Stump is an Advent blogging project of Claremont Presbyterian Church. It’s 30 days of posts exloring the symbolism of The Jesse Tree by members of the CPC family far and wide.

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path”…this phrase from a familiar song popped into my head when I learned that “lamp” would by my prompt word. The specific image of a lamp that came to mind was one that was used in biblical times…that of a simple clay vessel with a spout to one side, filled with oil and a wick coming out the spout. This is not a major light source. In fact it would probably barely light up a small room.

I’m reminded of those bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom to come and the good bridesmaids had extra oil, the bad ones did not. Probably the light from all available lamps would have been necessary for any significant amount of light, so having some lamps not available negatively impacted everyone.

If one is walking down a path with one of these lamps, you probably cannot see more than a few steps ahead at a time. You must proceed down the path one confident step at a time, trusting that when you need to see the next part of the path it will be illuminated but not before you need to see it. But the path is there, and it is lit, and the next step must be taken if we are to get anywhere.

Often we are anxious to see the end of the path. But with this lamp you must trust that you will get there. If we can learn to focus on one step at a time and trust that we are on the right path, we can enjoy each step…feel the earth, look only at what we can immediately see…then when we get to the end of the path, we can reflect back and appreciate the journey.

Our job is here is to keep the lamp lit, and follow the path. Sometimes we don’t want to do either. Keeping the lamp full of oil, or having the patience to follow this dimly lit path sometimes seem arduous, or pointless, or just too much effort. But we can’t deny our journey, it is before us. So we take one barely lit step at a time. We might keep the lamp lit by reading the bible, hearing a sermon, praying being with other believers, or whatever keeps your lamp going. For me one of those things is choreographing, for others it might be writing, or painting, or reading, walking, running, mountain bike riding, skiing, playing an instrument, singing. All our “lamps” are unique, but properly attended to they will light our path, but only one step at a time. So we must keep at it. We must keep our lamps lit.

Kathy Croughan lives in California with her husband and two sons, all engineers. To keep her sanity, or to prove she’s insane, she can sometimes be found dancing around the pews at Claremont Presbyterian Church.

 

Stump is an Advent blogging project of Claremont Presbyterian Church. It’s 30 days of posts exloring the symbolism of The Jesse Tree by members of the CPC family far and wide.

In the Old Testament book of Ruth, Naomi and Ruth, both widows, migrate from the land of Moab, Ruth’s homeland, to the land of Boaz, Naomi’s kinsman and home to Bethlehem. Boaz offers Ruth, a Moabite, gleaning privileges (following the harvesters and picking the stray grains of barley), protection and a means of livelihood at the time of the harvest. What begins as a tender account of a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law friendship becomes a commentary on the relationship between a wealthy Israelite landowner and a poor Moabite foreigner.

This journey to Bethlehem and the marriage between Boaz and Ruth that produces a son, nestled by Naomi and named Obed by the neighborhood women, links Ruth to a line of inheritance from Jesse to David to the Messiah – the shoot that arises from the stump of Jesse so poetically iterated in Isaiah 11: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him…with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.”

In the early 80’s members of our church, CPC, led by then assistant pastor, Stephen Williams, visited a project in the San Diego/Tijuana area, Los Ninos, which employed gleaning as a practice to feed those incarcerated in the Tijuana jail. Los Ninos volunteers picked/gleaned oranges supplied by affluent ranchers on the US side of the border and then ventured into Tijuana to the jail to supplement the prisoners’ daily provision of tortillas and beans with citrus.

The jail, reportedly, was a three story structure with cells on each level surrounding a courtyard where family members and volunteers could thrust food through the bars and engage prisoners in conversation.

Our son, Jim, in between college graduation and employment, made several trips to Los Ninos as a volunteer, gleaning oranges and visiting the Tijuana jail. It was an eye opening and jolting experience: the sights, the sounds, the odors, the 12 prisoners to a cell, the incessant screaming, the daily hosing of the cells from the third tier to the first, the offal pouring down into the courtyard.

