The Crooked Straight

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood...

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character...

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963, spoken on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

Corpse or King?

It’s New Year’s eve. Christmas is behind us, right? Well, not for many Christians around the world, including our friends in Belarus. For them January 6 is the big day. December 25 is the celebration of the child’s birth, but Epiphany, January 6, marks the arrival of gentile wise men on the scene. (Did you wonder where we got the 12 days of Christmas?) In solidarity with them, we have our wise men from the crèche making their way across the kitchen counter for a January 6 arrival.

For this reason, it seemed an appropriate time to pull out an adapted Christmas meditation from Solomon Latte:

Song of Songs 3:6 Who is this coming up from the desert like a column of smoke, like a fragrant billow of myrrh and frankincense, every kind of fragrant powder of the traveling merchants?

Say three words—“gold,” “frankincense,” and “myrrh”—and what comes to mind? If you’re like most people, I suspect you picture the magi bringing gifts to the Baby Jesus. But did you know we also find gold, incense, and myrrh in Song of Songs? “Gold” appears five times, “incense” three times, and “myrrh” seven times.

Of this trilogy, we find “myrrh” most often. The beloved says her lover is a sachet of myrrh. Later she says he smells like myrrh. And then he’s dripping with myrrh. No doubt about it—she definitely associates him with myrrh.

We know myrrh is a perfume, but a quick glance through the entire Bible tells us myrrh appears more often as a scent for men than women. So let’s call it cologne instead of perfume, okay?

“Myrrh” means “bitter.” And myrrh was used for more than providing fragrance on special occasions. It also anesthetized pain. And people used it to prepare the dead for burial. Jesus turned down wine mixed with myrrh when He hung from the cross. And Nicodemus brought about seventy-five pounds of spices, including myrrh, so he could prepare Jesus’ body for burial.

Because so many of us read the New Testament more than the Old, we may associate myrrh with death, not life. I’ve heard it said, for example, that the myrrh that the magi brought to baby Jesus foreshadowed his death.

It’s a nice theory. And lots of people believe it. But I doubt it is true. For one thing, what would you think if someone gave you a casket or a headstone as a baby gift? “Here, I hope you like it. I brought you some toys, and some booties, and some expensive embalming fluid.”

I don’t think so.

More significantly, the wise men had no idea Jesus was going to die to save us from our sins. Even Jesus’ own disciples didn’t get it. Only Mary of Bethany, Lazarus’s sister, who anointed Jesus’ feet before the crucifixion, appears to have understood “before the fact” that Jesus had to die before He would reign as king.

A king was born. That’s why the magi brought myrrh! It was a gift fit for a king. Consider Esther, who, before her night with the king spent six months treating herself with oil of myrrh (Esth. 2:12). Centuries later when the magi found Herod, they asked the location of the one born king of the Jews, saying they had come to worship Him (Matt. 2:2). And when they came to the house and found Him, they fell down in worship, offering that king their gifts. Those gifts included myrrh.

In Psalm 45:6-8 we read of God as king, and the psalmist writes, “All your garments are perfumed with myrrh, aloes, and cassia. From the luxurious palaces comes the music of stringed instruments that makes you happy.”

The connection of myrrh with death in Jesus’ birth narrative misses the strong association of myrrh with riches, royalty, and celebration. There’s time enough on Good Friday to focus on the loss. Christmas is about the arrival of the king.

The use of myrrh in Song of Songs helps us to see that the myrrh the magi brought to Jesus was a gift fit for a king. They went to great expense and inconvenience to honor the King of Kings. How can we do any less?

Ways to Improve Your Life

The cover story for this week's U. S. News and World Report is "50 Ways to Improve Your Life in 2007." Some good stuff there. Here are some of my additions:

