No glace

Aboard a small jet winging its 53-minute flight from Memphis to Atlanta, a flight attendant quickly served drinks. When she asked the lady next to me, “What would you like?” the distinguished-looking senior adult responded, “Wah-tuh. No glahs.”

Seeing the confusion on the flight attendant’s face, I translated: “No ice.”

“That was going to be my next guess,” the flight attendant said. I smiled, knowing her first thought and picturing her trying to serve, “Water. No glass.”

I smiled too because of the small victory I’d just experienced.

Rewind six months. Feeling more daring than ready, I announced my intention to learn conversational French. Our younger daughter Amanda speaks French fluently. In high school and college, I myself took French. Ah, but a few days – er, decades – have passed since then.

Three months after making my bold announcement, I hadn’t yet acted on it. Amanda pointed me to a language program online that teaches words and phrases. Downloading the “lite” version, I tiptoed into the baby pool of conversational language-learning.

My first word list contained names of 16 animals. Before long, I could say such crucial words as cow (la vache – pronounced “lah vahsh”), cat (le chat – “luh shah”) and bee (l’abeille – whose pronunciation I will not even try to explain). Thus, when my husband and I saw the movie, Wall-E, I pointed excitedly to the robot’s cockroach friend and announced, “Le cafard!”

Two months later, our daughter Megan, my sister Karen and I bought tickets to visit Amanda, studying abroad in Belgium. We planned to travel the first week in November, spending several days each in Brussels and Paris. Part of the time, Amanda would accompany us. Part of the time, we’d be on our own.

The day before departure, I shut down my French language program, feeling rising panic. I knew 325 French words and phrases – more or less. Had I learned the most vital words? When needed, would I recall them? Would I understand anything that an actual French-speaking person said?

One day later, on the first leg of my trip, I sat beside a woman who turned and spoke to the person behind her in a language definitely not English. Summoning my courage, I asked her, “Français?”

“Belgian!” she replied. (Yes, she had spoken French, but wanted to make her country of origin quite clear.)

I said, “Je m’appelle Deborah.” She told me her name, “Nicole.” In French, I told Nicole that I was going to Belgium to visit my daughter who was studying in Brussels. In French, Nicole told me that Brussels in November is very cold. Nicole lives in Brussels. She had come to Memphis with a group of eight. I asked, “Graceland?” She answered, “Oui.”

A few minutes later, she ordered, “Water. No glace” (meaning “ice” and pronounced rather like saying “glass” with a British accent). Amazed, I found myself translating from another language for someone else.

That short flight set the tone for the trip. On an elementary level and with some funny experiences, I actually communicated in a different language. Amazingly, I did it way before I thought I was ready.

Perhaps you’ve set out to attempt something daring, something you believe God is telling you to do. Perhaps you’ve waded in – and found the water getting very deep, very fast. Perhaps a loud voice inside you is shouting, “I’m not ready for this!”

In Hebrews 10:38, God says, “I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” Mais oui! With the Hebrews writer, you and I can answer, “But we are not of those who shrink back . . .”

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Hebrews 10:38 TNIV

Check out Byki (Before You Know It) language-learning system at www.byki.com.

Reformation Day

One of my favorite movies – titled simply, Luther – tells the story of Martin Luther, the sixteenth-century German law student turned Catholic monk turned reformer.

Luther dared to say to the church leaders of his day, “Excuse me, but have you noticed that the way we’re doing things doesn’t match up with who God is and what he says?”

In particular, Luther dealt with the issue of indulgences. When Luther read the Bible (in Latin, the only translation available), he came to believe that “salvation is a free gift of God, received only by true repentance and faith in Jesus as the Messiah.” Meanwhile, the church was selling “indulgences” to raise money to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. A church fundraiser sent to Germany kept telling prospective givers, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

At first, Luther expressed his concerns privately. Church leaders responded with the Latin equivalent of, “Quit questioning The Church.”

Luther didn’t want to buck his authorities. But he also didn’t want to ride along behind leaders leading toward a cliff. What’s more, being one of the few who could see the cliff (because he had access to the Bible and could read Latin), he couldn’t in good conscience simply jump to safety while thousands of others followed the leaders over the edge.

