assurance were written back in 1873.  Some churches are still singing that hymn.  More and more though there are less and less churches singing hymns for whatever reason.  That brings us to the next few entries of my blog.  I'm going to post about some good old fashioned hymns.  The ones I sang in church growing up and still enjoy hearing to this day.  Given that this is the first post, I thought How Firm A Foundation would be appropriate.

In 1787 John Rippon, pastor of Carter Lane Baptist Church in London, published A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors.  How Firm a Foundation was included in the publication.  The writer of the hymn is still unknown.  They have an idea as to who wrote it, but no one knows for sure.  At first the only author was merely only identified as K.  Then in 1822, in an updated publication of the hymns, the author had been changed to Kn.  In the 1835, edition the author's name changed yet again.  This time the author was Keene (or Keen).    The thought was that the writer was Robert Keene, the musical director at John Rippon's church, which would account for the some of the uncertainty surrounding the author.  However in an 1844 edition, it was decided that the author was Kirkham.

It has been said many times that God (or the Lord) "works in mysterious ways." Men from all walks of life have found this hymn to be encouraging in times of peril. In fact the one thing that I've seen in my reading of history is how effective stories and other random tidbits of information can be.  I have found some surrounding this particular hymn.    For example, it was sung on a regular basis by both North and South before the Civil War.

It was a favorite hymn of President Theodore Roosevelt, and it was sung at both his and President Woodrow Wilson's funerals as well as to Andrew Jackson on his deathbed.   It was also a favorite of Robert E. Lee.

General Curtis Guild, Jr., told the story in an interview with The Sunday School Times about the Seventh Army Corps during the Spanish-American War.

"The Seventh Army Corps was encamped on the hills above Havana, Cuba, on Christmas Eve of 1898—a beautiful tropical night. Suddenly a sentinel from the camp of the Forty-ninth Iowa called, Number ten; twelve o’clock, and all’s well!

      A strong voice raised the chorus, and manly voices joined in until the whole regiment was singing. Then the Sixth Missouri added its voices, and the Fourth Virginia, and all the rest, ’til there, as General Guild said, on the long ridges above the great city whence Spanish tyranny once went forth to enslave the New World, a whole American army corps was singing:

‘Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed;

I, I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;

I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

      The Northern soldier knew the hymn as one he had learned beside his mother’s knee. To the Southern soldier it was that and something more—it was the favorite hymn of General Robert E. Lee, and was sung at that great commander’s funeral.

      Protestant and Catholic, South and North, singing together on Christmas day in the morning—that’s an American army!"

—Amos Wells

There are many hymns out there with many stories surrounding them.  Some give insight into why the hymn was written, and show the rawness of the author.  Maybe the hurt he or she was feeling.  I think this is a bit different though.   We don't know much about the person who wrote the hymn, but one thing we do know is this.  Much of the written text is taken directly from the Bible.  So much so, that in some hymnals the majority of the text has quotations around it because of that very fact.     I am not dismissing any other hymn or hymn writer but given that the very text of the hymn straight out of the Bible it stands to reason that there should be some mystery surrounding it.  It reminds me of the unknown author of the New Testament book of Hebrews.     The one thing we know about the writer of that book is that he was a student of God..  In the same way, whoever wrote How Firm A Foundation,  very obviously was a student of the scriptures, and was very intent on using them to usher believers into the presence of God.  

My Notes:

History of Hymns

History and Mystery

Hymn Stories

Additional Sources:  

Newspaper

Studies of Familiar Hymns

Sermon Writer

Saying Good-Bye to 2016

When I look back on this past year I'd be lying if I said it had been easy.  Don't get me wrong.  A lot of great things have happened.  I moved back to Michigan which enabled me to spend more time with family, I went to the UP in October, and got to spend Christmas at home for only the second time since 1997.  But I've had my struggles and there is one small group of people that over the last year have really helped and supported me.  My family.  While I haven't talked to them a lot about some of the things I've been going through I know they've been thinking about me and praying for me.  Or just plain loving me.  To have that family structure has been such a blessing over the last thirty years, but specifically the last ten.  Knowing that they are there for me means a lot.  Of course I have to be careful not to take it for granted (and I have been) but when I look at the strength and stability of my brothers and sister (and their wives/husband) the biblical principles we were taught when we were growing up are coming to light.  The verse that comes to mind, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it."  (Proverbs 22:6) is one that I think is very applicable and even though I don't have children of my own I certainly hope I can leave that sort of legacy.  I also, truly hope that our family continues to remain strong in the years to come even after we leave.  Happy New Year!!!  2017 here we come!!!

