QUARANTINE BLOG # 366

March 31, 2021

Today is the anniversary no one expected – let this be a lesson to us to take nothing for granted.  QB # 1 appeared one year ago today.  In the first piece I said, “Last week I shared with a family member a very, very, very minor reason for hoping for a soon end to this pandemic.  In 7 days I had made 4 trips to Walmart, all to pick up prescriptions (Bonnie has her regular end of cruise cold and hasn’t wanted to go out).  I picked up a few groceries while I was there, strolled by the toilet paper aisle, just to check.  Yup, empty (but anticipating a visit from relatives who wipe vigorously, we stocked on Sam’s large size).  Well, the remark: I hope this thing ends soon or people are going to start to think that I like shopping!”

Well, it ain’t over till it’s over (as Yogi Berra is alleged to have said), and it ain’t over.  And I still don’t like shopping.

So to start with, and since we’ve been looking for silver linings and funny moments, let’s check out a few videos that have every intent of being humorous.  But remember what Lt. Savak said in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

👉  First two wedding videos:

My sympathies are with the bride and the minister in this wedding clip when the groom is asked if he is ready to be joined to the woman who stands by his side.

And this wedding moment when the pastor asks the groom for the bride's ring.

Funny, but I think each bride was entitled to a very large get even.

👉  I remember the early days of space flight when the food astronauts consumed while orbiting the earth came out of a squeeze tube, washed down with a squeeze tube of Tang.  This clip suggests a bad choice for astronaut food.

👉  Indian Hills Community Center, somewhere in Colorado, has some of the funniest signs.  Here is two minutes worth of chuckles and groaners.

👉  In this classic commercial for Alka-Seltzer, a man explains what happened recently when the waiter in a neighborhood bistro persuaded him to sample a new dish.

👉  A commercial for Life Cereal.

👉  And a fun commercial for the Michael Jackson Pepsi Generation.

👉  A blog reader asks if this brand of Kraft Singles will be the next product required to change its name:

👉  In other news, Maryland lawmakers gave final passage on Monday to repeal the state song, a Civil War-era call to arms for the Confederacy against “Northern scum” that refers to President Abraham Lincoln as a despot.  The vote comes after decades of debate over the song and sends the measure to Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who doesn’t like “Maryland, My Maryland.”  The song, set to the traditional Christmas tune of “O, Tannenbaum,” was written as a poem in 1861 by James Ryder Randall.  It was adopted as the state song in 1939.  Maryland lawmakers have tried to replace it since 1974.  Listen to it again, while you still can.

👉  Trust the Yes

I am working on a new series for the QB jukebox with songs that feature girls’ names.  A couple of for instances: Billie Jean, Cecilia, Delilah, Eleanor Rigby, Gloria, Jolene, Maria – well, there are lots to choose from.  We will get our quarter’s worth.  Dolly Parton says that “Jolene” was written about a woman who was trying to take her husband away from her, but I haven’t done enough research yet to see if any of those, and quite a few more are based on real life women.  

Let’s change artistic gears, from songs to portraiture.  One year for Christmas, while we were living in Cleveland, Tennessee, Bonnie went to Eastgate Mall in Chattanooga – if you wanted to do anything in Cleveland in the 70s you had to go to Chattanooga – and sat for her portrait by a chalk artist.  Now if you know the bride of my youth, you know that she does not like to be the center of attention, but there she was in a crowded mall, sitting for that portrait to give to me as a present that year.

Do you know any lady who has been featured in a song?  Do you know any lady who has had the likeness of her face painted on canvas?

In answer to those questions, I am thinking of one young woman who has been painted by DaVinci, sculpted by Michelangelo, serenaded by Bach and Schubert, and praised by Augustine and Aquinas.  She’s been venerated by a constant stream of devotions, and endlessly exalted.  She is, of course, Mary the mother of Jesus.

Long before all of that she was only a teenage girl, living in a backwater town, going about her business, when a famous visitor appears in her home, uninvited and unannounced.  

“The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.  The virgin’s name was Mary.  And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” (Like 1:26-28 NKJV)

Reading this first chapter of Luke it becomes apparent that she has never seen an angel before, but this is not her first encounter with God.  Once Gabriel’s mission and message have been laid out plainly Mary says, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word” (1:38).

