Category Archives: Christianity

Bible study, Christianity

Published: A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 6

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Volumes 1 through 6 are now published.

I continue to make progress on editing and publishing my Bible study series, A Walk Through Holy Week. All eight volumes have been written for a while, awaiting me to do the required rounds of editing. Slowly, as other pressures of life allow, I pull of the files of the unpublished volumes and do the rounds of editing required, then move on to publishing.

Last week I completed that for Volume 6, Gethsemane, Arrest, and Jewish Trial. It covers the period between the Last Supper (and Vol 4 and 5) and the Roman trial and crucifixion (the future Vol 7). He’s what I say on the back cover:

Gethsemane, Arrest, and Jewish Trial is Vol. 6 in the Bible Study series A Walk Through Holy Week.

This is the point in Holy Week where the story gets confusing. We have multiple venues, and people coming and going, some of it described in the Bible, some of it taking place “off camera” but easily inferred by what the Bible does say and by understanding what’s going on.

This volume looks at all of it, from when Jesus arrived at Gethsemane with his disciples until the dawn trial by the Jewish Sanhedrin, right before Jesus is sent to Pilot for the Roman trial. Divided into seven lessons drawn from all four gospels, this volume is suitable for a small group study, especially leading up to and including Holy Week, or for an individual Bible study at any time. Each chapter is divided into seven sections, allowing the book to be used as a study-devotional.

A Walk Through Holy Week will eventually run through eight volumes. The author suggests they be studied one volume a year, leading up to Holy Week and concluding around Easter.

The book is available as both an e-book and paperback at Amazon, as are the other published volumes.

Christianity, memories

It Is Well With My Soul

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Written by Horatio Spafford after most of his family died in a shipwreck, “It Is Well With My Soul” has blessed Christians for 150 years.

In mid-October, we visited our daughter’s family in Lake Jackson, TX. On Sunday we attended their church. One of the songs we sung was “It Is Well With My Soul”. What a wonderful throwback for me. Let me set this up, as neutrally as I can.

There’s no doubt I live in another culture than most of the people around me, than most of the people in the church I attend. Modern music leaves me flat, both popular music and church music. As far as popular music is concerned, with few exceptions I’m stuck in a world that ended in 1974. That was the year of my religious conversion, senior year in college. Right after it came my move from Rhode Island to Kansas City. More or less simultaneously I made the move from the liturgical church to the evangelical church, and from popular music to church music. But to be honest, popular music had already moved away from my preferred tastes. Give me the songs of 1961-1965 and you can have the songs from 1974 on. How far am I removed from the music of pop culture? When Tom Petty died in 2017 and there were huge headlines, I said “Who’s Tom Petty”, and ignored the story thereafter. It took me another five years to learn who Tom Petty was and what he meant to pop music.

When I entered the evangelical church world, I fell in love with that music, mainly what was popular in the 1970s and into the 1980s. Bill Gaither. The Imperials. Lanny Wolfe Trio. Doug Oldham. Andre Crouch. Now I’m stuck there, again with some exceptions. But added to the music mix for me was all the wonderful hymns of earlier decades. I found the music moving and uplifting. Give me the hymns of 1840 to the gospel songs of 1980, and I’ll be happy.

I suppose I’m stuck in the 1970s with my church music preferences. Almost all the songs sung in the evangelical church since then leave me flat. Oh, I can sing them with gusto, my stroke-and seizure-altered voice now drowned out by the loudness of the instruments. The songs of today give me a momentary lift. I suppose the message they tell is good, but the music style mostly leaves me unmoved, especially with the similarity of form (verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-bridge-bridge-verse-chorus-chorus-chorus seemingly ad infinitum).

So anyway, I’m a guest in this church service on Oct. 12. The worship team consisted of three women singers, a keyboard, rhythm guitar, flute, and drums. They all mixed well. The third song (I think it was the third one) was “It Is Well With My Soul”. This was one of those songs I was introduced to in the evangelical church in the 1970s. I for sure never heard it growing up in the liturgical church.

On this day they played it “straight”. No chorus added as a bridge section, no endless repetition. No overly modern instrumentation. Just the simple verses and chorus, played into the sanctuary at a volume that let me hear my own voice. The third verse, which is always my favorite, moved me to tears as it always does.

My sin, oh the bliss, of this glorious thought!

My sin, not in part but the whole

is nailed to His cross and I bear it no more

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord oh my soul.

Needless to say, I was transported back in time five decades. I don’t expect that to happen very much in the future. But I had a chance to think back to the mid-1970s, when my life changed, and the music changed for me as well.

Christianity, Decumulation, poetry

And Miles To Go Before I Sleep

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This dates from around 1906. I hope it transports ok.