Many of the inhabitants of the jail were refugees from Central America, our Contra supported war under the Reagan administration. With few places offering asylum, the jail proved to be a refuge of sorts and was a visible demonstration of our Central American policy that affected the poor and vulnerable. Not so different today is the immigration from Central America, parents and children attempting to cross from Mexico into the US to escape grinding poverty and violence.

One memorable day Jim was offering an orange through the bars of a cell to the eagerly outstretched hand of a prisoner. In a moment of solidarity, the man took the orange, peeled it, and then offered Jim a slice through the bars. He and this unknown prisoner stood on either side of the iron barrier sharing the orange and metaphorically journeying to Bethlehem.

For Christians, God’s “preferential option for the poor”, embodied in the life of Jesus, challenges us to address the inequities and contradictions that have barred the immigrant strangers, the millions, who have been in our midst for so long, and to accomplish transformative institutional change.

For this it is necessary to journey to Bethlehem and to be political.

Elsie Harber is a retired teacher from the Pomona Unified School District and a member of Claremont Presbyterian Church for 45 years. She lives at Pilgrim Place where she participates in two writing groups.

Stump is a blogging project of Claremont Presbyterian Church.

For some people nothing would happen without the last minute. The beating of the clock whips us into taking the action we know we want to take and getting that thing DONE.

During the holidays it seems like the last minute is always right now. I hate the last minute, and there are times when I cannot avoid suffering under the last minute’s cruel whip.

Is that melodramatic? There is real suffering in the world, I know. This time of year charity groups solicit my donations to help the suffering around the world. As I rush from the cramped minute to the next overcrowded hour I am annoyed and then guilty about the suffering faces peering at me from pamphlets.

I am so blessed. Why do I feel like a victim? No one should be a victim. If I could, I would wave a magic want and make all victimhood disappear from the world.

I’ve heard victimhood describes as part of a triangle. If I see myself as a victim, then I long for a rescuer to save me from the one persecuting me. You see? Three roles: victim-persecutor-rescuer. There is a place for everyone. I don’t want to be a victim, and I certainly don’t want to persecute anyone. I guess that means it’s my job to rescue people!

Until I become the victim on the people who become co-dependent on me to rescue them. So then I switch places and become a victim. And then I might get mad and take it out on the person I was rescuing and start persecuting.

It’s a painful cycle. I am tired of it.

There is real suffering in the world. Our archetypical bad guys, the Nazis, really did have the concentration camps. Victor Frankl survived the holocaust and wrote about how it changed him. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning he said this:
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Can I declare myself no longer a victim? Frankl seemed to find a way to do just that in circumstances far more difficult than mine. Can I have compassion on those I have previously seen as persecutors? Can I support people in rescuing themselves, and forgo the glory of being a rescuer?

Maybe I can imagine such a thing. I can start with myself, not whipping myself into a cranky frenzy during this holiday season.

Peace on Earth begins with each one of us.

Murphy Daley is cross posting today’s piece on her website www.writtenbymurphy.com. You can sign up to receive the Weekly Wonder in your inbox by Clicking Here.

Stump is a blogging project of Claremont Presbyterian Church

Reconciliation is a theme in the Bible and also in everyday life. The definition of reconciliation is the restoration of friendly relations. Reconciliation happens in many ways. Friendly relations can be restored with incentive, time, faith, and even through confrontation. All of which require persistence in order to achieve something greater, companionship.

The story of Joseph is in Genesis chapter 37-50. It is like a fairy tale where a father has many sons, of which he favors a son called Joseph the most. Naturally, his brothers get jealous and sell their brother as a slave to the Egyptians where Joseph advances through the ranks until he becomes the ruler of Egypt. One day, Joseph has a vision that instructs him to save and stockpile grain for future bad harvests. Years later, a famine spreads but Egypt is prepared. 

The tale resumes when Joseph’s older brothers travel to Egypt to buy grain. His family does not recognize Joseph at first and Joseph reveals his identity to his own family. Joseph could be petty but offers the family that spurned him a large feast and invites them into his palace. Joseph then sends his brothers to fetch their father and bring him back to his kingdom. However, crafty Joseph plants a chalice in one of his brother’s bags. Accused of stealing, Joseph holds the youngest brother hostage, ensuring that his family would return. This action could provoke more family drama and cause more distress and feuds. Wars have started over less. However, the brothers return with their family and they live happily ever after.

