Hark, How All The Welkin Rings

Today is the last Sunday in Advent and the last few days before Chistmas. This week I plan to post my favorite Christmas carols. I begin with one we sang a couple of weeks ago, "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing". But, as you can see, the way we sing it today is not the way it was originally written. While I never asked the congregation to sing these opening lines, I did introduce some of these other stanzas. And in case you're wondering, "welkin" is an old word for "heaven".

Hark, How All The Welkin Rings

1. HARK how all the Welkin rings
" Glory to the King of Kings,
" Peace on Earth, and Mercy mild,
" GOD and Sinners reconcil'd !

2. Joyful all ye Nations rise,
Join the Triumph of the Skies;
Universal Nature say,
" Christ the Lord is born to Day!

3. Christ, by highest Heav'n ador'd,
Christ, the Everlasting Lord,
Late in Time behold him come,
Offspring of a Virgin's Womb.

4. Veil'd in Flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail th' Incarnate Deity !
Pleas'd as Man with Men t'appear,
Jesus, our Immanuel here !

5. Hail the Heav'nly Prince of Peace !
Hail the Sun of Righteousness !
Light and Life to All he brings,
Ris'n with Healing in his Wings.

6. Mild he lays his Glory by ;
Born ; that Man no more may die,
Born ; to raise the Sons of Earth,
Born ; to give them Second Birth.

7. Come, Desire of Nations, come,
Fix in Us thy humble Home,
Rise, the Woman's Conqu'ring Seed,
Bruise in Us the Serpent's Head.

8. Now display thy saving Pow'r,
Ruin'd Nature now restore,
Now in Mystic Union join
Thine to Ours, and Ours to Thine.

9. Adam's likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp thy Image in its Place,
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy Love.

10. Let us Thee, tho' lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the Heav'nly Man:
O ! to All Thyself impart,
Form'd in each Believing Heart.

"Hymn For Christmas Day"

"Sun of Righteousness"

Words: Charles Wesley (1707-1788) 

Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1739, 1743.

Meter: 77 77

I need cash....

A man came in last night, who has not been in the store in a while. He said, "Been a while since I seen you." I agreed. Then he leaned on the counter and announced, "I need some cash." I looked at him, wondering if he meant what it sounded like (that he was robbing me) and thinking this was strange. He explained, "I've got $16 in mostly gold coins and I need some bills." I laughed, told him what I thought he might've meant and gave him cash for the coins. Then I bought the thirteen gold coins from the drawer. Going in my Hawai'i fund.


Another man came in and had a pack of light blue American Spirit cigarettes in his hand. He said, “I bought these here earlier and it's the wrong flavor. Can I trade them for the ones I want?”
“No.” And then I explained that he didn’t buy them from me, so I don’t know if he bought them here or not, and that once you leave the store with tobacco products you can’t return them anyway.
“Can I buy the flavor I want, get a receipt, and return tomorrow and switch packs for the flavor I want?”
“No.” Then I looked at our cigarettes - we still had 1 light blue box left. I explained, I count cigarettes every night; there were two last night when I counted and I sold one pack after the count… “You didn’t buy these here.”
“I bought them at a Kangaroo, but I don't remember which one...”
Whatever. “Go to that one.”
“Ok. Can I have a pack of Newport 100s?”
So what was all that about???


Still another man came for box of Newports. $5.91. He had $5 in cash and coins. So he went out to his car to look for more money. It always amazes me that people can almost always go out to their car and find money. He came back with 91 pennies. 91 nasty looking pennies. I got a cup and said, "Put the pennies in the cup. I'm gonna wash them first!"


Just another Tuesday night at the Roo.

What a difference it makes when you put a face on it

There is a young woman who often stops on her way home from work, shortly after 2 AM. She works in a, shall we say, not very respectable place. I’ve gotten to know her a little. She and her boy friend now have three children and live with her mom and step-dad. I don’t think her boy friend works regularly. She just recently had her third baby, as in four weeks ago, but had to return to work because she is literally the bread winner in the home.

She came in last night to buy gas and cigarettes. After paying, she told me she was going to hang around for a while because there was a police car parked outside and she had no insurance on her car. I looked out the window and saw the police car. He was poised like a cat ready to pounce, and I had the feeling that he was not on break, but was waiting for her. Sure enough, when she went out to her car, he pulled up and I knew she was busted.

This incident lasted a little more than two hours. They were out by the pump for some time and she was on the phone for most of it. Then she pulled her car to a parking spot by the door as he followed, and I knew what that meant. I went out to talk to her. It seems the officer allowed her to contact the insurance company, but insurance would cost her $93 and had to be paid by debit/credit card. She doesn’t have one and had only $10 cash on her. The officer had also suggested I wouldn’t allow her to leave her car here to wait for the tow truck. (Why would he tell her that??) While I was talking to her, the officer got back out of his car and asked me, “Do you have any questions for me?” (Now why would I have questions for him? I was vexed at him!) “Nope.”

So, her car was towed. Meanwhile, she had to wait for her mom to come get her, from almost an hour away. The towing charge is $110, plus $25 a day for every day the car is on their lot. She can’t catch a break.

It’s easy to be tough on crime when you don’t know the people or their story. But, when you know the story, it breaks your heart. Here is a girl who lives right on the edge. Any thing that happens is nearly catastrophic. And of course, stuff is nearly always happening to her. And now this. This crime has a face and I admit, I was irked that the officer didn’t give her a break. I mean, doesn’t he know that she is trying? and barely getting by?