Perhaps a few readers will recognize the title of this post at the last two lines of Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”. It was a poem I hated all through secondary school, as a progression of English teachers tried to convince us it was a suicide poem. I just couldn’t see it.

Still can’t.

But I can see how it is a near-end-of-life poem, as the poet-narrator contemplates he has miles to go yet that snowy evening, and miles yet to go in his life, yet is tired, both physically and socially tired.

I’m feeling that tiredness. No, I’m not suicidal nor am I longing for the end of life. But I know I have many fewer miles to go than I used to, especially after the health challenges of the last year and a half.

Two things brought this home to me recently. One is related to our ongoing efforts to decumulate. When we returned from our road trip to the East, I contacted a nearby cousin to whom I promised to give the old shadow box (pictured above) handed down to me from my paternal grandmother and dad. It displays photos of my great-grandparents, their five children who lived to adulthood, and a hairpiece, perhaps from the gr-grandparents wedding day. If so, the hairpiece is about 140 years old, and the shadow box was put together around 1905.

This has been in our possession since 1997 and displayed on our wall since 2002. I think it looks good there, but it’s time to pass it down to someone who will enjoy it for many more years than I have left.

May God bless these girls in what I hope will be a long life before them.

The second thing that made me once again realize the miles I have to go before I sleep are many fewer now than they once were happened in church Sunday. It was a special service with our English and Hispanic churches combined, and with elementary-aged kids in adult church with us. We took in new members, dedicated babies, and baptized new believers. I sat in the second row, and five elementary aged girls sat right in front of me.

Two families joined the church, people I haven’t met yet. Two families, each with two children who looked to be pre-school age. Seeing that made me think: these are the upcoming leaders of the church. Then I looked at the girls in front of me and thought: and these girls will be in the next group of leaders. That gave me both happiness and sadness. It’s kind of difficult to explain.

I withdrew from church leadership over twenty years ago, deciding it was time to allow others to step forward. In the ensuing years, I’ve refused a couple of invitations to step back in to leadership. At the same time, in the world at large, I more or less withdrew from modern culture. I watch almost no modern TV, don’t go to modern movies or listen to modern music. Don’t know the current stars of either except a few, by name and sight but not by performance, who are too ubiquitous to miss.

Out of church leadership. Out of modern culture. Both by choice. There’s a bit of sadness that brings, but also relief. It’s sad to get rid of that 120-year-old shadow box, but also a relief to be unburdened from one family heirloom, knowing it’s going to someone who will likely cherish it.

These two things made me think of the fewer miles I have to go. I suppose I’m a little sad about that but now awfully so. Time to enjoy the woods filling up with snow, and not worry about the miles.

Bible study, Christianity, Writing

Editing Almost Done

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Volume 5 is close to done.

My summer schedule continues, though knee and balance troubles have prevented me from walking as much as I would like.

My special projects continue. I’m transcribing one WW2 letter a day, handling 50 scan files a day, getting rid of most of them, and doing a few other odd things. Though I’m falling behind a little on my correspondence, and on family finances. Maybe I’ll get to them before the week is out.

A morning rainstorm is preventing me from going out to pick blackberries. The vines will be loaded tomorrow—or this evening if I can get out then.

One thing I got a little ahead on is editing my latest book, A Walk Through Holy Week Vol. 5. I knuckled down yesterday and finished it, which was one of the reasons I didn’t get a blog post written. I also wrote the Introduction, though it still needs a bit of work.

Leaving The Dungeon in a minute for a mug full, and reading in the sunroom.

In my first editorial pass through the book, which was mainly for proofreading, I was concerned that I had been repetitive in places. In the second editorial pass, just finished, I was able to make corrections to eliminate the most blatant redundancies. However, I’m not sure I caught them all. Thus, I will make a third editorial pass through it, reading it quickly as would someone who bought it and couldn’t put it down. I hope in this manner any more obvious repetition will stand out. I’m going to do this pass via an e-reader, marking any edits needed, I hope the reading takes only two or three days, and that I’ll find nothing more is needed, except for minor things.

My expectations now are that I’ll do the publishing tasks next week, July 14 to 18, and have it up for sale right after that.

I’ll then wait until September to tackle the remaining books in the series.

It’s now 11 AM and still raining. Time to get a little reading done—with a fresh mug of coffee.

