December 13: Become Like Little Children
♫ Music:
Day 12 - Thursday, December 13
Become Like Little Children
Scripture: Matthew 18:1-6
In that hour came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And he called to him a little child, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me: but whoso shall cause one of these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea.
Poetry:
Lord Is Not a Word
by Christian Wiman
Lord is not a word.
Song is not a salve.
Suffer the child, who lived
on sunlight and solitude.
Savor the man, craving
earth like an aftertaste.
To discover in one's hand
two local stones the size
of a dead man’s eyes
saves no one, but to fling them
with a grace you did not know
you knew, to bring them
skimming homing
over blue, is to discover
the river from which they came.
Mild merciful amnesia
through which I’ve moved
as through a blue atmosphere
of almost and was,
how is it now,
like ruins unearthed by ruin,
my childhood should rise?
Lord, suffer me to sing
these wounds by which I am made
and marred, savor this creature
whose aloneness you ease and are.
BECOME LIKE LITTLE CHILDREN
What is the faith of a child? Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard meditated upon the commandment to become like the lily of the field and the birds of the air. To seek first the kingdom of the God, we must be like very young children, whose trust enables them to silently obey their parents, trusting that good will come, because they instinctively know that their parents can be trusted.
In our strivings in this world, we create noise and stress and frenetic activity and busy-ness as we strain to create goals and objectives to assess our busy-ness to earn the reputation and esteem of others who know not the God of our salvation! Society demands storms of action as we compete for the power to decide the common good, because we believe that morality comes from the Bible, entitling us to judge others. We do this in our own strength, even those of us who are on the Way, following our Savior, but following into temptation. We cannot help ourselves.
We inevitably make idols of our careers, our teaching, our missions, even our visions. We confuse our works with the work of the Lord.
And. Then. He reaches into our lives, interrupting our activities, demanding silence before Him.
He makes us forget all that we know so that He can fill us with His spirit.
We suffer from amnesia, as the poet says, so that we can forget, so that He can remind us of His saving power, His grace, His mercy, His goodness, His loving-kindness.
Like the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, we are ephemeral. We are totally dependent upon Him.
Mister Rogers understood this. His genius was to create silence in the busiest of the media: TV, with its clamoring commercials and make-believe heroes, so that he could teach children a simple truth: that they are loved, because God created us.
His love of neighbor infused his neighborhood, my hometown, where the scars of the Tree of Life massacre are being healed through faith, where the community lights the menorah to rededicate itself to love of neighbor.
Howard Finster was a man of many words, too many words, so many words!
His recollections of the ephemera of this present age—the age that precedes the second coming of the Lord—animate his art with an urgency that transcends his own death to warn us not to cause our generation to stumble in the confusion of our times, for the judgment will come.
In Bethlehem, where the lambs for the Temple sacrifices were penned before the feast, Yeshua, the kinsman-redeemer of the Jewish people came radiant, the Holy Shekinah announcing His arrival. Let this bright light interrupt our lives. Let us become that simple faith, that good will overcome evil because Christ is the Highest Good. Through His humility, His love overcame the world.
Come, let us adore Him, our King, Savior, and Lord.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for giving me this year of rest to learn what it means to become disabled, so that I could turn my attention fully to your goodness. Through my disability, you have freed me to rediscover my inner child, to learn that I am worthy of life, because you are my Creator. I know that I can cast all of my burdens on you, and that You gladly take them up. I can trust you with them. I am now free to worship you in silent adoration, obedient to you, for truly you have shown goodness to me all the years of my life. Though I have walked through the valley of death, you were there with me, and you have brought me safely through the waters of chaos back onto solid ground. You know all of my anxious thoughts, and have made me forget, so that I can trust you to remember. Your blessings of hope and joy in this season of my life have made mine a song of joy and laughter. Thank you, Lord, for your goodness, to me and my house. I will praise your name forever and ever!
In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen!
Judith Mendelsohn Rood, Ph.D.
Professor of History and Middle East Studies
Biola University
About the Artwork:
Howard Finster, 2000
Howard Finster
Painted wood construction
The Small Museum of Folk Art, Pittsboro, NC
This plywood cut-out self-portrait by Howard Finster was one of many self-portraits he made. He signed his name on the front and back, and dated it February 5, 2000, as was his practice, as an act of bearing witness to his calling to spread the gospel through art. His piercing blue eyes and direct, unwavering gaze emphasize the simple message of hope and love he wanted to share with anyone and everyone he could. The bold colors, simple patterns, thick black outlining, and immediacy of his work have a childlike directness, innocence, and playfulness.
The inscription on the panel in front of the figure of Finster reads:
BY.HOWARD FINSTER FROM GOD.MAN OF VISIONS.GREAT PEOPLE ARE REMEMBERED A LONG TIME. IF YOU GET YOUR NAME RECORDED IN HEAVEN YOU WILL BE REMEMBERED FOR EVER YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN AGAIN TAKE THE VERY WORDS.OF JESUS BY FAITH STUDY THEM.AND YOU CAN BECOME THE MEMBER OF GODS FAMILY.RECORDED IN HEAVEN.AND SEALED.FOR EVER AND EVER THIS WORLD DON’T. [SIC] HAVE ANOUGH [SIC] RICHES. TO COMPARE WITH GODS.GIFT TO YOU.IT.IS. BEYOND KNOWING OR SEEING WHAT GOD.HAS FOR THOSE WHO KEEP HIS SAYINGS—
The inscription on the back is from John 6:47 and reads: Verily verily I say unto you He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. In the last days, whosoever shall call on Jesus name shall be saved.