So Martin Luther went public. On October 31, 1517, according to one early account, Luther nailed a copy of his “Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg – an act “now seen as sparking the Protestant Reformation, and celebrated every October 31 as Reformation Day.”

Luther’s document contained 95 Theses. How could a nearly 100-point sermon posted on a church door spark a movement that “changed the course of Western civilization”? For one thing, other people of influence saw the wrong direction in which the church was heading. When their combined voices began to speak the truth, many received it. Further, Luther’s list didn’t stay on that church door.

Rather, “The 95 Theses were quickly translated from Latin into German, printed, and widely copied, . . . Within two weeks, the theses had spread throughout Germany; within two months throughout Europe.”

In a nutshell, God blew on that fire and fanned it.

At that point, things got really interesting – and messy, and difficult, and dangerous. Sometimes, people trying to lead the right way did wrong things. Sometimes, they overcorrected. Sometimes, they expressed wrong beliefs. Just read a little of what Luther said about Jews and women, for example, to see that he himself did not get everything right.

Sometimes people with absolute power in the Western church structure made stunning countermoves intended to crush the new movement.

In spite of it all, the impossible happened. With shudders, groans and missteps, through confusion and disarray, the church made a critical course correction. It avoided the cliff God describes in Leviticus 26:23-24: “And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me; Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins” (KJV).

John Eckhardt writes, “Reformation blesses and strengthens the church.” He also writes, “Reformation is unpleasant and controversial but absolutely necessary. The Lord will continue to reform the Church until it is the glorious Church prophesied in the Word of God.”

Regardless when you’re reading this, thank God for Reformation Day. And ask him to grant his church courage to make critical course corrections needed in this Reformation season.

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Quoted material referencing Martin Luther above is from “Martin Luther,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther.

John Eckhardt, Moving in the Apostolic (Ventura, CA: Renew Books), 1999, pp. 72-73, 78.

Under our rug

One mild October day, I decided to have lunch on our covered back porch. Carrying my tray with peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich and tomato soup to the round patio table, I sat and began eating.

Happily munching, enjoying the peaceful scenery, I watched our cat Pewter at play. When Pewter paraded near the table, I looked down. There underfoot I saw ants.

Our concrete patio was poured in four rectangular sections. Because the patio lies under roof, we bought an inexpensive outdoor rug to adorn a central area where two lounging chairs sit.

Watching the ants, I realized they had made a highway of the center crack running the length of the concrete. I moved my feet away from the crack, leaned over and lifted the edge of the rug. Underneath, hordes of little intruders trekked along the hidden part of the crack.

I had swept the patio two days earlier and had seen no sign of ants. Further, we had contracted with a pest management company to keep the house and its immediate vicinity bug-free. A company rep had recently given the place a thorough treatment. He’d told us to call if we saw any insect-type pests.

The next morning, I called. That evening, another company rep knocked on our door. I took him around to the patio. “Hmm,” he said, as I pulled back the rug and showed him the critters scurrying along the patio’s center line.

Leaning and peering, then straightening up, he said, “I think they’re fire ants.”

Surely not! I thought. How is that possible? I wondered. I’m glad I moved my feet, I decided. “Fire ants?” I said.

The last time we lived in Mississippi – in the northeast section – we battled fire ants. We knew their reputation – aggressive behavior, painful sting.

Imported by accident from South America to Mobile, Alabama, in the early 1930s, they soon took up residence across the 12 southeastern states. In South America they had natural enemies. In the US, they do not.

Previously, fire ants signaled their presence in our yard by building large mounds. If someone dared to kick a mound or bump it with a stick, myriads of ants would suddenly swarm out. Eager to get rid of the venomous creatures, we followed the recommended procedures. Yet each time we thought the problem solved, we found a new mound.

Moving away from Mississippi 14 years ago, I bid a glad farewell to fire ants. Now, 10 months after our return, they’d come out to welcome us home. Yet, how? We had worked in our yard throughout the summer and into the fall. We hadn’t seen one fire ant hill.

The pest management man sprayed the crack in the patio. Then, he inspected the yard. He returned to report, “That mulch you have around your three new trees? You have fire ant beds in two of the three.”