Let it be to me according to your word.  Mary could not know what was ahead for her – the gossip, Joseph’s initial doubt of her fidelity, a delivery room in a stable, fleeing with her son and her husband for their lives, watching her son be both misunderstood and loved, and then hated, and finally executed by the Romans.

God’s gifts – and I am certainly not limiting those gifts only to our children, precious gifts though they are – are not predictable.  Absolute joy.  Opportunity.  Disappointing.  Rewarding.  Overwhelming.  Frightening. 

Her son was all of that and more.  God’s gifts to us are all of that and more.  But Mary sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior” (1:46-47).

The story of Mary has become one of praise rightly deserved, but also full of sentimentality.  However, in the bare light of truth, in the harsh glare of reality, she never took back her word to Gabriel, and never stopped singing her song to the Lord, rejoicing in God, her Savior.  When God’s gift to us, in whatever way becomes difficult, that is the time to remember when the promise was first made and the gift was first received.  That is the time to remember when we said a confident, “Yes!” to the Lord our God, and to trust him and obey him as we did at first.

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QUARANTINE BLOG # 365

March 30, 2021

Today is our look back at “this day in history.”

On March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., the 20-month-old son Charles and Anne Lindbergh, was kidnaped from the family’s new mansion in Hopewell, New Jersey.  The Lindberghs discovered a ransom note demanding $50,000 in their son’s empty room.  The baby’s body was discovered near the Lindbergh mansion.  He had been killed the night of the kidnaping and was found less than a mile from home.  

Pioneer 10, the world’s first outer-planetary probe, was launched from Cape Canaveral, March 2, 1972, on a mission to Jupiter.  In December 1973, after successfully negotiating the asteroid belt and a distance of 620 million miles, Pioneer 10 reached Jupiter and sent back to Earth the first close-up images of the spectacular gas giant.

On March 03, 1931, “The Star-Spangled Banner” became the official U.S. national anthem as President Herbert Hoover signed a congressional act.  Throughout the 19th century, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was regarded as the national anthem by most branches of the U.S. armed forces, but it was made official by Hoover’s act.

Ernest Hemingway completed his short novel The Old Man and the Sea on March 4, 1952.  He wrote his publisher saying it was the best writing he had ever done.  The critics agreed: The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and became one of his best-selling works.  Among other characters in the book is a baseball player named Dick Sisler.

Near the very height of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, on March 5, 1966,  popular-music fans made a #1 hit out of a song called “The Ballad Of The Green Berets” by Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler, an active-duty member of the United States Army Special Forces – the elite unit popularly known as the Green Berets.  Within two weeks of its major-label release, “The Ballad of the Green Berets” had sold more than a million copies, going on to become Billboard magazine’s #1 single for all of 1966.

The German company Bayer patented aspirin on March 6, 1899.  Now the most common drug in household medicine cabinets, acetylsalicylic acid was originally made from a chemical found in the bark of willow trees.

On March 7, 1876, 29-year-old Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for the telephone.  Three days after filing the patent, the telephone carried its first message – the famous “Mr. Watson, come here, I need you” – from Bell to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson.

March 8, 1917, the February Revolution (known as such because of Russia’s use of the Julian calendar) began in Russia when riots and strikes over the scarcity of food erupt in Petrograd.  One week later, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, and Russia took a dramatic step closer toward communist revolution.

On March 9, 1959, the first Barbie doll went on display at the American Toy Fair in New York City.  Barbie was the first mass-produced toy doll in the United States with adult features.  Ruth Handler, designed the doll after seeing her young daughter ignore her baby dolls to play make-believe with paper dolls of adult women.

On March 11, 2011, the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan caused massive devastation, and the ensuing tsunami decimated the Tohoku region of northeastern Honshu.  The natural disaster also gave rise to a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the second-worst nuclear disaster in history, forcing the relocation of over 100,000 people.

Though today there is almost nothing as ubiquitous as a bottle of Coca-Cola, this was not always the case. For the first several years of its existence, Coke was only available as a fountain drink, and its producer saw no reason for that to change. It was not until March 12, 1894 that Coke was first sold in bottles.

On March 14, 1990, the Congress of People’s Deputies elected General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev as the new president of the Soviet Union.  While the election was a victory for Gorbachev, it also revealed serious weaknesses in his power base that would eventually lead to the collapse of his presidency in December 1991.