Legacies

Every day people die.  Actually every minute of every hour.  As the year goes by the Entertainment section of Google News will have a story about a different celebrity that has passed on.  For me , some of the older ones that have died (Florence Henderson for example), didn't have quite the impact as when Robin Williams died.  That one and ironically Dan Haggerty (He was known for the show The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams back in the seventies).  Robin Williams was one of my all time favorite comedians and the first actor I grew up watching to pass away.  I had that moment where I'll never forget where I was.  On vacation, in Gaylord, Michigan, getting ready to get into a car.  Dan Haggerty, known as Grizzly Adams, was the origin of my email address.   I was also dubbed Grizzly Adams by my cousin because I had grown a beard so I had a kinship with him.  Heck,  even  when The Force Awakens came out and Han Solo died (Oops.  Spoiler alert) I felt as though I'd lost a friend.  But I digress.

 This week Alan Thicke passed away.  He was sixty-nine.  Five years older then my parents and twenty-five years older than me.  I grew up watching Growing Pains.  He was an actor I "knew" well.  A friend.  Or at least his character was.   I'm at the age (forty-two) where the actors I grew up watching are starting to take get to an age where they are more likely to leave this world.  In watching the news feed surrounding Alan Thicke's death what has been so cool to see is to see the positive mark he left on the world.  How cool is it that the last thing he was doing was playing a pick-up game of hockey with his son?  Spending time with family.  What a way to go.  Almost like going in your sleep.  I only hope that I can leave behind that kind of legacy.  My hope for him though is that when he entered the next world he was ready because if he wasn't then all the positive things he did here, while great, would mean nothing.  However, that is not for us to know.

An Adventure into the Past, A Journey to the Present

 

 The last few days have taken me on a trip back in time.  So much so that at one point  I felt trapped between times.  Stuck in some sort of space/time continuum.  It was down right odd.  When opportunities like this present themselves it can be very rewarding to see how we grew up.

As I've looked back I've found things that are very consistent.  If I were to do write a resume based on my life I would be an outdoorsman. :-)

Way back in 1976 I was skipping stones in the park and bothering the animals.  I was two!  In fairness to the swan or whatever that is I think it was a staring contest.  Ironically, I had a similar encounter with a bear a many years later.  Thankfully we weren't this close and it wasn't a staring contest!  But that is another story for another time.    

Over our lives we tend to do certain things.  I have a tendency to climb things.  

I started early and it hasn't stopped.  From skipping stones, encounters with wildlife, and climbing trees I'm guessing my childhood wasn't much different then any other boy's.  Granted, there were five other kids that came after me and thousands of hours or adventures, stories, bumps bruises, and the like but we all have our beginnings somewhere.  For me, it was these two people.  That house in the first picture is the house they brought me home to.  Dad told me once that without me they wouldn't be a family.  He's right.  Without them we wouldn't be a family.  In looking back I've seen how important family is.  I've seen pictures of people I never knew, hardly knew, and know very well.  t's been really good.  I'm looking forward to sharing more as I sort through all these pictures I have.  This is just the tip of the iceberg!

Reflections on Star Wars

SPOILERS!!!!!

                                                                                                                    

 Walt Disney DIS -0.86% sent out an “It’s official!” press release Wednesday at around 4:30 p.m. PT,  but in case you need hard confirmation, Wednesday’s $6.2 million gross for Star Wars: The Force Awakens has indeed pushed the Walt Disney film past the $760.5m domestic gross of James Cameron’s Avatar.J.J. Abrams’s sci-fi sequel is now the biggest grossing movie ever in America — if you don’t adjust for inflation, the 3D bump and the IMAX/PLF bumps. For the first time in 18 years, a James Cameron movie is not at the top of the charts, and for the first time in forty years, a film not helmed by James Cameron, George Lucas, or Steven Spielberg is the biggest movie ever in America. It really is the end of an era.