Bible study, Christianity, Decumulation, family, letters, travel, Writing

July Goals

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  1. Have a meet-up to deliver batch 1 of family photos to the one who has been clamoring to have them. Good riddance.
  2. Somehow, carve out enough time to finish editing my book-in-progress. Down to 3 chapters, but was unable to do any editing today, nor will tomorrow.
  3. Continue transcribing one letter a day of my father-in-law’s war letters.
  4. Continue to dispose of unneeded scan files on my computer and One Drive. Down to less than 1,450 now.
  5. Keep up with yardwork.
  6. Handle various financial matters and travel bookings.
Bible study, Christianity

My Own Writing Helped Me

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Editing the 5th volume of this series helped me through a difficult day.

So this week just passed I completed editing Vol 5 of A Walk Through Holy Week. That is, I completed the first editorial pass through the book. At least one, and possibly two more editorial passes are needed.

Although this is Vol. 5, I think it was the first one written. I put it on the shelf about three years ago as I tried to decide if I would write the whole series, and if I did, what shape would it take. I eventually decided I would write the whole series, changed it from six volumes to eight with a better organization, and finished Vol 8 last year. At that point I started editing and publishing the series beginning with Vol 1. I’ve completed publishing tasks through Vol. 4, putting that one up for sale on Amazon last month.

In Vol. 5, I found a lot of stuff wrong in the first few chapters, which is why I think two more editorial passes can be expected. But the last several chapters were better. And, as I read them in the first pass, three years after I first wrote them and last read them, I found some things to help with a number of concerns I have today. Here it is.

What About The Game Plan?

Remember the Game Plan we were working on? That list of encouragements, cautions, and commands? I haven’t mentioned it for a few chapters. I left it when it was beginning to burgeon into an unwieldy list. Too many things to think about, to constantly read over and implement.

Afterall, the Christian walk ought to be a kind of automatic thing. If Jesus is in us, and if we have walked with him for a while, we ought to naturally do the things that result in our being stronger Christians who are building the kingdom of God. We ought not have to think about every action and wonder if we are doing the right thing, the devout Christian thing.

So how do we do this? Do we even need a game plan? For me, I still like a list of things—I won’t call them rules—that I should review from time to time to help me live a more productive Christian life, fully devoted to my Savior. Not something to obsess over, but something to give me help when I need help.

The game plan from a few chapters ago doesn’t quite do this. I don’t mean to say it’s bad. It’s just…it’s just…too unwieldy. Sorry, but I can’t think of a better word to describe it. So I want something simpler.

A few things have come to mind. One is that this section of the Bible, John 14-17, is worth reading over every year. I’m not one who reads the entire Bible yearly, so without some kind of intentionality, I might not read this for several years. That’s not good enough. Henceforth, I’ll read this every year, perhaps a couple of times. I want to dwell on it, not rush through. I want to think about what it says about Christian living. What have I forgotten over the last year? What do I need to think a little more about as I go about daily tasks? That’s something I must add to the game plan.

What else? Obviously, something more about prayer needs to go in, but what? In the last two chapters, I can see at least a dozen statements of Jesus that would form encouragements, commands, or cautions concerning prayer. Alas, that’s too many to add to the Game Plan.

So I’ve been thinking as I wrote the last two chapters that I need some simple items to add to the lists, perhaps as a preface—a few things I can say every morning, or a couple of times a day if needed, as reminders of what my Christian walk ought to look like.

I was reminded of the three simple rules John Wesley wrote about finances that would serve as overarching guidance for his parishioners.

Earn all you can.

Save all you can.

Give all you can.

Surely I can come up with something like that—except I need four “rules”, not three. Here they are.

Love all you can.

Pray all you can.

Learn all you can.

Serve all you can.

I like that. I can say those every morning, and at other times during the day, as reminders of how I should live.

I wrote those words, then life got in the way and I forgot about them. Reading then again gave me new inspiration to re-establish some of those priorities.

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Night Hunt in Kisumu

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A good, solid read: enlightening, encouraging, entertaining.

I’m reading a literature book. Well, now close to 2/3rds of the way through it, I’m not sure if it’s about literature or politics or sociology or philosophy. It’s proving to be a tedious read, made more so by the typographical style built around 10 point font and smaller on the lengthy quotes.  I’m not going to be finished with it and ready for writing a review (or perhaps two) for a couple of weeks at least.

But I found myself wanting to read something simultaneously that wasn’t so tedious. I settled on Night Hunt in Kisumu: and Other Unforgettable Stories from Africa by Dr. Richard Zanner. He’s originally from Germany, but spent twenty years in Africa in an administrative position over our denomination’s missions work there. It wasn’t strictly administrative, however, as wherever he went he was called upon to preach and do other assorted ministerial things such as baptisms, church dedications, etc.

Here’s another book about Zanner I’ll be looking for.

