Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Jemima L. Yeggs, a.k.a. Stinker.  Pink Lady Apple Yeggs, my landlady and my auntie, wants to read about how younger people, especially couples respond to what the Bible says.  And she wants to know how God is at work at Lily the Pink.

Let me get one thing clearly stated, as I did last week.  I am Missy MacDougall.  I am writing this report so Mommie Pinkie knows that even with Stinker not here, the love keeps going.

Now, since Jemima lists the people who are not here.  On the hurricane data collection trip, we have Mike Lothrop, the Caseys (Dr. Ben, Dr. Ellie, Michael Rowe, and baby Joan), Joseline and her baby that is named after what I wanted my fake name to be, Misty.  Then there are Easter, Jemima, and Stormie Yeggs, along with Arabella Dalton and Joseph and Mary Sheltie Jones.  That is three babies, three fourteen-year-olds, and then assorted experienced storm chasers.  There were others that went that are not part of the Sunday school class.

Carla and Brenton were back from their all-summer golf outing.  They had moved into his parent’s servant quarters, a little bungalow or is it a cottage?  Anyway, it’s near the entrance of their circle drive.  If they lock the gate for privacy, you wake the servant to unlock the gate, if they have a legitimate reason for entry at all, but the Munsfords had no one in those quarters for a generation or two, keeping it maintained for the overflow of guests.  And the gates had actually been removed rather than to get them fixed.  The Munsfords had a good reputation as far as lawyer reputations went.

And we had a surprise couple, the mayor, Boaz, and his wife Cassie, my old boss, were in attendance, with no big fanfare.  They were cool, but I was a little flustered.  Cassie was the big sister that I needed when I first came to Lily the Pink and she married the mayor.  I mean, he was my new boss’ son, but he was the mayor of the big city of Tracy for crying out loud.  He whispered to Angus to not announce him.  Most people knew who he was around the table anyway.

It was Margie that had to say something, I supposed she was filling in for Arabella as the class clown.  “Excuse me, but we have a couple who has missed Sunday school all summer, and they come back with a tan.  They say they got married and were on their honeymoon, but something is wrong here.”

Carla is darker than I am, being mostly black with one grandparent who was Brazilian.  I am about 80% Scottish, but the rest is from one African or another.  It irritates Angus that he was born in Scotland, but his DNA test showed less Scottish DNA than mine.

Carla growled, but with a smile, “I am aware that brides and grooms should come back from their honeymoons all pale and pastey, but that is a look that I have never been able to pull off.  As for Brenton, he is a golfer through and through.  We might spend a few days in a country inn without ever coming up for air, but after a while, he has to grab his clubs and swing them at a tiny ball.  And I had to go along to make sure he didn’t make a play for the caddy.  If you didn’t know, that’s a line…”

Menzie, our jazz singer and my daughter, was laughing.  She interrupted, “Yeah, a line from My Heart Belongs to Daddy.  Cole Porter wrote it, and it was first performed by Mary Martin in two movies, in 1938 and in 1940.”

Carla laughed.  “I knew Menzie would get it, maybe Emmett, but they were probably the only two.”

I announced, “There is a lot of news from the storm chasers.  We will be having a wedding sometime soon for Dr. Kildare and Mags Lothrop.  Before they left, they married at the courthouse, but they wanted the celebration to be here so that they could celebrate with their friends.  I suspect everyone here will be invited since Mags is the mother of Mercedes and Mike.  Mercedes is here, and Mike is with the storm chasers.  I guess they had you sworn to secrecy?” Mercedes smiled and nodded.  “And Aunt Jemima wants everyone to know that they are all safe and secure, but they took a little extra time getting home.  Dr. Kildare stopped at Texas A&M and Oklahoma for the professors at those universities to interview the Turtle Team members.  Oklahoma has one of the biggest programs in the country, and I think they are both jealous that T.R.U.S.T. has the celebrities.  They might be home by this afternoon.  And they have plenty of saltwater taffy for everybody.”

I said a short prayer for the team’s safe return home, and praises for their good fortune.  No one had given me an urgent prayer request, so I included a request for God to bless those who were pregnant.  I knew Penny Williams was due in a few months and Cassie and I are just getting started, both of us with a due date of next April.  It was my way of sneaking in a new prayer request and making an announcement at the same time.”

Then, Emmett led his large group.  The lead was sung by Carla and Sally Mae.  At alto, there was Menzie, Brooke and Mercedes Lothrop.  At tenor, Samuel and Emmett.  Darrell and Brenton sang baritone.  And Goober sang bass.  The hymn was This is My Father’s World.

Emmett added, “Do you have to ask why I picked that hymn?”

I asked, “Is it because we have still given you not even a little hint where this discussion was going to go?”