About the Artist:
Howard Finster (1916–2001) was a self-taught “outsider” artist and Baptist minister from Georgia best known for his simple brightly colored childlike paintings on wood board with inscriptions invoking the viewer to embrace faith and the God he knew. He claimed to have had his first vision at the age of three when he was told, “Howard, you’re gonna be a man of visions.” In 1976, he dipped his finger in white paint while retouching the paint on a bicycle and saw a perfect human face that said, “Paint sacred art.” Finster felt called by God to spread the gospel by transforming the swampy land he lived on into Paradise Garden, a fantastic folk art sculpture garden with over 46,000 pieces of art. Finster became widely known in the 1980s with his album cover designs for R.E.M. and Talking Heads, and became a pop culture celebrity beloved for his quirky art and big, good-hearted personality.
About the Music:
“It’s You I Like”
Lyrics:
It’s you I like,
It’s not the things you wear,
It’s not the way you do your hair–
But it’s you I like
The way you are right now,
The way down deep inside you–
Not the things that hide you,
Not your toys–
They’re just beside you.
But it’s you I like–
Every part of you,
Your skin, your eyes, your feelings
Whether old or new.
I hope that you’ll remember
Even when you’re feeling blue
That it’s you I like,
It’s you yourself,
|It’s you, it’s you I like.
About the Composer and Lyricist:
Fred McFeely Rogers (1928–2003) was an American television personality, musician, puppeteer, writer, producer, and Presbyterian minister. He was known as the creator and the beloved host of the preschool television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968–2001). Trained and ordained as a minister, Rogers was displeased with the way television addressed children, so he began to write and perform local Pittsburgh-area shows for youth. In 1968, Eastern Educational Television Network began nationwide distribution of Rogers' show. Over the course of three decades, Mr. Rogers became a television icon of children's entertainment and education. Rogers also testified before a U.S. Senate committee to advocate for government funding of children's television. During his lifetime, Rogers received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, 40 honorary degrees, and a Peabody Award. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and was recognized in two congressional resolutions. Several buildings and artworks in Pennsylvania are dedicated to his memory, and the Smithsonian Institution displays one of his trademark sweaters as a "Treasure of American History."
About the Performers:
Wynton Marsalis, Joe Negri, and Johnny Costa
Wynton Marsalis (b.1961) is widely recognized as the pre-eminent jazz artist of our time. He is hailed not only as a performer on the trumpet, but also as a music educator and promoter of the history and culture of jazz. Born into a musical family in the city of New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, Marsalis attended the Juilliard School in New York. In addition to performing, Marsalis also focuses strongly on education by giving lectures and workshops to students on musicianship. He also created the PBS TV series Marsalis on Music (1995), as well as the National Public Radio 26-week series Making the Music. Marsalis played a major role in developing Ken Burns' TV mini-series Jazz (2001). He has won numerous awards including nine Grammys, two of them for his recordings of classical works for trumpet by Haydn, Mozart, and Handel. He is the first jazz artist to win a Pulitzer Prize, given for composing his oratorio Blood on the Fields, an epic work on slavery and freedom. Wynton Marsalis now serves as the Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Hall in New York City.
Joseph Harold Negri (b. 1926) is an American jazz guitarist and educator. He has taught jazz guitar at Duquesne University, University of Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University. Negri met Fred Rogers and appeared for nearly 40 years as regular cast member, Handyman Negri, in the children's program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. In 2010 he recorded an album with Michael Feinstein and performed with him during the next year at the Newport Jazz Festival. Negri was the subject of a profile in the September 2010 issue of Vintage Guitar magazine. He has donated his works and other documentation related to his music to the University of Pittsburgh Archives.
Johnny Costa (1922-1996) was an American jazz pianist. Costa is best known for his work as musical director of the children's television program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Costa graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with two degrees, in music and in education. He eventually teamed with Fred Rogers to arrange and perform the music heard on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood for which he served as musical director until his death in 1996. The program's creator and host, Fred Rogers, regarded Costa as one of the most gifted musicians he had ever met. Despite Mister Rogers' Neighborhood being a children's program, Costa insisted on not playing "baby" music. Each day, Costa and his trio played live in the studio for the filming. In addition to the show's recognizable main theme, they played the trolley whistle, Mr. McFeely's frenetic Speedy Delivery piano plonks, the vibraphone flute-toots (played on a synthesizer) as Fred fed his fish, dreamy celesta lines, incidental music, and Rogers' entrance and exit tunes.
About the Poet:
Christian Wiman (b. 1966) is an American author, editor, and translator of eleven books including, most recently, Joy: 100 Poems. He graduated from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and has taught at Northwestern University, Stanford University, and Lynchburg College. Currently, he teaches literature and religion at Yale Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Wiman has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic, and numerous other publications. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow. Wiman explores themes of spiritual faith and doubt in his sparse, precise poems. Praising Wiman’s “ear for silence” in a book review of Every Riven Thing for the Smartish Pace blog, John Poch observed, “Repeatedly in this collection, in his careful way, he presses his ear against the hive of belief. It takes a renewed childlike faith, and Wiman achieves it through memory and imagination and, one gets the feeling, grace.”
About the Devotional Writer:
Judith Mendelsohn Rood is Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies at Biola University. Her most radical act was to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as her savior and redeemer, and she is dedicated to serving the Church, the Muslim world, and the Jewish people. Her specialization is Jerusalem in world history. She was the first woman to do research in the Islamic Archives in Jerusalem and has spent the past seven years seeking to understand Arab Christianity and the origins of Islam in order to help Israelis and Palestinians reconcile at the foot of the Cross, praising Jesus as the only possible reconciler of all that is broken in our world.