On March 15, 1972, The Godfather – a three-hour epic chronicling the lives of the Corleones, an Italian-American crime family led by the powerful Vito Corleone was released in theaters.  Marlon Brando won an Academy Award for Best Actor (which he declined to accept).  The film won also won for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

70-year-old Golda Meir made history on March 17, 1969, when she was elected as Israel’s first female prime minister.  She was the country’s fourth prime minister and is still the only woman to have held this post.

A century ago, even before the phonograph, there was already a burgeoning music industry based on the sale of sheet music.  No song gained greater popularity in that era than Irving Berlin’s “Alexander's Ragtime Band.”  Copyrighted on March 18, 1911, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” was the multimillion-selling smash hit that helped turn American popular music into a major international phenomenon.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” was published on March 20, 1852.  The novel sold 300,000 copies within three months.  While living in Cincinnati, Stowe encountered fugitive slaves and the Underground Railroad inspired her to write the book which had a major influence on the way the American public viewed slavery.  

On March 21, 1980, J.R. Ewing, the character millions loved to hate on television’s popular prime-time drama “Dallas,” was shot by an unknown assailant.  The shooting made the season-ending episode one of TV’s most famous cliffhangers, inspired widespread media coverage and left America wondering “Who shot J.R.?”

On March 22, 1894, the first championship series for Lord Frederick Stanley’s Cup was played in Montreal, Canada.  Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, lord of Preston and the 16th earl of Derby, became an ice hockey fan after watching an 1889 game at the Montreal Winter Carnival.  The cup was given to the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association team upon their defeat of the Ottawa Generals.

On March 23, 1839, the initials “O.K.” were first published in The Boston Morning Post.  Meant as an abbreviation for “oll korrect,” a popular slang misspelling of “all correct” at the time, OK steadily made its way into the everyday speech of Americans.  Incumbent president Martin Van Buren was up for reelection, and his Democratic supporters organized a group called the “O.K. Club,” which referred both to Van Buren’s nickname “Old Kinderhook” (based on his hometown of Kinderhook, New York).

One of the worst oil spills in U.S. territory began on March 24, 1989, when the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Prince William Sound in southern Alaska.  An estimated 11 million gallons of oil eventually spilled into the water.  Wind and currents spread the oil more than 100 miles from its source, eventually polluting more than 700 miles of coastline.

The first colonists to Maryland arrived on Maryland’s western shore on March 25, 1634.  In 1632, King Charles I of England granted George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, rights to a region east of the Potomac River in exchange for a share of the income derived from the land.  The territory was named Maryland in honor of Queen Henrietta Maria.

On March 26, 1953, Dr. Jonas Salk announced that he had successfully tested a vaccine against polio.  In 1952 – an epidemic year for polio – there were 58,000 new cases reported in the United States, and more than 3,000 died from the disease.  Dr. Salk was celebrated as the great doctor-benefactor of his time.

In Washington, D.C., Helen Taft, wife of President William Taft, and the wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted two Yoshino cherry trees on the northern bank of the Potomac River, near the Jefferson Memorial, on March 27, 1912.  The event was held in celebration of a gift, by the Japanese government, of 3,020 cherry trees to the U.S. government.

At 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, the worst accident in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry began when a pressure valve in the Unit-2 reactor at Three Mile Island (near Harrisburg, PA) failed to close.  At about 8 p.m., plant operators realized they needed to get water moving through the core again and restarted the pumps.  The reactor had come within less than an hour of a complete meltdown.  In the four decades since the accident at Three Mile Island, not a single new nuclear power plant has been ordered in the United States.  

On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C. hotel by John Hinckley Jr, who fired six shots at the president, hitting Reagan and three of his attendants.  The president was shot in the left lung, and the .22 caliber bullet just missed his heart.  As he was treated and prepared for surgery, he was in good spirits and quipped to his wife, Nancy, “Honey, I forgot to duck,” and to his surgeons, “Please tell me you’re Republicans.”

An innovative musical called “Away We Go” was panned by critics after its tryout in New Haven.  This would prove to be one of the most off-base predictions in theater history when the slightly retooled show opened on Broadway on March 31, 1943 under a new title – “Oklahoma!” – and went on to set a Broadway record of 2,212 performances before the surrey with the fringe on top took its last ride 5 years later.

👉  Finally, the Solid Rock.

