“Uncle Remus, ” said the little boy one evening, when he had found the old man with little or nothing to do, “did the fox kill and eat the rabbit when he caught him with the Tar-Baby?”

“Law, honey, ain’t I tell you ’bout dat?” replied the old darkey, chuckling slyly. “I ‘clar ter grashus I ought er tole you dat, but ole man Nod wuz ridin’ on my eyelids twel a leetle mo’n I’d a dis’member’d my own name, en den on to dat here come yo’ mammy hollerin’ atter you.

 ”W’at I tell you w’en I fus’ begin? I tole you Brer Rabbit wuz a monstus soon beas’; leas’ways dat’s w’at I laid out fer ter tell you. Well, den, honey, don’t you go en make no udder kalkalashuns, kaze in dem days Brer Rabbit en his fambly wuz at de head er de gang w’en enny racket wuz en han’, en dar dey stayed. ‘Fo’ you begins fer ter wipe yo’ eyes ’bout Brer Rabbit, you wait en see wha’bouts Brer Rabbit gwineter fetch up at. But dat’s needer yer ner dar.

“W’en Brer Fox fine Brer Rabbit mixt up wid de Tar-baby, he feel mighty good, en he roll on de groun’ en laff. Bimeby he up’n say, sezee:

“‘Well, I speck I got you did time, Brer Rabbit,’ sezee; ‘maybe I ain’t but I speck I is. You been runnin’ ‘roun’ here sassin’ atter me a mighty long time, but I speck you done come ter de cen’ er de row. You bin currin’ up yo’ capers en bouncin’ ‘roun’ in dis naberhood ontwel you come ter b’leeve yo’se’f de boss er de whole gang. En der youer allers some’rs whar you got no bixness,’ ses Brer Fox, sezee. ‘Who ax you fer ter come en strike up a ‘quaintence wid dish yer Tar-Baby? En who stuck you up dar whar you iz? Nobody in de ‘roun’ worril. You des tuck en jam yo’se’f on dat Tar-Baby widout waintin’ fer enny invite,’ sez Brer Fox, sezee, ‘en dar you is, en dar you’ll stay twel I fixes up a bresh-pile and fires her up, kaze I’m gwinteter bobbycue you dis day, sho,’ sez Brer Fox, sezee.

“Den Brer Rabbit talk mighty ‘umble, “‘I don’t keer w’at you do wid me, Brer Fox,’ sezee, ‘so you don’t fling me in dat brier-patch. Roas’ me, Brer Fox,’ sezee, ‘but don’t fling me in dat brier-patch,’ sezee.

“‘I ain’t got no string,’ sez Brer Fox, sezee, ‘en now I speck I’ll hatter drwon you,’ sezee.

“‘Drown me des ez deep es you please, Brer Fox,” sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, ‘but do don’t fling me in dat brier-patch, ‘ sezee.

“‘Dey ain’t no water nigh,’ sez Brer Fox, sezee, ‘en now I speck I’ll hatter skin you,’ sezee.

“‘Skin me, Brer Fox,’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, ‘snatch out my eyeballs, t’ar out my yeras by de roots, en cut off my legs,’ sezee, ‘but do please, Brer Fox, don’t fling me in dat brier-patch,’ sezee. “

Co’se Brer Fox wnater hurt Brer Rabbit bad ez he kin, so he cotch ‘im by de behime legs en slung ‘im right in de middle er de brierpatch. dar wuz a considerbul flutter whar Brer Rabbit struck de bushes, en Brer Fox sorter hang ‘roun’ fer ter see w’at wuz gwinter happen. Bimeby he hear somebody call im, en way up de hill he see Brer Rabbit settin’ crosslegged on a chinkapin log koamin’ de pitch outen his har wid a chip. Den Brer Fox know dat he bin swop off mighty bad. Brer Rabbit wuz bleedzed fer ter fling back some er his sass, en he holler out:

“‘Bred en bawn in a brier-patch, Brer Fox–bred en bawn in a brier-patch!’ en wid dat he skip out des ez lively as a cricket in de embers.”

“Legends of the Old Plantation”, copyright 1881, the first of the Uncle Remus collections by Joel Chandler Harris

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

With an overly simplistic perspective, I remind us that although the “government” has decided not to mandate or dictate the fact that we MUST pray, they can not tell us NOT to pray. Therefore, they can not regulate to whom, how, when and where we do gather to pray! Yes, it is sad that this nation, founded on Christian principles, has reached the point where Christian prayer is not publically welcomed in the White House, however our God is not and has never been confined to its walls, and election time is coming, this is only temporary. Yeah, what the enemy means for harm, God uses for good.

