Ancient Paths

             Our thoughts turn to change in the New Year.  We want to get out of the old ruts we have gotten ourselves into and find newer, better paths.  Out with the old and in with the new! 

            I like change and then again I don’t.  I have learned that change done well can be good, and change without thoughtful intent can be burdensome and a waste of time. 

            Most of us know right away what needs to change but we are fearfully aware of the unknowns that often come with change.  Change is hard enough on its own, and walking through unknown territory can be nerve racking.  It takes great faith to change course and walk a new path. 

            I sometimes wish that I could be transported a few months down the path of good change and see all of the benefits that new habits can bring.  But, I have not discovered how to time travel and so I must rely on faith.  Faith can come by hearing, and hearing from the right people.

            One of the most incredible graces that God has given me is the older, wiser people in my life.   People that have lived some life and still have a grace and a peace about them are beautiful.  To know an older man or woman who has a calm and joyful outlook on life is to find a real gem.  And in these gems one can mine for treasures of wisdom that can save us from heart ache and prepare us for the future. 

            As with many good things, we do not know how long we will have them.  Time is a precious commodity.  When I am in the presence of my elders, I go treasure hunting with prayerful grace and tact.   When they speak, I listen.  When I am with them, I slow down.  I open my heart and my mind and let their words of wisdom pour into the reservoir of my soul.

              In 1919, a couple in Kentucky had their first born son, my grandfather.  My grandfather will be 95 years old this year, but to me he has never changed.   I still picture him slowly opening the foyer closet, taking down his hat and walking out the door to go about his business, with a “howdy” and a smile on his face.  Slow yet determined, precise but gentle, steady and kind. 

            A couple of weeks ago I found a moment to sit down next to my Pop Pop and talk with him about life.  I had asked him what he had been reading and he told me he was still working his way through the latest Microsoft Windows manual.  I continued to ask him what else he had been reading and he said the newspaper.  I challenged him to find a book of some kind that he would enjoy.  He told me he did not have time for that kind of reading.  I laughed and so did my grandmother.  “If you don’t have time to read Pop Pop, than neither do I!”  But he was serious.  He needed to spend time working on the computer and so practical reading was all he could do.  But I continued to press him, ”How will the next generation see the importance of reading if they do not see you reading?”  And then I saw a glint in his eye.  “That is not my job.  That is the parents’ job, they bring up the children.”   I saw his point.  He knew where true jurisdiction resided.  And then the wisdom of his years began to be unearthed.

            “Parents need to make sure they are leading their children in good ways of learning.  They need to give them good opportunities to learn for themselves.   If you have a baby and there is garbage in front of him he is going to naturally go toward it.  But if a parent keeps steering him away from the garbage over and over again he will eventually learn to avoid it , to choose something else.“ 

           “But that takes time Pop Pop and so many parents don’t want to take the time to do that.  It’s hard, I know. ”  Then he placed his hand on my arm and told me how thankful he was that I take the time to teach my children.  I told him I don’t do anything special, I just do what I know I ought to be doing as a parent.  Nothing special in that.  “But so many parents don’t do what you do anymore.  It used to be so common.  You know people do what they have been taught to do themselves.   Like my parents taught me and now you teach your children.”  It was then that I knew I was on holy ground.  He was going back, not forward.  He was not directing me to a new way, but an old one.  

            “The most important thing you can do for your children is to introduce them to the Lord.  That is what my mother did for me.  She always had time to talk with me about the Lord.  From time to time I was allowed to look at and read a children’s Bible that we had, and when I came to something that I did not understand I would go and find my mother and ask her about it.  She would stop whatever she was doing and sit down and talk with me about what I was reading.”  I saw great emotion well up in his smoky blue eyes.  A great love for a woman I never knew, who had stopped her world to raise up a man who would be a model to me of a faith and trust in God that runs very deep.  

               “I wish you had known her, that you lived in the same time.  She was very much like you, you liked the same things.”  And with a grateful and trembling voice I told him, “We will Pop Pop.  We will live in the same time and it will be for an eternity.”  The biggest smile broke out on his face and he laughed. “Well, you got me there!  Yes, you are right, you will!”  I leaned over and hugged him and kissed the top of his balding head and I told him I loved him three times over.  And with all the strength he had he hugged me back and told me that he loved me too.  His words were more precious to me than diamonds or rubies or sapphires.  A man of so few words told me he loved me, something he never needed to say, I have always known that my Pop Pop loved me.  It was a moment of grace that I will hold in my heart for a long, long time. 

            As I walked down the stairs of my parent’s home I was filled with hope and strength for the days and weeks and months to come.  A simple word, but a true word, forged in the fires of the hard lives of my grandparents and great grandparents.  Our conversation held precious rubies, words of wisdom to help me find my way.  “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16    

            I have not walked all of this path, but I do know that it is a good way, a way to find rest in a weary world.  Like my grandfather acknowledged, it is not an easy road to walk, but God loves the reformer. “Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.” Malachi 3:7  What a promise, in returning He meets us.  There is no mention of perfection or having it all together, just return. 

            And so, as I take down my Christmas decorations and turn over a new calendar page, I am seeking more ways to return to paths that are ancient and old.  I may not be raising chickens and planting corn like my Grandmother Rhoda did, but I too find myself interrupted by little souls who are longing to know and understand who God is and what He has done.   I, like my grandfather’s mother, hope to set aside my dish towel, my laundry basket, my lesson plans, and die to myself, that another may live.  And when my granddaughter comes to me one day with her own questions about life, I want to smile and touch her arm and tell her of the paths that I have walked, not the new, but the beautiful and the old. 

~ Your Fellow Sojourner

Pop Pop's 90th birthday.

“Legacy”

I can taste the fruit of Eve
I’m aware of sickness, death and disease
The results of our choices are vast
Eve was the first but she wasn’t the last

And if I were honest with myself
Had I been standing at that tree
My mouth and my hands would be covered with fruit
Things I shouldn’t know and things I shouldn’t see

Remind me of this with every decision
Generations will reap what I sow
I can pass on a curse or a blessing
To those I will never know

She taught me to fear the serpent
I’m learning to fear myself
And all of the things I am capable of
In my search for wisdom, acceptance and wealth

And to say that the devil made me do it
Is a cop out and a lie
The devil can’t make me do anything
When I’m calling on Jesus Christ

Remind me of this with every decision
Generations will reap what I sow
I can pass on a curse or a blessing
To those I will never know

To my great, great, great grand daughter
Live in peace
To my great, great, great grand son
Live in peace
To my great, great, great grand daughter
Live in peace
To my great, great, great grand son
Live in peace, oh, live in peace

Remind me of this with every decision
Generations will reap what I sow
I can pass on a curse or a blessing
To those I will never know 

 ~ Sara Groves