The book consists of 136 pages of stories about the situations Zanner went through. Frequently he piloted a small prop plane that the church owned. Frequently he was in a barely operating hired car. He tracked across unmarked territory from Djibouti to Somalia, through the bush in Mozambique, confronted the legacy of the slave trade in Senegal, and more.

I set a goal of reading ten pages a day, mostly in the late evening or a few times when I couldn’t sleep at night, and was able to read that much or more. Zanner’s writing style is easy reading. I won’t say light, because his stories include tense moments as he went through territory where revolutions and wars were either in progress or had just ended as he sought to strengthen and encourage existing churches and  seek out places to start new ones.

This was definitely a 5-star read for me. But it’s not a keeper, as I don’t think I’ll read it again given the number of books in my reading piles. We will place it on a shelf in our adult Sunday school classroom at church and let others know it’s there.

Bible study, Christianity, Decumulation, Documenting America, Genealogy, goals, Health, letters, Writing

Goals for June 2025

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Last month I resumed setting goals for the month. I had suspended this practice, which used to include progress, as my injuries and medical issues piled up in 2024 and continued in early 2025. But I decided to resume setting goals but not taking time to report progress on the prior month’s goals. So here are goals for June.

  • Begin editing Vol. 5 of the A Walk Through Holy Week Bible study series. Based on how the last couple of volumes went, it’s likely I’ll finish it this month.
  • Continue with work on computer files. This, for now, will mainly  be checking scanned files to see if I’ve properly saved them and then get rid of the duplicate file.
  • Having done a good job on genealogy research this month, I’d like to continue it in June. This may be mainly organizing computer files, getting rid of duplicate material and superseded files, rather than new research.
  • Work some more on going through family photos. It would be nice to finish one of our four main families and send those photos off to the next family member who needs to deal with them.
  • Continue going through my father-in-law’s letter files. They are in approximate chronological order. I’m going through them one a day, from newest working backwards. At this rate it will take me a couple of years to get through them all.
  • Consolidate a few ideas I’ve had lately for future writing in the Documenting America series.

I have other things I’d like to accomplish, but these seem like enough to set for the month. Especially in consideration of the outdoor work I have to do in the blackberry patch.

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Approaching God

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Good book, but not a keeper.

A few weeks ago I finished a book, Approaching God by Steve Brown, but am just now finding a hole in my blog post schedule to post a review. This one of those books we picked up used somewhere along the way, which finally popped to the surface of some pile in the house, so I grabbed it and read it.

Brown is well past his career, now a professor emeritus. He had a number of positions before that, including pastor. He comes from the position of Reformed theology, Presbyterian church.

The book is quite good, if a little bit dry and predictable. Of course, what new things can you write about prayer? So of course the book would be somewhat predictable. Our copy was a hardback, 213 pages, set in an easy-to-read font. I think it took mw only 10 to 12 days to get through it.

In terms of whether the book was good, the main measure of that would be did it help me in my prayer life? Did it make me more likely to pray, or less? Did it stimulate my desire to pray, give me ideas on how to do it better? My honest answer is “a little bit.” I can’t say that I had any major breakthroughs, but I do feel more motivated to pray. On that basis, taking time to read the book was worthwhile.

I give it 4-stars. But it is not a keeper. Once Lynda reads it, upon  coming to the top of one of her reading piles, out it will go.

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: “Paul Orjala”

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My reading has trailed off a bit lately, in part due to health issues and in part due to reading choices not panning out. I laid two books aside at the 1/3rd point when the subject and writing turned out to not hold my interest. I suppose general busyness helped to rob reading time, with some of the busyness due to medical appointments.

Looking for a short read, I grabbed a book my wife had recently read and recommended: Paul Orjala: The Man, The Mission. It’s one of series of annual missions books our church published (or used to), this one from 2009-10. I think I read it back then but did not in the least remember it, so it was a fresh read. The book was of special interest to me because I briefly knew Paul when I attended the same church as he and his family in 1974-75. At that time, Paul was back from the mission field in Haiti and teaching at our seminary in Kansas City. I didn’t get to know him very well. He was already an experienced missionary and professor; I was new to the congregation and denomination. We didn’t hang out in the same circles.

But I got to know him a little. He was a nice man, well thought of by all, and pleasant spoken. The book told about his boyhood in San Diego, call to missions, assignment in Haiti, years teaching, and a later in life assignment in France. In all things, Paul was a faithful and effective servant of Christ. Much of our missions education curriculum. Paul is almost a legend in our church for the effectiveness of everything he touched. That includes considerable musical talent, which I saw him demonstrate in church services.

I’m glad Lynda found this book in the house and brought it to my attention. It was a good, short read about an amazing man and his service for God. I won’t read it again, nor do I think we should keep it, but I’m very glad I read it.