. Visit a friend who moved away.
. See an ocean.
. Recycle. If you're new at it, start with newspapers, cereal boxes, and cardboard paper-towel rolls. Remind yourself that having dominion over the earth means taking good care of precious resources. If you have used cell phones accumulating in your junk drawer, check out how to donate them to charity.
. Plant something. Anything. Marvel in the mystery that a seed underground can turn into something big and beautiful. The apostle Paul said our resurrection bodies will be like that. We bury this weak, vulnerable earthly home and it comes back in a blaze of glory.
. Join a Bible study. Get with a friend if you don't have a group, and use a guide. Even if you don't believe the Bible, it's the best-selling book on the planet, and many of our greatest authors use it as a literary reference. I just re-read the David and Goliath story and then heard a Democratic senator refer to himself as "David against Goliath" on CNN.
. If you're married, read a book on improving your communication. Gottman has good stuff.
. If you have kids, read a book on positive parenting. The love-and-logic folks would be my choice here.
. Support a child in a developing country. Write regularly.
. Read aloud to your spouse or a child or a friend.
. Choose one book from the best-seller list and read it.
. Choose one classic and read it, too.
. Treat yourself to a facial, a pedicure, or a massage.
. Take a class. Want to learn to SCUBA dive? Weave baskets? Do calligraphy? Do it!
. Cook a complex recipe you've always wanted to try but never taken the time.
. Write a letter to a public official saying something nice.
. Clean your closets and donate last year's (decade's?) fashions to a homeless shelter.
. Start shopping at a Farmer's Market. Give the local guys a chance.
. Switch from a bank to a credit union. It'll help redistribute power closer to home.
. Donate to a library some books you aren't using.
. Give old eyeglasses to a Kiwanis club that will redistribute them to the needy.
. Cut back on bottled water in disposable containers. The water is healthier; the plastic's bad for the earth.
. Befriend someone who thinks totally differently from you. Ask lots of questions. Try to understand. Allow yourself to change your mind on something.
. Go to a half-price book store and buy a CD of music you don't normally listen to.
. Read a book (or listen on tape) on the history of something like the Ming Dynasty or the Taj Mahal--something about which you know little to nothing. If you can get a friend to do it with you, all the better.
. Tell someone aloud, "I forgive you."
. Spend an afternoon at a museum.
. Do something about Darfur.
. Park at the far end of the parking lot and walk.
. Take a meal to someone in need. Not a close friend--someone who will be truly surprised.
. Visit a shut-in. Depart with a hug or hand squeeze.
. Memorize a poem.

What would you add?

Christmas Eve in Washington DC

Highlights from today:

Gorgeous day. Morning worship service at the Washington National Cathedral. Seeing Frederick Hart's nihilo sculpture over the doors. The bells ring in loud celebration as we depart.

Lunch in Georgetown at the Sequoia restaurant on the Potomac. (I sit about 100 yards from where my dad taught me to paddle a canoe and I look out on the sparkling water. Down the street the Watergate Hotel, where I stayed two years ago when here for a reunion, overlooks Roosevelt Island. As an elementary or junior high school student I went to Roosevelt Island to study nature.)

Sitting around a full dinner table with ten people we love. (The oven stopped working yesterday, but neighbors shared theirs, so we somehow managed to get the ham, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, and pies all made.)

Watching the kids make s'mores, then open their matching jammies. We take pictures at bedtime.

Laughing as the four of us grown-ups do the Santa thing and tease my sister-in-law for buying way more than she remembers purchasing.

Singing "Silent Night" with my daughter and niece at tuck-in time.

"Jesus, Lord at Thy birth..." Merry Christmas!

Adventure Capitol

We awoke this morning to a foggy, gray world. But the forecast promised it would clear up, so we hoped for the best and headed into downtown Washington, D.C. We visited the Viet Nam Memorial and saw Frederick Hart's "The Three Soldiers" sculpture. About the time we arrived at the Lincoln Memorial, the sun came out in its full brilliance. When we turned around, we saw the Washington Monument with the Reflecting Pool in the foreground. It was Washington at its best...uncrowded in perfect sixty-five-degree weather.

My niece was with me as we began the ascent to see Mr. Lincoln. She and her twin brother are our daughter's age and they're African-Americans, having joined Gary's brother's family (and thus ours) through adoption. I told her Dr. King had a dream that black and white kids would some day play together. She asked if that meant black and white kids didn't play together in his day, and I told her it didn't happen often. As we silently continued, it occurred to me that we were living Mr. Lincoln's and Dr. Martin Luther King's dreams.

The speeches on the wall at the Lincoln Memorial moved me. I had to wipe a tear when I read the Second Inaugural Address. This section got to me:

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

No wonder Martin Luther King, Jr., chose the Lincoln Memorial as the place from which to give his "I Have a Dream" speech.

From there we saw the Korean War Memorial and the WWII Memorial, all breathtaking. The fountains at the latter were dazzling in the sunlight. But isn't it sad that we have so many wars?