The moral of the story is that holding a brother captive to restore his family could have monumentally bad consequences. The Cup of Reconciliation could just as easily be the Cup of Estrangement. The reason it is not is because the cup becomes a tool to reunite, to have conversations, and finally, with persistence, the family overcomes their awkward past.

Henrick Kohnen is a Sophomore at Claremont High and a member of Claremont Presbyterian Church. His latest English assignment is to follow a blog and when his mother discovered this, he was assigned the additional task of writing a post for the Stump blog. When not doing homework, Henrick eats enormous quantities of Skittles.

Stump is a blogging project of Claremont Presbyterian Church

Have you ever had a coat of many colors? I have. I didn’t wear it very often because it was so bright and called out for others to notice me. A group of Filipino friends gave it to me a number of years ago. The red fabric was not only covered with embroidered, multicolored flowers but the designs included cut-out features. That meant the jacket was not for warmth; it was purely for decoration. I often wore it on Pentecost when red is the designated liturgical color. There was nothing religious about the jacket but friends still called it my coat of many colors or my “holy” coat because of the embroidered edges of the cut-out “holes.”

In the Old Testament story Joseph’s father gives him a coat of spectacular, variegated colors. At least that’s what I thought when I chose to share on this topic for our stumpblog. You can imagine how surprised I was when I re-read the story of Joseph in Genesis 37 to 50 and discovered that the phrase “coat of many colors” is an uncertain translation of some Hebrewwords that can also be translated “robe with long sleeves.”

Think how many pictures have been painted of Joseph in his rainbow-hued cloak. There’s even a musical entitled “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” It upset me to think that the unique gift Joseph received from his father might have been brown or tan, something woven of natural fibers.

Then my mind switched to thinking about whether the color of Joseph’s cloak mattered to the story. I realized that it didn’t make any difference what color Joseph’s coat was. What mattered was that this gift from Jacob, his father, is one of a string of actions that cause Joseph’s brothers to be very jealous of him. That leads to Joseph being sold to some desert traders who take him to Egypt where he ends up in the Pharaoh’s household.

And that’s just the beginning of one of the longest stories in the Bible—13 chapters of intrigue and deception but in the end Joseph and his father and brothers do finally get back together, reconciled and forgiven. Take time to read about the “ins and outs” of Joseph’s life. Notice what the Bible says about the role God plays in protecting Joseph, using Joseph and giving Joseph an opportunity to forgive his brothers and be re-united with them and his father.

This is an amazing story that I got pulled into this Advent because I thought I was writing about Joseph’s rainbow-colored coat. Then I discovered I was writing about a life lived in the protection and service of the living, forgiving God. God is searching for each of us this Advent season. The Spirit wants to speak to you, probably in unexpected ways. Join me in waiting and watching. You’ll be surprised, like I was, and filled with gratitude for a deepening relationship with the Holy One who is always present with you. And it doesn’t matter what color your coat is!

Gail Duggan is a retired Mission Co-Worker and Ruling Elder who worships at Claremont Presbyterian Church and serves on the Session.

Stump is a blogging project of Claremont Presbyterian Church

Life moves on, but reflection on the past provides energy for future paths as yet unknown. Yes, it occurred to me time and time again God guides us into an unknown and often challenging future.

But Jacob’s Ladder reminds us life is not just a gift, but a continuing effort on our art to keep climbing even when the weather is terrible and we cannot possibly see where it is we are going. Filled with God’s energy and guiding moments, we accept what comes our way and try to discover God’s love and justice in what we are contributing to our life and the lives of those around us.

So Jacob’s Ladder is really a communal climb, the actions of many people seeking that new future we believe God wants for us, our loved ones, yes, even the whole world. But is this all there is?