Emmett snickered, “It kind of points to our response to God’s greatness.  This is His world.  He made everything.  And we have nothing to fear.”

Samuel said, “Papa Angus, what Attribute of God are we studying today?”

Angus laughed, “As I said last week, all of them, Samuel.”

I know they wanted no introduction, but I had to ask.  “Cassie, you are like a big sister to me.  Do you have a special reason to sit in on the class this morning?”

Boaz smiled, “I will speak for both of us.  You let the cat out of the bag with the pregnancy announcement, and Cassie knew you would be helping Angus teach this class.  We wanted to be here to watch.”

Cassie said, “Missy, my friend, we have been friends through thick and thin.  We have each had each other’s backs.  And now we are pregnant at the same time.  When you came here, you had no formal education after sixth grade, and now you are in college taking a full load.  I am so proud of you.”

Then Boaz said, “And we talked to Mom last night.  We are tired of playing the political game with our church attendance.  We have a child on the way.  That child needs a church home as much as we do, and I thought I would start that home where I was born, but then, this Sunday school class has moved from Mom’s office.  I see a few confused looks on people’s faces.  Yes, I am the mayor of Tracy.  I was conceived out of wedlock.  My mother is Pink Lady Apple Yeggs.  She became imprisoned, as she describes it in what is now her office.  Aunt Gwen and Mom did the best they could to hide that fact that Scrambled Yeggs had put a bun in the oven, so to speak.  They had a doctor who came by and Mom used him to deliver me when the time came.  Once I was weaned from her breast, Aunt Gwen took me to the monastery to hide me from the Rotten Apple Gang.  We have since learned that Red Delicious pieced things together, but Mom was his favorite of all that generation.  He respected her decision.  So, I want this to be my Sunday school classroom, and then, most of the time, we will go to First-Third along with Mom and Dad.  Mayoral duties occur often.  But instead of rotating from church to church to let folks know God is important.  We need to become part of a church family, to show that is important also.”

Cassie added, “And I want to join the Mommie’s Club.  I want to be by my best friend’s side as we do this together.”

I asked, “And who is your best friend?”

Cassie huffed, “You are, Silly!”  And then she stuck her tongue out at me.  In my opinion, that was very unlike a proper First Lady of Tracy.

I smiled, “Welcome, and Cassie, I was just teasing.  You are my best friend too.  But to get started, Angus and I found a blog on the blogsite “Sweet to the Soul” Ministries.  It took a different approach to the attributes of God.  I have e-mailed Aunt Jemima, and she loves the idea.  So, however far we get into these 31 Scriptures about the attributes of God today, she will pick back up when she returns and finished the A.W. Tozer attributes.”

Samuel asked, “So, what is next week’s attribute?”

I said, “We will have Love, then Holiness, then Perfection.  Then we will come back to this series of thirty-one, but we may talk about more than one verse each week.  I will give the ‘attribute’ and then Angus will assign the verse to someone.  New members get a free ride until they see how the dynamics work.  That should be next week.  I will let her know that you have already attended.”

I said, “Our first topic is Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith.”

Carla (Hebrews 12:2) “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Carla smiled, “Can I say something different first?  I want to thank everyone for their prayers.  Links golf in Scotland and England is completely different.  It’s the same game, played with the same rules, but wind is a bigger factor.  The fairway pot bunkers make you lose a stroke or more trying to get out of them.  And there might not be many water hazards, but they do exist, but the stone walls are … umm … interesting.  But why I bring it up is that we felt your prayers, and while we had this list of golf courses and we had to work around the weather and golf tournaments and such, I think we missed this class more than everything else here in Tracy.”

Angus said, “Thank you, my dear, but do you have a comment on the verse?”

Carla said, “Mamma Missy said author and finisher.  The NIV says pioneer and perfecter.  I am thinking that since our faith centers around Jesus, the Heavenly Father’s Son, then His death on the cross is how He authored or pioneered faith.  John 3:16 says that we believe in Him, believing and trusting in the living Savior.  But then, this verse from Hebrews says that He sits at the right hand of God.  That, I think, is how He perfects that faith in each of us.  He has the ear of the Father.  He intercedes for us when we screw up and He intercedes when we have prayer requests.  So, by being the blood sacrifice, He authored faith, and by interceding at God’s right hand, He finishes.  Is that close?”

I replied, “Oh, Sweetie, that was a beautiful way of saying it.  I know you are new believers, how was your experience in the United Kingdom compared to here?”