Life in Washington

We're in the nation's capitol for Christmas, where the weather is sopping wet. We had a fantastic day visiting my friend Erin and her girls...except for one thing: My husband suffers from migraines, especially when the weather gets bad, and today he had a doozy. But you can see by this footage of him that he feels much better tonight.

Christmas Up Close and Personal

A Christmas edition of “Knowing Your Friends” arrived in my email box this week. Here’s how I answered:

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Both, but prefer wrapping with self-tied sparkly bows.

2. Real tree or artificial? I grew up raising trees, but we finally went with artificial because of allergies. Once we found out it didn’t help, it was too late. It’d already been purchased.

3. When do you put up the tree? This year, Thanksgiving weekend. Usually later. I like earlier.

4. When do you take the tree down? Sometime around, say, mid-June.

5. Do you like eggnog? Bleeach. Gary drinks mine.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? The family gift someone gave us of a “hot fudge sundae kit.” Picture seven people building their sundaes with caramel and strawberries and whipped cream and chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes. The baby shows up around midnight on December 24. The wise men make their trek across the counter in time for an Epiphany, January 6, arrival.

8. Hardest person to buy for? The dads.

9. Easiest person to buy for? Alexandra. She gives us her list around Halloween.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Equipment for the bar we don’t have, complete with martini coasters.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail with a newsletter inside.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Unedited Holiday Inn.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually around Thanksgiving, but since I can’t drive, I’m running way behind this year.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yup.

15. Favorite thing to eat and drink at Christmas? To eat: Grammy’s cheese ball. The kind with nuts and parsley. To drink: Hot chocolate with marshmallows. Or rather, eat marshmallows with hot chocolate on top. To make: Decorating sugar cookies.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Colored.

17. Favorite Christmas song? Tie between the entire Handel’s Messiah and O Holy Night.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Usually travel to see family in cooler climes. There’s something wrong about sunbathing weather while Bing Crosby’s crooning.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? There are…Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Dixon; Donder and Cupid and Comet and Vixen. But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all? Rudolph. It feels off a bit, but I think I’m close.

20 Angel on the tree top or a star? Star.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? One on December 24—sometimes jammies for the girl. It’s easier to get kids ready for bed if the bedclothes are a present. On "the day" we have a big breakfast and the kids go nuts while we wait to get dishes done.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Highway traffic backed up at the mall.

23. Favorite thing about the Christmas Holidays? Lyrics about Christ the Lord playing everywhere I go—the department store, the grocery store, a friend’s house.

Pick one and tell how you'd answer.

Global Warming: The True Source Revealed

Last night I got together with the female faculty at Dallas Seminary for a Christmas dinner. While we were eating, one of the women had a hot flash and a lively conversation followed. I'll spare you the gory details and cut to the summary: Global warming is not happening because we're polluting the environment. It's because the baby boomers have aged. Add to that the news about breast cancer, which has many women suddenly going off their estrogen. The result: An enormous number of women are having hot flashes. Ergo global warming.

Yes, these are the deep mysteries of the universe we ponder when we're together.

What Were They Thinking?

You don't have to congratulate me just because I was selected TIME magazine's person of the year. Yeah, I know, it was a big surprise to me, too.

(You think maybe someone should tell them the difference between a singular and a plural?)

Rested?

You are 84% rested

Great! You seem to have the right balance between work and play. Consider a career teaching how-to-rest seminars.

How Overbooked Are You?

My mom and I recently had some great interaction about the difference between having a full life and being a workaholic. So I've been giving the subject a lot of thought. I created this quiz to help you discern the difference. Follow the "How Overbooked Are You?" link to take it. And enjoy a day of rest--if not tomorrow, soon.

News Lite

No sign of the climbers yet. Keep praying.

We saw the Trans-Siberian Orchestra with friends this afternoon and then had dinner out. It was a great show that lasted almost three hours. If you have a chance to see it, do. (The only drawback: I'm not really up for sitting that long yet.) Super music, fantastic light show. I rejoiced when I didn't set off the security machine at the entrance with all the metal in my shoulder.

How am I? My doc made my day last week when he told me I can now drive to the grocery store, as it's all right turns. (I can only use my right side for another three weeks.) That little bit of freedom allowed me to treat myself to a mani/pedi, because the salon is three doors down from the grocery store. I was so happy to get to drive that little bit, though I'd sure like to get some Christmas shopping done! Guess it'll be a gift-card Christmas and an order-by-mail celebration. I'm also doing ultrasound treatments for 40 minutes/day. Some have asked if the bone "took" this time. Sorry, but no way to tell, as the hardware makes the bone impossible to see on x-ray.