Jacob’s Ladder is also an entire life-time. From birth to death, we are climbing (your name here) ladder. To what extent are you climbing alone and to what extent are you being helped along life’s way? Certainly the early years find support and direction, values and hopes from parents, relatives, friends, teachers – even those moments and persons we wish we could forget. But then life moves on to the next stage. Now we are the primary climbers, no longer being carried and lifted along life’s way. So we ask ourselves, “When did I take charge of my life? What decisions were mine that affected my future? Now I am living both past and present. I reflect on my life.

These are life’s creative and self-giving years. You ae what you wanted to become and you trust it is God’s will for you. You receive – you give – almost in equal measure. You feel exhausted when a goal is accomplished – just like Jacob probably felt. So you say with joy and gusto, “I am climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” You rejoice in who you are becoming, and yes, have become.

But every ladder has a top! Eventually you say to yourself, “I’ve done it! I’ve climbed the ladder of life along with many others who helped me and strengthened me along the way. Thanks be to God for Jacob’s Ladder – my lifetime in community with others.

Tom Duggan is a retired Presbyterian Teaching Elder and Mission Co-Worker. He worships at Claremont Presbyterian Church. 

Stump is a blogging project of Claremont Presbyterian Church

What is this worth to you? Would you pay good money for it? Do time for it? Endure pain? Inflict pain?

That’s the question: what is this worth to you? It’s a test.

The forbidden fruit isn’t a test but a warning. The ark isn’t a test but a command. The ram, though? That’s a test.

“Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”

That’s the test. So Abraham rose and sharpened his #2 pencil; Abraham led innocent Isaac by the hand, and Abraham bound that boy to an altar. Abraham elevated his blade with intent to kill.

The meaning of the story is plain, and neither Jewish nor Christian tradition has interpreted it in any way other than an affirmation of Abraham’s great faith, his willingness to snuff out the dearest thing in his life for God’s sake. It all adds up. Abraham passed the test.

What is this worth to you? Can there be a cost too great to pay? To ask?

Because it begs for a parental analogy, I recognize that I test my daughter all the time. I test her six year-old willingness to do as I ask and to forego the things she loves for my sake. Each request to come downstairs for dinner commands a sacrifice.

Yet I often relent in my tests because the things she loves make up who she is, and I love her. Laura minus her loves is less than Laura.

Does God really want an Isaac-less Abraham?

God, how much is Abraham’s fealty worth to you? Are you who you say you are if, in order to be true, your man must bleed his own flesh to death?

The bleating ram in the thicket answers back, and the deed is left undone. But would it have been? Even if not, do you ever really come back from that precipice? Does Abraham? Does Isaac? Does God?

And where in the Dickens is Sarah?

Stump is a blogging project of Claremont Presbyterian Church. This is the second camel post. Find the other one here. 

The Sunday-school materials I remember from my youth were full of pictures of camels, because they appear often in the stories in the Hebrew Scriptures and even in Jesus’ teaching. Think of Abraham and Sarah journeying to a new home and a new life with camels among their livestock. In Advent we remember that artists over the ages have imagined that the wise men came from the East on camels to find the baby Jesus. In these pictures camels always look majestic. People who have experienced live camels up close, however, say that they are cantankerous and often uncooperative. They look strangely engineered and awkward. Nonetheless camels are amazingly well adapted to the desert world in which they live, able to carry with them life-giving water while they travel many miles with heavy burdens.They keep their families with them and often travel in caravans. They provide milk, meat, shelter, and clothing for the people whom they accompany and transport, so they are closely woven into human society.

(I didn’t know till I took my grandchildren to the Webb School Museum that there were once little camels in our part of the world. I wonder what they were like.)

In the church year we often think of Advent as a time of desert and wilderness, of journey, so the camel jogs our reflections during these weeks. Let me offer a few suggestions.

—God must often see humanity behaving much like those ill-tempered camels, not like the beautiful creatures humans were created to be, in the image of God, yet God keeps on trying to help us find the role for which we were created.

—The critical importance of camels in traditional middle-eastern society reminds us how interwoven are all the parts of the planet’s ecosystem: earth, water, air, plants, animals, and people. When one suffers, all suffer. Human survival will require the nurturing of the whole ecosystem, a stark reality that confronts us urgently at this moment in history.