So here it is.    The "Star Wars" of this generation.   I finally saw it this past week.  I'll say this.  With all the money it's made the hype going in was there whether I wanted it to be or not and I'll be honest. Initially, there was a bit of a let down.  It really wasn't an amazing movie.  It was a really good movie.  That was about it.  However, the inclusion of Han Solo, Princess Leia (I think she's a General or something now) and Luke Skywalker (Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill) was brilliant.  Oh yeah.  Chewy too.  :-)  Can't forget him.  R2d2 and  C3PO show up as well.    Bringing back all those guys (and girl) connected this movie to the original three.  This one takes place thirty years later.   As these different characters started showing up I started seeing my childhood.   When I was seventeen I had brain surgery and as a result I don't remember a lot before my surgery.  Interestingly enough though, the one memory I do have is Star Wars.  Way back in the day...the early 80s...I was 8 or so, there were two times a year we could stay up.  CBS would play The Sound of Music and Star Wars annually.  I'm not sure how many years they did it.  It might've only been once.  All I know is I remember people being interviewed about how many times they'd seen Star Wars.  This church choir had seen it 222 times I think.  But I remember it.  I don't remember a lot from my childhood but I remember that.  It amazes me how much you grow to think of a movie character as family.   Specifically, Han Solo. He really stood out in all three movies and then Harrison Ford's career took off afterward.  Of course I followed it.  I grew up watching him.  He's been Indiana Jones, Jack Ryan, the  President of the United States, a Fugitive on the run, and now once again, Han Solo.    

So I sat there last week watching Episode Seven "The Force Awakens"  and it gets to the end where Han Solo calls out to his son to try and to get him to come home.  They meet on a bridge over a huge chasm.  Kylo Ren, Han and Leia's son has a face to face encounter with his father and kills him.  At that moment I felt I'd lost a family member. The guy I grew up with.  Now, when I watch a movie really become a part of it.   The fact that something as simple as a movie character/actor had such a 

such a profound influence on my life that when he was gone I did a double take.   

The generation of today is so different then mine  For my generation (and those before me as well), 

we saw it before it became a phenomenon.  When it was just a fun story about a ragtag group of 

people who end up fighting for a common cause.  Now it's this Universe.  I had a guy shocked that 

when I went to see it I wasn't just awestruck at how amazing it was.  Discussions on who is related to 

who and why sis this person this and that and the list goes on and on and on.  I was happy with my 

action figures, the few space ships I got and the Star Wars lunch box.  Now granted, movies and tv 

are a huge part of my life but if just seeing the loss of a character I grew up has such an impact on 

me what other parts in my life am I danger of losing and if I lose them will I be prepared?  Will I 

know?   These are questions I'm asking myself.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2016/01/07/box-office-star
-wars-the-force-awakens-zooms-past-avatar-soars-to-764m-cume/

Unbroken: An Extended Review

                                                            

After seeing the movie Unbroken I was excited to find out what the rest of the story was like.  Not only the parts audiences saw in the movie that were cut short due to time, but I also wanted to know how Louie Zamperini's conversion to Christ fit into the story.

I first noticed it when he crashed into the ocean.  He was tangled in some wires and was underwater long enough to go unconscious.  When he came to he was still underwater but he had somehow been freed of the wires.  Someone wanted him to survive.    It seems God wasn't through with him yet. 

During the 47 days they were stranded on the raft they kept their minds working by talking about their lives, the past, present, and future.  They had very little food and were surviving on small amounts of water.  After the crash three men had survived.  Of the three, only two made it the entire 47 days. 

The Green Hornet crashed on May 27, 1943.  47 days later Louie Zamperini and Allen Phillips (Phil) had floated about 2000 miles and were near the Marshall Islands.  What happened over the next three years would make those 47 days look like paradise. 