Brenton said, “We heard every kind of rumor from both sides of the family.  Some of it was true.  We avoided the cities.  We were there to play golf, not visit castles or go to museums.  We got a special invite to attend a music concert.  I don’t know about concerts here, but I think they liked Menzie.  They might want her to return, but maybe not enough to pay for her travel expenses.  But I had no idea that taking up the Niblick’s invitation meant we would be part of crowd control with Paul McCartney on stage.  That was beyond wild.  But getting to the root of your question, we carried our Bibles with us and we read them every night.  We prayed over the Scriptures we read.  And we prayed for everyone in this class, but it seems there are a few new people.  Some hotels had no Bibles in the rooms, many still had Bibles.  We did not have trouble with anyone that we played with.  If Carla and I openly prayed, especially when the weather changed drastically.  Rather than getting an attitude from the other golfers, they asked if we could pray for them.  That might have been joking, but we found no one openly hostile and we did not hide our faith, but again, we were in inns or club houses next to golf courses.”

I smiled, “Thank you, Brenton.  We were there a month, but we stayed with family for the most part.  They were learning about us as we learned about them, and if things got stuffy and uncomfortable, Menzie started singing.  Now for the next attribute: The Bread of Life.”

Brenton (John 6:35) “Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Brenton smiled, “Car and I read this chapter a few times when we were rained out.”

Margie moaned, “Did you do the usual things that honeymooners do?!”

I groaned, “I cannot wait for Pastor Joseph to get back from his storm chasing.  Margie seems to be having the wheels come off.  Margie, do not ask such questions.  It’s part of that kissing and telling thing.  Don’t do it.”  Margie turned red.

Brenton smiled, “We were regular honeymooners, but after the first few days, we went into golfing mode.  But then again, we called for room service so we could be alone in the room together.  And honeymoon stuff took second place to reading the Bible.  You know, after the first couple of days.  And we have Mommie Pinkie to thank for that.  But what I was going to say is that John 6 is a very interesting chapter.  It shows how Jesus was misunderstood then, and is misunderstood today, for a lot of the same reasons.  I know.  John did not put the chapter and verse division in, but these four stories are in a row.  Jesus fed the 5,000 and that is just the adult men.  There were entire families.  In our study Bibles, it said that Jesus pulled away from them, because the people were about to make Him king there on the spot.  But then, He tells the disciples go on and He would catch up.  They took off on a boat and the Sea of Galilee got rough.  They were afraid.  Then they see Jesus and they think He’s a ghost.  Carla said that proved they believed in ghosts back then.  But then Jesus gets in the boat and the waves die down.  Then He gives the ‘I AM’ statement that He is the Bread of Life.  A lot of folks tie this into the bread during communion.  It makes sense since Jesus talks about eating His flesh and drinking His blood.  And drinking blood is forbidden.  It never says we should not eat human flesh, but the mentioning of eating human flesh is exhibited as being horrible.  A couple of places, it is a prophecy that Israel will be besieged and eating human flesh will be done, but it makes that out to be bad behavior.  If there was other food, they would have eaten it.  So, the followers of Jesus get confused between the symbology of communion versus vampirism and cannibalism.  That leads to a lot of the disciples leaving.  Then Jesus asks His closest followers, and Peter basically says that they have no place else to go.  So, you have highs and lows all in the same chapter.  You have two of the greatest miracles ever and some of the oddest teaching ever, until you understand what Jesus meant.”

Angus said, “And Jesus being the Bread of Life is a symbol that we gain eternal life by believing and trusting in Jesus.”

Lauren ran up to Menzie and Samuel, “Mommie!  Daddy!  The buses!  The bus driver is here.”  Then she ran to Grannie Fannie and gave her a hug.

Angus asked, “Grannie Fannie, what do you think of Jesus as the Bread of Life?”

Still hugging Lauren, Grannie Fannie said softly, ”Ask Thomas.  He is baking bread every night, at least six nights each week.  Bread is one of those basic things.  Most people would not consider life without it.  The great testament to that is all these people who cannot consume gluten.  They have created this entire industry of other ways of having bread without using wheat.  If we didn’t focus on bread, they would not be thinking about making gluten free bread.  Just talking to folks about coming to dinner.  They come to our house so that we can break bread together.  So, it’s in our diet.  It is in our language. And Jesus is the Bread of Life.  Our own existence revolves around bread.”

Angus smiled, “As we have been doing, let’s end with the Mizpah benediction.  Everyone, bow your heads in prayer.  “May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other.’” (Genesis 31:49b)

Angus turned to Brooke.  “We heard from Jemima last night.  Stormie seems to love chasing storms.  Misty could take it or leave it.  And Dr. Ellie thinks that Joan was too young.  She was fine because Ellie was fine.  If Ellie was scared, that would have changed everything, but Stormie.  She laughed.  She squealed.”

Credits

The link to the website that I found is HERE.

Here are Keith and Kristyn Getty singing This is My Father’s World.  It’s a lyric video so you can sing along.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.