He added, “The ants probably tunneled from their hills to the crack in the concrete under your rug when the night temps dropped below 50 degrees. The rug holds in warmth.”

Ah, ha! Sneaky fire ants! Hiding in our tree mulch and snuggling under our rug!

Jesus never dealt with fire ants. But he did deal with venomous people who hid behind religious masks. He told them, “You can't keep your true self hidden forever; before long you'll be exposed.”

I’m happy to report: Crafty fire ants exposed! Natural enemies or not, they do have an enemy here, with tenacity and new strategies to get these usurpers off our land.

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Luke 12:2 from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.

More info about fire ants at www.fireant.net and www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/sep99/ant0999.htm.

Wake up, Deborah!

“Wake up, wake up, Deborah!
Wake up, wake up, break out in song!”

So sang Deborah herself, a prophet and leader in Israel in the days of the Old Testament judges.

Who would have thought, at this late date in life, I’d find myself singing the same refrain, with a strange new confidence and joy? Who would have thought that a character in a local theater production in Mississippi and a wagon bed in North Carolina would contribute to my awakening?

The Deborah of the Old Testament served as a judge for years. Who knows how many people she helped as, one after another, month after month, “the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided” (Judges 4:5)? One day, Deborah awoke to a different assignment, an assignment to cooperate with God to deliver all Israel.

Cruelly oppressed for 20 years, the Israelites had at last cried out to the Lord for help. He responded by speaking to Deborah, telling her the strategy for deliverance. Sending for a man named Barak, Deborah gave Barak his marching orders from the Lord. As Deborah and Barak obeyed God, thousands of warriors rose up to join them – and the Lord himself routed their oppressors.

In a different era, on a different continent, I participated in a little theater production of The Miracle Worker, a play about the child Helen Keller, oppressed from infancy by blindness and deafness and by a well-meaning family with no idea how to discipline or teach her. As portrayed in the play, Helen’s father, Captain Arthur Keller, epitomizes the mindset of the Old South.

When Helen’s new teacher, Annie Sullivan, arrives, she and Captain Keller vie over who will carry her suitcase. Annie wants to hold the suitcase herself so she can give Helen a gift it contains. When Captain Keller tries to take the suitcase, Annie says, “I’d like it.” Keller holds on tightly, announcing, “I couldn’t think of it, Miss Sullivan. You’ll find in the south we view women as the flowers of civiliza—” Audiences smile as Annie wins the skirmish.

Audiences laugh out loud as Captain Keller clumsily carries Annie down a ladder after Helen locks her in a second-story bedroom. When Annie says, “I’m perfectly able to go down a ladder under my own—,” Keller interrupts her: “I doubt it, Miss Sullivan.”

Caught up in the drama focusing on Helen and Annie, play-goers find themselves liking Captain Keller, enjoying the laughter his antics provoke and overlooking his condescending attitude toward women.

One mild September day, sitting on a wagon bed in a North Carolina field, I encountered God. For decades I had known him. For decades I had recited Psalm 139:13-14: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” God came to the wagon bed, not just to remind me of that verse, but to take me back to the place it describes.

From the womb I had accepted dishonor as normal. I had lived with an identity obscured by a culture that still today hides its lack of respect for women behind its gallant shows of respect for women. A likeable culture, it endears itself by laughter – yet often the jokes themselves subtly convey that women aren’t to be taken seriously.

On that wagon bed, God told me what should have been obvious. My Father said, “Your name is Deborah.”

In that instant, I awakened to my identity. I accepted my new assignment.

Now I sing to whoever will hear, “Wake up, wake up! Let God himself tell you your name!”

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Wrong number

You there – yes, you with the initials KB and the penchant for giving my cell phone number to your creditors – you need to hear the song I’ve found. You need to sing it.

For three years, I’ve enjoyed my mobile phone number. However, I haven’t enjoyed getting calls from the folks to whom you owe money.

I said so to the nice man who called yesterday. The phone rang. I answered. Like so many before, the man said your name. Oh, he didn’t know you – just your name.

Such calls tend to come in waves. Just when I think they’ve stopped, they start again. They provide insight into the intimate details of your debt cycle. I can provide nothing to the people trying to contact you, other than the strong suggestion that they delete my phone number from your record.