—As we journey, God provides us with the life-giving water of faith that can sustain us in harsh and barren places, and strength even for a long and difficult journey. We take our families with us, and we travel as people of faith in caravans. All across the globe we find Christians who accompany us on our journey and offer us companionship and mutual support.

Jane Dempsey Douglass, elder, resident of Pilgrim Place.

Stump is a blogging project of Claremont Presbyterian Church

The second covenant is called a “Covenant of Works, a prominent feature of Presbyterian and reformed churches…”  This is a seminary topic.

So, to continue from my post yesterday, this is everything I know about camels and covenants. On our trip to Herat, a string of camels was heading towards the border to the then-Soviet Union.  My mum, a handicraft addict, thought there might be rugs or copper sown into the saddlebags, so we got out of the car and stopped the nomads.  The Tajikistani tribesmen would not relinquish any kelims, or saddle-bags (my mum asked) but offered us a consolation prize– a ride on a camel.

Desert camels are dromedaries, beasts with one hump, known to be patient and strong but in reality, they are very stubborn, very mean and have very ugly teeth with very bad breath. Their long, yellow teeth are strung up into pendants on necklaces with blue evil-eye beads and sold to tourists.

The other English mother, Mrs. Jane, was undeterred and she volunteered to go first. Did she ever lose her English reserve! The camel stood up awkwardly on front legs first, which threw the passenger forward, then lurched on its back haunches. Mrs. Jane shrieked and hollered like a banshee. All the men and children, Western and nomadic, enjoyed the spectacle of the Cursing Englishwoman–only the camel was indifferent. However, Mrs. Jane was more than scared, she had trapped her middle finger under the wooden saddle and it was being pinched. It was hard not to giggle when she pointed her bruised and purple digit at us, but we tried to be contrite because we realized she was hurt.

On that day, to make amends, we made a covenant with this ancient desert creature. We promised never to ride a camel again. We would not even buy their teeth at the market!

Stump is a blogging project of Claremont Presbyterian Church.

When I think of floods, I think of the desert. It’s an odd juxtaposition, water flooding the desert. I’ve experienced floods here in California, along the San Bernardino mountains, but the most startling floods were in the Middle East, when I lived in Iran in the seventies.

On our holiday breaks my family would leave Teheran to explore ancient Persian landmarks and ruins, caravanning with other expatriate families. Road trip! The desert landscape of Iran looks like the stretch from Palm Springs to Phoenix, or the road from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. It’s rough and stony terrain with a slow variation in rock color and the height of the hills–not sand dunes with palm trees. On our way to Herat, Afghanistan, we saw a single cloud dumping rain over a distant hill. The earth surrounding us was scorched into a flat, salty glisten, and the ribbon of road blended into mirages of lake water, simmering in the distance. To our surprise, a mile up the road there was a real flood over the road. Run-off from the distant hill had pooled to the flatter land below it, miles away.

One spring trip, in the Alborz mountains, spring waters had scooped away village homes made from mud bricks, washing out the road too. The villagers stood, leaning on their shovels, looking grim. Our western Dads, all engineers working in the oil and gas industry, went to help but they soon returned, frustrated and angry. Instead of digging channels to divert the waters away, the Iranian men responded “insha’Allah.” It was God’s will. There was no way to change or struggle against God. The better way was submission, and acceptance.

When I read Biblical stories, all set in the stark yet unpredictable desert, and populated by small, tenacious family tribes, I remember that scene. Our Western minds want action, justice and solutions. We think that if we are hard-working and true we can re-direct the floodwater. We have a harder time with the notion of surrender, accepting that sometimes, like a flash flood in the desert, things really are in God’s hands.

Judy Kohnen is from neither here, nor there, but those places in between. Raised in Iran, France and Canada, she is a cross-cultural writer whose works are unified by themes of identity, loss and belonging. She escapes her suburban life by typing up stories, much to the dismay of her starving family. On occasion, she’ll take a break to haunt her cemetery of unfinished manuscripts and poems, located in Claremont, California, under her bed.