Love is Spirit and Spirit Never Dies

At times when distresses overwhelm, Spirit reprises hope.  "Look and live," my brother live, Look to Jesus now and live, "Tis recorded in His word, Hallelujah! It is only that you "look and live."   The lyrics well up in my head, mouth, and before I know it they bubble to overflowing from my heart.  Unannounced and unexpected.  Their genesis? Perhaps from having felt forced to sit through Congregational songs during Sunday worship when I was young and the songs reeked of age.

"I've a Message from the Lord," like so many hymns and gospel songs, lay deeply implanted in a spiritual soil of which I had little recollection.  As a kid and until I became inventive enough to get out of going to church on Wednesdays and Sundays, I attended as a captive child of inflexible parents. "Go to school; get a good education, and you'll be somebody" had drilled compliance into me. Just as "Get saved so when you die, you won't go to hell and burn in fire-and-brimstone-forever," guaranteed acquiescence. What choice did this helpless minor-child have, for goodness sake! 

I don't know when the lightbulb of wisdom and discernment flickered off-and-on at first, then burned brightly. "God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform," mother always intoned. With "loving-kindness," He guided me to know His power, presence, and immutability.  Years spent in rebellion happened first, though. I manipulated my parents' hope that their children's lives fared better than theirs had, and deftly wiggled out of attending Wednesday mid-week service.  "Homework due," always worked any day of the week and underscored parental reverence for education. How would they know otherwise? If you saw me, you couldn't miss my book companions. 

Escape from Sunday worship could be traced directly to Exodus 20:8-11.  To wit, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God...For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.  Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."   How did this commandment free me?

Glad you asked.  My parents lived religious lives, religiously attended church, obeyed the Ten Commandments (Law) and complied with other tenets of their denomination.  Plus, daddy was the Sunday School Superintendent and mother's volunteer service included a seat on the Mothers Board.  Preparing for Sunday worship consumed most Saturdays, including shampooing, pressing, and curling hair four daughters 'hair; grocery shopping; and making a quick trip downtown on the El Train.

Mother multi-tasked decades before that word made its way into society's vocabulary.  Cooking Sunday dinners on Saturday evenings addressed the Sabbath commandment. Which meant mother had to prepare wonderfully delicious four to six-course dinners; however, she couldn't always finish them on Saturday nights. That's where yours truly's ingenuity kicked. in.  Shamelessly, I volunteered to leave after Sunday School, where daddy's role as superintendent mandated my presence and put the finishing touches on Sunday's sumptuous dinner! They agreed.  And that was that!  

However, before you misconstrue motive, let me clarify.  The pastor's Sunday sermons, chock full of dire warnings and predictions of going to hell "in a handbasket," preceded the scariest ever Invitation to Discipleship. The one-two wallop wiped me out! The Elder's frightening messages from the Old Testament, of the waywardness of unrepentant, "stiff-necked, Children of Israel, left no room for equivocation.  Either heaven or hell! Pure and simple. 

As if that were not enough, Pastor segued into a mournful recital of "Brother So-and-So," who had ignored the invitation to "Give your heart to God and your hand to me." Tragically and without warning, the brother ended up dead, always before the next Sunday!  Every Sunday, Elder decried the fatal choices anonymous men (rarely women), had made.  Obviously, they would never walk heaven's "Streets of gold." Every Sunday! My imagination, already fertile and now rampant, caught me up as wildfire or maybe hellfire! Who knew? Just too much for an impressionable preteen.  Cooking, I could handle.  Every Sunday!