At first, I thought my cell phone number had belonged to you before I inherited it. Now, I wonder if you picked the number out of the air. I’ve never gotten a call from one of your friends or family members. If I had, I might know how to reach you.

We could talk. It would be like a “reveal your secret pal” meeting. You could get acquainted with the person to whom you’ve given so many “little gifts” of unexpected calls all these years. I could ask you questions.

“How did debt become a way of life for you?” “What about deceit – does it fix anything?” “Do you ever get incredibly tired of repeating the same cycle?” “Do you consider it a game?” “Have any of your creditors ever caught up with you?” “If you could find a way out, would you take it?”

After you answer, I could sing you that song.

Maybe a year ago, I complained to the phone company.

The courteous but unconcerned customer service rep said her company has no way to stop you from repeatedly giving out a wrong phone number which they have assigned to me. My only recourse? Change my phone number.

That solution creates other problems. Further, it may not end my calls from someone else’s creditors. Do you know CM? The two of you live in different states but have something in common. I get calls from CM’s creditors on my landline.

Which brings me back to yesterday’s caller. After I told him, “I’m not KB. I don’t know KB – but I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve gotten from her creditors,” he said, “I’m not a creditor.”

“You’re not?” I asked, astonished.

Apparently, KB, you’ve signed up on a job placement website. There, you listed – not one, but two – wrong phone numbers: my cell number and a non-working number. Maybe you hoped all potential employers would contact you by e-mail. Maybe you wanted me to serve as one of your references, since we’ve become so well-acquainted and all.

Yesterday, when I told the nice man what I knew about you, he seemed very grateful.

Long ago, the poet David “sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjamite.” We don’t know what Cush did. We do know what David sang:

“See that man shoveling day after day,
digging, then concealing, his man-trap
down that lonely stretch of road?
Go back and look again — you'll see him in it headfirst,
legs waving in the breeze.
That's what happens:
mischief backfires . . .”

I bless you with a way out, KB – so that you stop digging your own trap and you too join the refrain:

“I'm thanking God, who makes things right.
I'm singing the fame of heaven-high GOD.”

© 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

The Funny Little Mama strikes again

One week during our daughters’ middle school years, my husband did a dangerous thing. He flew off to Indiana, taking our older daughter with him. This left me alone with Amanda, age 11. The danger? Though posing as a mild-mannered working mom, I could, at a moment’s notice, turn into the Funny Little Mama.

During our girls’ preschool days, I entertained them with fictitious Funny Little Mama stories. This lovely but loopy Mama might to do anything – put green beans on her ice cream, shower with soap but no water, use the bathtub as a bed.

The Mama had a daughter who always set her straight. “Mama, when you’re tired, you sleep lying on the bed, not standing in the closet!” “Mama, you don’t hold the hair dryer by the end where the air blows out!”

Of course, by the time our daughters reached middle school, I didn’t tell such stories any more. Instead, I lived them. Megan and Amanda delighted in describing my escapades to their friends. They cheerfully recounted all the times the Funny Little Mama had driven off with items sitting atop her car – items like a mug of hazelnut coffee, three days’ worth of mail and a pair of Daddy’s shoes. They told how this Mama managed to leave a purse in an Indiana library and car keys in a Kentucky quick-stop.

They told tales of the Funny Little Mama cooking lasagna in an unheated oven – and discovering the mistake after the company arrived. They told about her leaving the oven broiler on a full 24 hours during 110 degree summer heat (a crime known in Oklahoma as attempted arson).

The week Jerry and Megan flew the coup, I determined the Funny Little Mama wouldn’t visit. And she didn’t. Until Amanda and I ate supper on Thursday evening. Then Amanda mentioned a boy in her class named Peter Garriott.

“Garriott! What a wonderful name,” I replied. “It rhymes with chariot and lariat.”

At that moment, the Funny Little Mama interjected a poem made up on the spot:

“There once was a boy named Pete Garriott.”

“Mama, his name is Peter, not Pete.”