Thank the Lord of Hosts. He has already given us an entire Book of strategies and maybe right now 2 Chronicles 7:14 is applicable: “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Calling all warriors; hear the trumpet call, mount up and hit your knees. God’s ways are not our ways and we have our marching orders: identify our own individual wicked ways and turn from them, humble ourselves, and seek His face, His kingdom, His rule and His authority in every aspect of our lives, public, corporate and private. Thank Him in advance for His promise.
“God is not a man, that he should lie,
nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
Does he promise and not fulfill? (Numbers 23:19)

If, if, if – if we do as He asks and He wouldn’t ask if He wasn’t prepared to help us in this, He will forgive us and HEAL OUR LAND. The government certainly can’t do it, no matter who sits in the White House. It is ultimately, bottom line, final answer God who will do it, He has done it in the past and is doing it now in ways we might not see and most certainly will do it again!

Alleluia, Praise God, Praise God, Praise God!

The Carpenter’s wife
Felt the edge of the moon
And its shadow pass over the sea.

Like a joke on the sun,
A theft of light;
Minor magics she appeared to see.

The crowd cheered and satisfied
Wandered off to follow the fun.

While the Gardener’s wife
Saw the edge of Truth
Smile
As it swallowed the sea.

“But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning,
your minds may somehow be led astray from your
sincere and pure devotion to Christ.”
2 Corinthians 11:3 (NIV)

Ó Susan Brooks Thomas – All rights reserved
1/86

Still green,
The forests and pastures melt behind me unseen.
Echoing the dim, muted colors
Of night smoke and the countryside in Autumn.

Captured by my questions and hope.
Suspended for a singular moment, clear and soaring,
It is
No longer dawn,
Not quite daylight.

This massive planet balances timeless
Between the moon and the sun.

Then silent thunder

The pale sky trembles with turquoise, pearl and orange.

Brighter than the new gold sun,
Glowing like a gift of starlight,
The White Horse canters like a king wonderful.
Along the ridge
And through the arch of sharp and blazing oaks.

Prayers; waiting, brilliant leaves
Swirl and rise at his passing.

Hosannah? 

(c) Susan Brooks Thomas
January 2000 Woodbury, Georgia
Revised: 9/11/2005, & 11/17/09 Reedville, Virginia

Ripped from the cross of Christ, in perfect time
See me – child of birth and being.
Earth quenched and satiated with sacred blood:
Stone Warrior – sin price paid with love.
Death is defeated, denied – I am unfettered, shriven, free.

Refined by fire, endless gift of Holy Spirit
See me – child of truth and light.
Earth perfected in fiery passion, pressure, grace:
Diamond Vessel – Bride of the living God.
Delivered in purity, renewed – I am complete, broken, whole.

 © 10/22/09
Susan Brooks Thomas
Reedville, VA 22539

Sunrise is one of my favorite times for all of the usual reasons –a new beginning, another day signaling “we’re still here”, etc. – but basically, I like the sun’s return because most of the time it is pretty. I have seen beautiful sunrises from mountains, farms, suburban windows and city streets.

 I like sunrises on the water from boats, shores and creek banks. On one occasion, I looked down on daybreak from the top floor of a beach-front high-rise condo. In the pale, early light before the sun, the ocean breathed calmly, thrilled with expectation. The clear horizon glowed brighter and then streaks of light streamed upward through the deep and living waters. I could see the light-rays beneath the water’s surface. The sun’s brilliant beams appeared in the transparent vast curve of the Atlantic even before it breached the rim of the sky!

Sometimes first light is obscured by storms and haze. Sometimes sunrise appears too early. Many times I stay asleep right through the daybreak, although on occasion I do greet it from the other side after a wakeful night for some reason or another. If I was perfectly attuned to the nature of things, I would go to sleep at sundown, when the earth turns her back on the sun and wake when she greets it again. I would avoid all the inconsistencies and troubles and aggravations of the darkness. However, I am a creature of this time and in this age most people don’t live that way. Fortunately, neither the earth nor God ever sleeps late.