I'm not going to go into everything that happened as I don't want to tell the whole story but what I will say is that it really amazes me what the human body can sustain.  Of course, I think in Louie's case it had a lot to do with the fact that he had taken such good care of himself and was in very good shape.  God had a plan for him the whole time and was watching over him too. 

To me the thing that was most intriguing was the benefit of the research done by the author, Laura Hillenbrand.  Hearing the stories told by those who Tom Brokaw called "The Greatest Generation"(1) has always been something I've found intriguing.  History through someone's eyes whose actually been there is always fascinating to listen to.  That said, sometimes it's heartbreaking and can shed a whole new light on something you've only heard or read about from people who were never really there.  Laura Hillenbrand was able to get interviews with the pilots who dropped the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima.  We got "front row seats" as it were to the event.  I know it's been written about hundreds (if not thousands) of times before but this was the first time I'd ever read it.  One of the pilots "scribbled in his diary "MY GOD!" when he saw the entire sky swirling pink and blue"(2)

I've read books about World War II and the time surrounding it.  What I've found is that in the European Theatre as well as the Pacific the world is a lot different inside their borders.  In fact, if you were going to be a POW you wanted to be a Nazi POW rather then a Japanese.  The Japanese were brutal. "Japan held some 132,000 POWs from America, Britain, Holland, and Australia.    More then 37% of Americans captured by Japan died compared to only 1% of Americans held by the Nazis and Italians.  After the war had ended and the POWs were being taken by train through Japan one said the following after going through Hiroshima following the dropping of the atomic bomb.(3)  "It was beautiful.  I realized that this is what had ended the war.  It meant we didn't have to go hungry any longer, or go without medical treatment.  I was so insensitive to anyone else's human needs and suffering.  I know it's not right to say it was beautiful, because it really wasn't.  But I believe the end probably justified the means."(4)  In today's culture if someone were to say that without all the apologies surrounding it there would be a media frenzy.  The talking heads would go crazy and he would be butchered (again) in the media.  But he's right.  I can't speak as to what Japanese society is like today but I do know that in the time of World War II honor was big.  If you did not have honor you were nothing.  You were better off dead.  So when push came to shove the only choice the Allies had was to drop the Atomic bomb.  Given the guy's three years of continuous torture I'd expect a response like that anyway. In the end though it was a very sad day.  Victorious yes, but the cost was incredible. 

After reading Unbroken and seeing the tremendous struggles the soldiers went through it amazes me that any could just stand and take it.  Every single day.  It impresses me that we have soldiers out there defending our nation who are willing to do that.    I come back full circle to the question I asked at the beginning.  How did Louie's conversion change the story?  One experience in particular stood out to me.  In 1943 Louie was captive on the island of Kwajalein(5).The island had been dubbed Execution Island  and he was there he had a guard by the name of Kawamura (Louie was uncertain of his name).  it turned out he was a Christian and while Louie was on that island Kawamura protected him and Phil.  42 days after their arrival they were taken from their cells and Louie looked one last time for Kawamura.  He didn't see him.  I have to wonder if he wasn't a soldier sent by God to protect Louie and Phil.  Once they were transferred his job was done.  God works in mysterious ways.  Knowing that God was working through Louie's life and the events therein and seeing how it came together through such an amazing journey was something I'll not soon forget.  It made the personal story of a war hero all that more special because God used him in so many way to help so many people.    He must've been a really special man. 

God has a plan for everything and maybe that's why God doesn't allow for everyone to make it back.  It's a cold hard fact.  I can't explain it and won't even try.  I do know one thing.  Louie Zamperini has finished the race.  He is now with his Creator.  He leaves behind an awesome legacy that, while it may be much more colorful then mine I know that we worship the same God so in the end it doesn't matter who does what as long  as it's done for his kingdom.  I just want to hear those words, "Well done."  Thank you Louie!  Take a lap for me!



(1)  "The Greatest Generation", Tom Brokaw, 2010
(2)"Unbroken", Laura Hillenbrand, 2010, p.300
(3)"Unbroken" Laura Hillenbrand, 2010 p. 315
(4)"Unbroken" Laura Hillenbrand, 2010, 320
(5)  Kwajalein Atoll During World War II