Four Generations
Four generations!
Taken Christmas day. Four days before my father’s 87th birthday.
Holidays!
I forgot!
As yesterday rolled around, I was on my way to the office. Usually I remember statuatory holidays and plan for them. Not so this time around. Since Sunday was a work day (yes, pastors do work on Sunday!), Monday would have been the usual assigned holiday.
I noted as I drove downtown that the sidewalks in front of the banks had snow on them. The post office was strangely quiet. The main street was devoid of traffic [now, in Kindersley that is not a statement of quantity! We drove into a parking lot the other day and thought that it was busy – there were two cars and one other vehicle!].
Earlier in the week the thought had crossed my mind but slipped right by. So, I progressed to the office, did some sermon preparation, worked on administrative details, did some visiting and called it a day!
Perhaps this week or next, I’ll take that day off!
A fresh old-time prayer!
Lord, inspire us to read your Scriptures and meditate upon them day and night.
We beg you to give us real understanding of what we need, that we in turn may put its precepts into practice.
Yet we know that understanding and good intentions are worthless, unless rooted in your graceful love.
So we ask that the words of Scriptures may also be not just signs on a page, but channels of grace into our hearts. Amen.
Origen (c. 185 – c. 254), early church father.
King George VI – For the New Year
“Did I remember the Christmas speech by King George VI in 1939?.”
As I entered our sanctuary today, Gene Elliott asked if I was old enough to remember the Christmas speech by King George VI in 1939, looking into the darkness of a new year filled with war. I had to reply that I was not. She sat down and wrote out the quote. Here it is:
“The Gate of the Year”
“I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’
And he replied, ‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!’
So I went forth and finding the Hand of God
Trod gladly into the night
He led me towards the hills
And the breaking of day in the lone east.
So heart be still!
What need our human life to know
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife of things
Both high and low,
God hideth his intention.”
… Minnie Louise Haskins (1875-1957), “The Desert” (c. 1908)
I found a blog site by Nancy J. Nordenson that summarized the history of the quote very well. If you do a Google search you will find much more!
- Haskins was an American lecturer at the London School of Economics. She wrote as a hobby. The quote is an excerpt from a poem she wrote called “The Gate of the Year” which was published in a volume called The Desert. The poem, which was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother, gained international attention when King George VI quoted the above excerpt in his famous Christmas message broadcast in 1939 at the beginning of the Second World War.
- It is engraved on bronze plaques on the entrance to the King George VI Memorial Chapel, Windsor, where they are both interred, and was read at the funeral service of the Queen Mother, held at Westminster Abbey on April 9, 2002.
- Go to the previous page
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