 Isaiah tells us about the temple and the East Gate. He saw the glory of God entering in through the East Gate. From the direction of the dawn. From the place the earth desires and to which it constantly yearns, rotates and cycles. The earth is constantly rotating toward the east, proceeding eastward, toward the sun’s rise. This planet unalterably hastens toward dawn, rushing to greet the life-giving source of light, steadfastly drawn eastward – ever eastward, ever eastward. It is an absolute truth, a fact that is always true; the earth is designed like that.

Just like the Earth is always yearning toward the renewal of light, our souls, our spirits, our hearts are always yearning toward the Irresistible Light. Slowed by the gravitational pull of deception and failed by self, we spin round and round – Light, dark, Light, dark, Light – through the darkness, through the night, toward Jesus.

 Joy! Awesome joy!

Even as we plod in and around this little planet, our earthly spaceship, our cocoon of light and life, our well-watered garden is speeding around the sun, a lesser light, AND rushing through the vast timeless space of the universe. We are traveling beyond the measured speed of light towards eternity’s LIGHT, our heart’s desire. Every human traverse, every passage delivers us a little bit closer/newer/older/truer. Because God made us that way. And He attracts us to Himself. Swiftly, perfectly, always and forever.

 Dear Father God,

Thank you for new dawns, for joy, faith and love in this life’s journey. Please give me the light I need to follow the paths you intend and deliver me from wrong turns and needless detours. Please don’t let me stubborn, stupid or stagnant and forgive me for bucking and kicking in rebellion. Heal my years, please, and bless this day spring Amen.

 2 The people who walk in darkness
         Will see a great light;
         Those who live in a dark land,
         The light will shine on them.
Isaiah 9:2 (New American Standard Bible)

Dappled sunlight filters through the woods beyond the white rail fence outside my window. It faces east and the early light has that clear, magnified quality that promises a large body of salt water near-by. The vast Chesapeake Bay is a mile or so down the road and a cove touches the far pastures behind this house.

 We have an unexpected and greatly appreciated coolness thanks to a slight cold front that settled here a few days ago. A/C off. Windows open, trees fully leaved and gently dancing in the breeze. Air so clear and alive.

 Puppies and cats nap and I have finished early morning chores and settled down at the computer to work. The low steady hum of the room fan and the muted clack of this keyboard blend with the soft outdoor murmurs and mumbles.

 And God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – adding the needed dimension.

 Others ramble on and on extolling and examining the atmospheric conditions causing this extraordinary clarity and ionic-ly perfect balance. Fine, stay focused on the mechanical workings and scientific explanations. But don’t miss the essence.

 The essence of this blessing. This breath out of time, this call to remove and refresh. Don’t be so caught up in the why, that you miss the Who.

 Lord, don’t let me be so caught up in events and blessings and miss your very presence.

 Let us, let me, breath your Holy Spirit, greedily again and then again with a surfeit of satisfaction. And let me, let us, just wait, content, loved and refreshed. This is about you God, about Abba, about the ability to enter into this grace because of the Son and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

 Teach us to be still…

 And know I AM.

 I AM is here. Enjoy.

 “You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

Psalm 16:11 (Amplified Bible)

“Worship His Majesty!” What a grand old song. How often I think of those words when I see a spectacular sunset, a rainbow or streams of sunlight reaching through clouds.

Majesty. The word vibrates with high theater and magnificence, a rarified glimpse of royalty, the powerful and the Divine.

Majesty. Our hearts catch with astonishment and awe when we become aware of that someone or something that breaks into the ordinariness of our experience.

Majesty. A moment of worship, brief entry into the presence of greatness outside of our reality and then we close back in on ourselves, lower our sights and trudge merrily about our daily existence.

Majesty. We are humbled, unworthy to offer feeble and distance respect or honor.

I collect old globes. Remember the tilted plastic worlds from the school-room? The mass-produced educational ones are simple things; spheres with tiny raised mountains and colorful continents, covered with a net of fine lines.

One of my globes was inadvertently left near an open window during the annual “Yellow Pollen” season this year. I live with many large pine trees and the thick, sticky pollen covered everything, including my faded globe this spring. Mere dusting couldn’t remove all the resinous stuff, so I picked up the globe and carried into the kitchen where I gently wiped down oceans and islands and cities with a damp sponge.

While I cleaned I explored the earth in my hands. I located the Chesapeake Bay, contemplated its size and then spun the world to see where I would be if I tunneled straight through. I compared the places I have lived with other places with the same longitude and latitude. Small world in some ways, but keeping it in perspective, my daughter lives in the Midwest and it really is a long way away, not as far away as Venezuela, but too far.

