Wretched man that I am

“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  Romans 7:24-25

The Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle stories are favorites on our boys’ bookshelves.  They are set in a pleasant suburb in the mid-fifties, the sort of place where mothers have always just taken sugar cookies out of the oven and daddies are headed out after work to finish the new treehouse ladder.  The stories are populated with children—accomplished, good natured, obedient children—who just happen to be passing through unfortunate phases.

Take Nicholas Semicolon, subject of the story Philip read to all of us as we made our way across Maine last week.  Nicholas is ten, large and strong for his age, the apple of his mother’s eye.  But he also happens to have become a thoroughly rotten bully.  He hits girls and pulls dog’s tails, upsets baby carriages and speaks rudely to everyone he meets.  His parents have been blissfully ignorant about all of this until they receive a call from Mrs. Eager, whose son’s legs are covered in bandages after little Nicky’s latest attack.

Risk and Character Along the Billy Goat Trail

In the Sound of the Bells column, from the Potomac Almanac, 26 Jan., 2017.

New Year’s Day was bright and sunny, and my sons and I decided to start things off right with a hike along the C & O Canal towpath.  We weren’t the only ones with the idea, and after finally finding a place to park, we ambled down a hill to find the towpath packed with bikers and dogs.  After about a quarter mile of steering my five-year old out of the way of potential collisions, we were pleased to see a dirt path leading into the woods toward the river.

A few paces in we discovered ourselves on the Billy Goat Trail.  I’d been told about this trail before, the haunt of thrill-seeking ramblers for over a century.  But this was our first encounter, and after about an hour’s journey, my sons and I are definite fans. 

We loved the views of the river, of course, and climbing and descending the hills.  The boys are still talking about walking along the face of the cliff, and climbing from rock to rock (the spaces between much better suited for a goat’s hoof or a kid’s shoe than my floppy boots).  They clambered over some rock outcroppings, shimmied up a log, found a rock slide, even dipped their toes in the river.  Such a trail demands a walking stick, my seven-year-old insisted.  His brother claimed to spot a short cut, which landed us, laughing, in a clump of briers. 

The Story that 'Whispers His Name'

The cover, awash in oranges and blues, with little insets of Bible scenes, will look a little out of place among the serried ranks of prayer books and hymnals in our beautifully renovated church.  That’s purposeful, and if the aesthetics grate a bit for a few of you, I hope you will learn to be patient for all the right reasons.

Because putting a copy of a children’s Bible, perhaps especially a children’s Bible as good as Sally Lloyd-Jones’ The Jesus Storybook Bible in every pew at Saint Francis Church makes a statement about what has been important to us here for a very long time.  We love Jesus.  We want our children to come to know Him also, which is why we welcome them to stand and kneel with us as we worship Him week by week.  We discover Him in His Word, which is above all a story that “whispers His Name,” as this particular Bible’s subtitle has it. 

Growing in faith at Vacation Bible School

From the WORD, of Saint Timothy's Episcopal Church, Herndon, June 2016.

“Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them.”  Matthew 19:4.

In the little town where I grew up, kids didn’t go to sports camp in the summer.  There weren’t art or music camps either, for that matter, or academic enrichment camps or canoeing and rock climbing camps.  My family didn’t take much vacation, either, because Mom always played the organ on Sunday mornings.  But there was Vacation Bible School, and it was pretty much the highlight of the summer.

We had Vacation Bible School at our own church, of course, the first two weeks after summer vacation began.  But sometimes, mom would haul us off to the Vacation Bible Schools at other churches—at the Lutheran church up on the hill, where you could play tag in the enormous cemetery, or at my grandparents’ Methodist church.  One summer, I think we spent a full four weeks in Bible School, which probably amounted as many Bible stories, peppy songs and graham crackers as a full year of Sunday School at Saint John’s.