I graded twenty-three students' twenty-page papers this week. My eyes have this glaze over them now, but many did outstanding work, so I rejoice in their progress (and in having grades finished!).

We're headed for Washington D.C. later in the week. Hope you have fun holiday plans.

Pray for the Missing Climbers

Students in my grad class on women are well familiar with Carolyn Custis James. Her book, When Life and Beliefs Collide, is required reading. Those who took the class in 2005 met her when she came to speak. And readers of Kindred Spirit saw the profile on her that ran in the last issue. In May my assistant editor and I talked with her and her husband, Frank, in Orlando, which you may have read about here.

This past Sunday, Dec. 10, Carolyn and Frank received one of those when-life-and-beliefs-collide midnight phone calls. Frank’s mom was on the line telling them that Frank's brother Kelly and his two climbing partners, Brian Hall and Jerry “Nikko” Cooke, are lost on Mt. Hood in Oregon.

Kelly is married with four kids and he is in a snow cave near the summit. The three climbers expected to complete their climb of Mt. Hood by Saturday. But something went wrong (the family is not sure exactly what), so they dug a snow cave to keep Kelly safe, while Brian and Jerry went down the mountain for help.

Carolyn writes, "On Sunday, Kelly contacted his wife on his cell phone and received a second call from his son Jason. These calls were brief and didn’t provide much detail. But at least we knew he was alive. T-Mobile and other organizations are using cell phone signals to pinpoint Kelly’s location. There is no news at all about Brian and Nikko. All three men are believers. All three are expert, highly experienced climbers."

"The three families are together, supporting each other, praying and waiting. Brian’s parents, Dwight and Clara Hall, his sister, Angela, and Nikko's wife Makayla are also there. Frank's mother, LouAnn Cameron, and his sister, Traci Hale, are en route. [Traci and Frank were on CNN tonight talking with both Larry King and Anderson Cooper.] As you can imagine this is an unbearably difficult time for all of them."

"The weather has been about as bad as possible—blizzard conditions with hurricane-force winds—so rescue workers haven’t been able to climb high enough to get to Kelly. If the weather follows the current forecast, there’s no possibility of reaching him until Friday or Saturday, and time is of the essence."

"Please join me in praying for all of them—the three climbers, the rescue teams, the technical experts, the worried family members." Carolyn also asks prayer for Frank as he "supports and cares for family members, works with the media, and waits anxiously for his brother’s safe return."

She adds, "We believe God is in this. It is a painful, heart wrenching ordeal for everyone involved. But He loves us and knows what He is doing with us. He knows exactly where all three men are and He can still the storm. Our hope is in Him."

Watch the Thursday news conference.

It's Official!

My agent sent this to me today:

On today's PUBLISHER'S LUNCH, sent for all the world to see, was this note under "Deals"...

Thriller Sandra Glahn's INFORMED CONSENT, in which a young researcher working on a medical breakthrough ends up causing infections in his colleagues, and then in his own family, to Don Pape at Cook Communications, in a nice deal, by Chip MacGregor at MacGregor Literary.

Best Books of 2006

This morning the NY Times announced what they deem "The 10 Best Books of 2006." I have read precisely none of them. Sadder yet, until today I had heard of precisely none of them. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Guess I'd better get busy, eh? Hopefully you are more literate than I and know all about them already:

FICTION
Absurdistan (great title, eh?)
The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
The Emperor's Children
The Lay of the Land
Special Topics in Calamity Physics

NONFICTION
Falling through the Earth: A Memoir
The Looming Tower
Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
The Places in Between

Oh, and by the way, it's overcast this morning. Sadly, no planets visible from here.

Celestial Ballet

Lately I've been waking up between four and five. It's not that I have trouble sleeping. My body just rests most of the day so it needs less at night. So I tiptoe around, check email, drink coffee. But tomorrow if I wake up early, I get a special treat in the predawn sky. Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars will appear nestled together about 45 minutes before the sun rises. They have not been this close since 1925.

I love how Miami Space Transit Planetarium director Jack Horkheimer described the rare triple-planetary treat: "It is a lovely demonstration of the celestial ballet that goes on around us, day after day, year after year, millennium after millennium. When I look at something like this, I realize that all the powers on Earth, all the emperors, all the money, cannot change it one iota. We are observers, but the wonderful part of that is that we are the only species on this planet that can observe it and understand it."