Is this justification for driving around with no insurance? No. And he did give her a break, he didn’t take her to jail for driving with a suspended license (oh, did I forget to mention, when your insurance lapses your license is suspended?).  But, what a difference it makes when you put a face on the crime.

In Which I Perambulate

I woke up this morning around 5:30 and decided to take a walk outside. I got dressed and took off.

Behind the hotel (we're in Ohio visiting Anne & Dave) I discovered a good sized hill

This is the hill at the end of my walk. It was dark when I began

I climbed the hill and it was all tall grass; in the distance a line of trees. Cool! It is fun walking in a field in the dark, but I kept on. I reached the crest and looked back

This is our hotel

Shortly after this I discovered water. When I drew near, something began plopping into  the water! Frogs?? Couldn't see what it was, so I pressed on.

I came to a patch of briars and when I went around it I came upon a nicely mowed field. Looked like a park.

The view of the other side of the hill

A lone light! Interesting!

I found a huge parking lot and rather large building. So naturally I walked all around it. The  grounds were incredibly well manicured. And the back of the building had a beautiful surprise:

a panoramic view

This turned out to be the Met Life building.

I headed back to the hotel. A nice two hour perambulation!

The view from the hotel parking lot at the end of my walk. Glorious!

A great start to the day!

Did you used to preach?

After paying for his things, the man asked me, "Did you used to preach?"

I don't even know his name. He comes in often. I know what he's going to buy. I know a little about him, but I don't remember telling anything about me.

I was rather surprised. I laughed and replied, "Yes...I used to be a pastor. How do you know this???"

He said, "Somebody told me some time ago but I don't remember who."

We spoke for awhile about spiritual things and then I had to get back to work.

Boy, do I want to know who told him!!

My girls have awesome names

At the gazebo in York: 

Mary K, Sarah, Erica, Anne

In an e-mail I wrote last night, I explained to a friend the K in Mary K, and that led me to think about my girls and their awesome names. In the Old Testament (and many other ancient cultures) names often described character traits. So, in naming our girls, we came up with names that described character traits that we were trusting God to work in them.

ANNE KATHERINE
I had Anne first. I wanted Ann with an e because it looks better and sounds different than without the e. Then we settled on Anne Katherine. We were informed often that it should be Katherine Anne and not Anne Katherine because "you always put the shorter name in the middle." But she was always Anne.
Anne means full of grace, mercy, and prayer. Katherine means pure.
While she was never called “Annie” I did have a nickname for her, Annie Kathy the blues singer. Don’t know why, just always thought Annie Kathy was a great name for a blues singer....

SARAH ELIZABETH
I had the name Elizabeth picked out, but no first name. We wanted this as her middle name because we were concerned people would shorten this to Beth or Liz or Lizzie and we wanted her to be Elizabeth. One Wednesday night, as we were dropping Anne off at the nursery, the worker asked about names for our soon to come second child. We explained our dilemma and she suggested Sarah Elizabeth. We liked it immediately! And, it was always Sarah with the h. Sounds different and looks better!
Sarah Elizabeth means a princess dedicated to God.

MARY KEALA
I had a friend in Hawai’i named Keala and I always liked the name. Mary has her Mom’s name and I thought it would be cool if we continued this tradition – three generations of Mary! I thought Mary K had a nice ring to it. But, and this is important, it is not pronounced Mary KAY, but rather, MARY Kay.
Mary is from marah and means bitter. Oh my. Keala is Hawaiian and means the way or the path. So our intent was, even when life is hard, she will walk in the Way.

ERICA JANE
We weren’t necessarily finished after out first three, but weren’t planning on another one yet. But we began to have reason to think Mary was pregnant. She was volunteering at the local crisis pregnancy center at the time. She went up there one day and called me shortly after she arrived. I answered the phone, “Hello.” (This was before caller ID.) She said, “Hello, DAD.” It was true! We were blessed with another one! Right away, I came up with the name Jane. It is the feminine form of John and means God’s gift. I wanted to name her Leilani Jane, but this did not fly. So I began to search for an acceptable equivalent of Leilani. I found Erica. It means, princess, conqueror, overcomer. Amen. We were good to go.


I was always certain that we would have girls. One reason was we never had a boy’s name. Well, I had one, Coleus Joel. But for some reason, that was never acceptable.

I love my girls. And I’m convinced they have awesome names. My grandchildren have some awesome names as well, but I will leave that explanation to their mothers!

My girls as beautiful young women: 

Mary K, Erica Jane, Anne, Sarah

What do you want to do?

I woke up the other afternoon, I don’t know, around 5 (remember, I work nights and sleep all day), and was still tired. When I said, “I’m tired”, Mary asked me, “What do you want to do, so you don’t wake up tired?”

I am hearing this question often lately, “What would you like to do?”

My first thought is often, What other kind of job would I like? Where do I even look for such a job? But, I am hearing this often enough that I’m beginning to think this is God prompting me to ask myself, What would I like to do?

Last year, April to be exact, my pastor asked me that and it changed my prayer requests. I got specific, I wanted to have the opportunity to preach and teach. And He answered. I’ve had opportunities to teach a couple of times and preach a few times. Not as many as I would like, but a few. And I’m grateful!

And now the question is coming up again. And I’m persuaded this is more than, What kind of job would you like? 

What do you want to do?

This is a big question. Not simply, What can I do, and arrange? But, what has God put in my heart that He can make possible? As I pray and wait on the Lord for vision, I know this much, I am praying for the fulfillment of Psalm 92:12-15 in my life:

The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.  
Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.  
They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;  
To shew that the LORD is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Amen. That’s my prayer in a nutshell, I want to still bring forth fruit in old age.