In my traveling, I began to wonder how many billions of people were at that very moment breathing in those very places represented by this clever ball. People walking, working, laughing, crying, loving, healing. How awesome is this whole concept of gravity and seasons and axis and physics? I can not completely wrap my mind around it sometimes. And yet the Master Plan works. Steadfast day in, day out, through the millenniums and in spite of whatever mistakes we make.

And just when we can not remove our own sticky layers of pollen and grunge and sin, the Globe-meister Himself carefully and lovingly rinses away all our filth and corruption.

In the majesty of His death and resurrection, Jesus precisely, decisively, infinitely entered time and space to save and cleanse us. Incredibly, He shed His blood to wash us and claim this glorious, living, spinning blue globe – chosen among all the planets and stars and rocks that swirl across the universe –for His own.

Majesty. And again – Majesty.

What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

Psalm 8:4

Was her widow-ness fresh and raw, maybe tragic? Had she worked though the 7-stages of grief years earlier? What about her home, her health, family and friends? There is a lot I don’t know about her as an individual character. However, one thing I do know, whatever else she was – happy, industrious, whinny or demanding – she was not dumb. In fact she was a very shrewd woman.

I don’t know her name or age, but I in my mind I can picture her walking impatiently toward the place of tithing. Although she was obviously poor, she was familiar with her culture’s traditions, stories and commands. She knew to bring her tithe to the treasury; she knew how her God had a special protection/provision for widows. The stories of the Widow of Zarephath and Elijah and all the commands of Deuteronomy were very familiar to her. And she chose to take God at His word.

Hundreds of years earlier, Malacai wrote down an account of how God asked to be challenged on the matter of tithing: give back what is Mine and watch Me bless you and protect that which is your provision. This nameless, famous widow recognized that her life was dependant on God: not her savings, or wits, or investments.

Those two small coins were sort of insignificant to the great treasury of that temple. Prominent, wealthy people contributed enough to take care of the overhead expenses of the Lord’s house. Great and noble families supplied the priests and assistants with clothing and drink. Other tithes combined to purchase oil and incense. Her small tithe wouldn’t be missed and it certainly wouldn’t purchase vast shrink-wrapped pallets of foodstuffs, support some great new missions program or earn her a plaque on a pew.

She didn’t have enough money to live on anyway, yet, her action wasn’t pathetic. Oh no, she gave expectantly. She needed and challenged God to provide for her. He promised and He had set precedents. She wasn’t making some feeble, noble-seeming offering.  She was being obedient; boldly, faithfully and in anticipation of blessings, protection and provision.

The Bible doesn’t tell us what specifically happened to this resolute and eager widow, it doesn’t have too. She held God to His promise. He promised. God is not a man. He doesn’t lie, He doesn’t break His promises.

Just before He pointed out this woman’s action, Jesus had been speaking to rich, comfortable scribes and chief priests about greed. They missed the point.  Any one else missing the point? Some churches today call the “collection” anything other than a tithe. They call it something less painful than a commanded obedience, anything to make it easier for people to give up their “hard-won cash.”  Isn’t all the wealth God’s? Isn’t all the Gold and silver His. Doesn’t He own those cattle on a thousand hills; He is the one that gives us the power to obtain wealth. Have we forgotten this? Our currency still proclaims “In GOD we trust.”  In God, not “In our portfolios, celebrities and pride we trust.”  

In these “difficult” times, much attention is being directed to 1 Chronicles 7:14 the Scripture about humbling ourselves and God healing our land. Perhaps we need to incorporate the recognition that one of our wicked ways is robbing God (Mal 3:8-9).

What if His people, called by His name, turned from serving mammon and prayerfully returned to a healthy tithe for the right reasons? To tithe out of Obedience and to test God as He said we could? A tithe that means much, much more than just giving money to support to any specific denomination, program or cause?

Dear Father God,

You have all the answers, always have, always will. Please have mercy on us as individuals, communities and nations. Help us turn from our wicked ways and let you heal us. Please help us to tithe cheerfully so that You will fulfill your ancient promise:

I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
      So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground,
      Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,”
      Says the LORD of hosts; 
       And all nations will call you blessed,
      For you will be a delightful land,”
      Says the LORD of hosts.  (Mal 3:11-12)

Luke 2:1 -4

Please re-read Malachi 3: 8 – 12. Don’t just stop at the part about abundant blessings. Read about the protection of your livelihood. Do you understand what your personal crops and vines are? And shout for joy at verse 12!