“You’re interrupting my poem. There once was a boy named Pete Garriott.
Who sometimes would ride in a chariot.
To the horse he said, ‘Whoa!’ Still, the chariot did go.
So ole Pete stopped that horse with a lariat.”

Friday, Amanda told Peter Garriott, her other classmates and her teacher about the poem. That should have sent the Funny Little Mama packing. Instead, she made up a second verse. Even the challenge of finding more words that rhyme with Garriott didn’t stop her.

“There once was a boy named Pete Garriott
Who loved to annoy his pet parriott
The parriott said, ‘Squawk! I know how to talk!’
Then he chomped on a fresh piece of carriott.”

Amanda repeated this new rhyme to her friends. As a result, I became known in sixth-grade circles as “Amanda’s hyper mom.”

Looking back, I see the crushing stress those days held for a near-menopausal woman with a high-pressure job, traveling husband and two daughters fraught with adolescence.

I tried valiantly to have it all together. I rarely did. But I cannot thank God enough that what could have burst forth as bad temper or gloom often erupted into light-hearted fun.

Like an Ancient Little Mama named Sarah, I could testify: “God has blessed me with laughter and all who get the news will laugh with me!”

Some days, this Funny Little Mama did get angry, did shed tears. But our girls told people, “We laugh a lot at our house.”

© 1999, 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Genesis 21:6 (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language
© 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

Wordslingers

In TV shows I watched as a kid, gunslingers roamed the wild West. They spent much time twirling and cocking their firearms. They regularly said to one another, "Take ten steps, turn and draw."

They weren’t issuing friendly invitations to play Pictionary. They were issuing challenges to fight. In TV shows, we could always tell the good guy by the white clothes he wore (and somehow managed to keep spotless while roughing it on the open range) and by his speed. Any good guy worth his salt could turn around, pull his gun, cock and fire it faster than any guy wearing black any day.

In the end, the good gunslinger won, and the bad gunslinger died, or limped off into the sunset. Everyone cheered. After all, the bad gunslinger deserved it for being bad, being slow and wearing black (which is way too hot a color for the open range).

Thus, all the bad gunslingers practiced gunslinging for hours on end in hopes that they would get fast enough to turn into good gunslingers before someone said to them, "Take ten steps . . ." They also placed "rush" catalog orders for white western wear.

Sadly, catalog orders in those days went out by stagecoaches, which were often robbed by bad guys who hadn't gotten to the catalog desk to place an order before closing time. And so the gunslinging continued.

Okay, I made up the catalog order part. Actually, the good and bad gunslingers differed in far more substantial ways than clothes. The bad guys terrorized people. They’d as quickly shoot you as greet you. The good guys risked their lives to rescue those oppressed by the bad.

In real life today, wordslingers roam the place where you live. These folks enjoy twirling and cocking their tongues. With well-placed remarks, they're as likely to shoot you as greet you.

Few give warning. They prefer ambush. For example, one day a friend asked me to lunch. I could tell even by phone that she was distressed. When we sat to eat, she showed me a venomous letter she had received three days earlier. Using crude language, it attacked her – for good things she was doing. It slandered her and her family. Not surprisingly, the writer hadn’t signed the letter.

My friend had no opportunity to take ten steps, turn and defend herself. The attack came out of nowhere. Now, she's lying on the ground bleeding while the bad guy walks away. She can't identify the assailant by wardrobe color. Looking into faces of people she works with daily, she has no idea which one carries the loaded gun.

Long before the first gunslinger ever rode the wild West, a man named Doeg gunned down 85 innocent priests with malicious words. As a result, God authorized David the poet-king to issue this warning to wordslingers in Psalm 52:2-5, The Message:

“You scheme catastrophe; your tongue cuts razor-sharp, artisan in lies. You love evil more than good, you call black white. You love malicious gossip, you foul-mouth. God will tear you limb from limb, sweep you up and throw you out, pull you up by the roots from the land of life.”

I know. Those words take me aback too – until, looking into my friend’s face, I see the untold devastation wordslinging wreaks, the people it decimates.

In Psalm 52, God isn’t addressing the propensity we all have to say hurtful words in anger or frustration. He’s giving fair warning, strong warning, that he will champion the victims of those who deliberately and with premeditation use words to destroy.

© 1999, 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.