Welcoming the little ones

“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”  St. Mark 9:37

“We’re taking a bit of a chance on him,” the headmaster told me, “It will probably be a tough adjustment.  Make sure you keep an eye on him.”  Joey, let us call him, was one of the students assigned to my advisory group at Saint James School.  We classed him as a tenth grader, but he had been in and out of so many schools over the past few years that it was hard to tell where he actually belonged.  My first impression was that Joey was a nice enough kid, but he couldn’t really understand social cues.  He laughed at things that weren’t funny, and he had trouble following a conversation.  He seemed extremely nervous, shell-shocked almost, always fretting about whether he would be able to remember when this class met, or what he was supposed to wear for football practice.

Saint James is definitely a college preparatory boarding school.  We didn’t really have what are termed, in the trade “second chance students.”  The schedule was tight and there were lots of things to remember, and we left students to supervise themselves a fair amount of the time. 

I did watch out for Joey, though, and I could soon tell that he needed it.  Nothing seemed to go right for him.  He soon fell far behind in his classes.  He was danger in hurting himself and everyone else on the football field.  His backpack was like the Bermuda Triangle—things went in there, and never seemed to come out again in one piece.  And for much of the time, he was an emotional wreck, breaking down in tears or blurting out inappropriate things in class almost every other day. I met with the assistant head of school and looked at his file, quite a few pages of assorted psychological disorders, lots of meds, a broken home.  The kid pretty much had everything stacked against him, and the results we were seeing seemed to fit well into what could be expected.

Let all the people praise you: on children in worship

From The WORD, the monthly newsletter of Saint Timothy's, Herndon

Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you.”  Ps. 67:3

“Is tomorrow Sunday School?”   Our youngest son doesn’t quite follow the days of the week yet, and from about Wednesday at supper he wants to know how soon the big day will arrive.  Coming to Saint Timothy’s has been a big event in the religious life of our family for several reasons. 

First, we all get to worship together on Sunday mornings.  Since our older son was quite young, the boys have gone to my wife Allison’s rural Lutheran church for service each week, while I led worship at the Episcopal church.  With Allison’s pastoral ministry on hold during her graduate work, we now gather in the same place—though generally on different sides of the Altar rail.  Sunday School is also new for them, and they love the stories, the crafts, and the fun time spent with other kids their own age.

All the Difference in the World: My Life in Sunday School

Reblogged from Covenant

Thirty years ago this weekend, I was promoted. I had started first grade a week before, and, at the Rally Day assembly, I mumbled through my assigned recitation (a short poem). The Sunday School superintendent handed me a brand-new, black leather King James Bible, with my name written on the inside cover in her elegant hand. The inscription also notified me that I was now a member of the Junior Department of the Sunday School at Saint John’s Church.

To everyone at Saint John’s, though, I was really joining “Mrs. Truax’s class.” It seemed even then that she had been teaching forever. She had taught my mother back in the early Sixties, when the church was brimming with Baby Boomer children, a class in every corner of the Sunday School annex.

It was rather different on my promotion day, when amid the inevitable fluctuations of children’s attendance, our congregation found itself at a low ebb. I was the only promotion we’d had in several years, and the Junior Department was to be composed of me and about a dozen sixth graders. It was rather abrupt to shift from felt boards one week to reading through the Book of Esther in seventeenth-century prose the next, but I was proud at being able (mostly) to follow the lines in my new Bible.

"One Such Child"-- A Tribute to Dorothy Truax

“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.”  St. Matthew 18:5

Back in September of 1984, when I was six years old, I was promoted.  I became a member of the Junior Department here at Saint John’s Church, which for over half a century was known to everyone just as “Mrs. Truax’s class.”  I can still remember those first few weeks. We read through, of all things, the Book of Esther.  The Sunday School superintendent had presented to me with a brand new black King James Bible on Rally Day, the Sunday before. I was very proud of myself for being able to keep up with all the sixth graders in the class, piecing together all the words.

And then, a few weeks later, the Junior Department changed dramatically.  All those sixth graders were confirmed, and moved on into another class, taught by someone else over on the other side of the Fellowship Hall.  I was the only one left.  Now by the rules we follow in most parts of life, that should have been the end of the Junior Department.  You just don’t prepare a Sunday School lesson each week for one six year old boy. 

But Mrs. Truax did.