His words brought to mind those of another stargazer--a shepherd who stared mouth agape at the same night skies some 1,000 years before Christ: "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained/What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" (Psalm 8:3-4).

A Novel Idea

Should a novel end with a bibliography? The NY Times weighed in on that question today. See what they said.

Go, Julie!

Back in late August I told you about Julie, who was training to run her first marathon to raise money for charity. Like me at one time, Julie's idea of exercise used to be fighting the current when we drained the tub.

But she did it! Julie ran, and she finished well!

You go, girl! (That's her on the far left wearing "estretchy pants.")

Some of you donated. You don't even know her but her helped her anyway. Julie says, "Thank you for donating to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and for supporting me as I ran my first half marathon.

"Here are a few things I have started to learn from the process:

1. We need each other to make a difference in the world.
2. Running is fun.*gulp*
3. Health is one of God's many gifts to us.

"Again, thank you for honoring your loved ones, friends, and cancer patients you may not even know. Thank you for supporting me.

Isn't she the coolest?

Showing Up

Friday night about dinnertime I got a call from Dr. Bill Cutrer, with whom I've co-authored seven books.

Our family goes way back with Bill. Starting in 1986, he was our infertility doc. In 1992, he took us to Russia with him. Ten months later, we all returned. The photo is of the overnight train we took on that trip from Moscow to Minsk with an anesthesiologist friend (Bill's on the right; Gary took the picture). We went to Minsk to follow up on our translators from the previous trip. Then we returned with him one more time the following year. After that he left medicine to pastor a church in our town. He asked us (prayed, convinced us) to join him. We agreed. And as part of that church, we made three trips to Mexico with him on mission teams. He and I went on to coauthor books. And when Alexandra came into our lives, he placed her in our arms.

Well, Bill moved to Kentucky six or seven years ago to become a seminary prof. But he and I continued writing , thanks to Word-file attachments in cyberspace. We finished our last book two years ago.

Okay, so back to Friday night. The call was pre-arranged, as we're updating our book on marital intimacy for its third-edition launch.

I should add that holding the phone and writing notes takes some doing in my one-armed state right now. So at times simple tasks on this project have left me feeling overwhelmed because of my limitations.

So the phone rings. Gary is due home from work in five minutes, and Alexandra is in her room playing music. I start to settle in with the manuscript when I hear the doorbell ring. I groan.

Bill lives in Kentucky. We are talking long distance. On his dime. I hate to make him hold while I see who's there. I consider not answering, but he tells me to go ahead. Yet I have to hold on to the rail to go down to answer the door. Problem: I have a phone in my only free hand. And I'm not about to navigate stairs without holding on. (I fell head-first down the same stairs last year, even "holding on," which is why I'm operating one-handed now.)

I call and call to Alexandra to get the door, all the while apologizing to Bill, who (frankly) sounds a little impatient. Finally she emerges from her room, but when she gets downstairs and tries to see out the window into the dark, she hesitates. "It's some man..." she says. "I don't recognize him."

She knows better than to answer the door to a stranger. That's good. But she tells me, "I don't want to open it."

Agggh. Whoever is waiting can see her standing there. I apologize to Bill again. His response? With a laugh in his voice, "Tell her to open the [dang] door." So I tell her I'm watching from upstairs. It's okay. She can open it. Please just open it!

So she finally does. And the man standing there has a cell phone to his ear. And he's talking to me on it.

Turns out he was in town for a medical conference. He'd arranged the details with Gary a few weeks back, and neither breathed a word to me about it.

Two hours later, the manuscript was ready to Fed Ex, and Bill was on his way.

The same girl who said she didn't recognize that guy stood on the porch and waved on tiptoes until his car had disappeared from sight.

Bill has always said that 90 percent of friendship is just showing up. Sometimes I think it's closer to 99.

Book winner

The winner of Who Was Adam? is Rachelle Arlin Credo. Congrats, Rachelle!

More on Darfur

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a message about Darfur.

Well, talk about a small world. My cousin reminded me that her husband's brother, Paul Barker, and his wife, Nora, are with CARE relief agency. What I didn't know is that they have moved to Khartoum to assume responsibility for the operations of CARE throughout Sudan, which includes the Darful region. Check out this interview with Paul Barker, done in October.