On March 15, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised no gatherings of 50 or more people in the United States because of the coronavirus.  One year later restrictions are still in place (although some are moving carelessly away from protocols which keep us safe).  With 2.79 million of us dead, and a vaccine available, many national borders are still close, international travel is largely suspended, many businesses have closed never to reopen, thousands are out of work, and many wonder if this new normal is going to be the continuing normal.

Some 3,000 years ago, the Chief Musician of Israel wrote a song of love, and set it to the tune of “The Lilies.”  It was a love song to the promised Messiah who was finally revealed in a Bethlehem manger.  Anticipating that day, the poet wrote, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom” (Psalm 45:6).  In times such as we now are living, we need something permanent, some solid, unmoving place to stand.  And here it is, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.”  The writer of Hebrews recorded, “He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’  So we may boldly say: ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear.  What can man do to me?’” (Hebrews 13:5).

Uncertain times?  Yes.  But our Savior’s throne is forever, and he promised he would never leave us, never forsake us.  My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

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QUARANTINE BLOG # 364

March 29, 2021

A blog reader asked for a look back at some TV commercials in days gone by.  So here are a few:

In case you don’t remember them, MCI, Inc. (previously Worldcom and MCI WorldCom) was a telecommunications company.  For a time, it was the second largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, after AT&T.  Before they went bankrupt and were acquired by Verizon Communications, they had a great commercial advertising their “Friends and Family Calling Circle.”

Next up, a classic AlkaSeltzer spot from 1972.

And a 1969 AlkaSeltzer ad featuring many things going wrong with the production.

Last for today, John Moschitta is a fast talking guy, credited in The Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s Fastest Talker, with the ability to articulate 586 words per minute.  His record has been broken twice, but neither of those men got Federal Express commercials. This FedEx commercial is what made him famous.

👉  There has been a lot of talk, I mean a LOT of talk over the last few days about rapper Lil Nas X and a model of modified Nike Air Max ‘97 shoes which are being marketed as “Satan Shoes.”  The biggest pop seems to be coming from internet site gossip site TMZ – left wing biased, and noted for sensational headlines and poor sources.  

TMZ says, “The rapper/pop star is putting out a limited release of Nike sneakers,” leading the reader to think Nike is behind this.  Again TMZ says, “Word is, MSCHF/Nike are only dishing out 666 of these puppies to the public,” subtly linking Nike to the production.  In reality an idea company called MSCHF (is that an abbreviation for mischief?) has bought 666 pair of the Air Max ‘97 and is modifying them with lots of red ink, pentagrams, and a reference to Luke 10:18 where Jesus says, “I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven.”  To complete the $1018 Satanic shoes, there is a drop of human blood somewhere along the soles.

Entertainment Weekly said, “Nike was not involved in the collaboration.”  The New York Times reported, “one of MSCHF’s founders, Daniel Greenberg, said Nike was not involved in the process ‘in any capacity.’” And the Times quoted Nike: “We do not have a relationship with Little Nas X or MSCHF.  Nike did not design or release these shoes, and we do not endorse them.”  From NBC News: “Nike was quick to distance itself from the shoes, pointing out that they’re custom adaptations of existing products.”

👉  Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression, known for their bank robberies, although they preferred to rob small stores or rural gas stations.  They are believed to have murdered at least nine police officers and four civilians.

In her second year in high school, Bonnie Parker met Roy Thornton.  The couple dropped out of school and married six days before her 16th birthday.  Their marriage was short lived.  They never divorced, but she was still wearing his wedding ring when she died.  Thornton was in prison when he heard of her death.  He commented, “I’m glad they went out like they did.  It’s much better than being caught.”  Thornton was killed while trying to escape from the Huntsville State Prison on October 3, 1937.

Clyde Barrow was first arrested in late 1926, at age 17, after running when police confronted him over a rental car that he had failed to return on time.  His second arrest was for possession of stolen turkeys.  He met 19 year-old Parker through a mutual friend in January 1930, and they spent much time together during the following weeks.  Their romance was interrupted when Barrow was arrested and convicted of auto theft.  He was sent to Eastham Prison Farm in April 1930 at the age of 21.  He escaped from the prison farm shortly after his incarceration using a weapon Parker smuggled to him.

Barrow and Parker were killed on May 23, 1934, on a rural road in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.  Six officers, four from Texas, two from Louisiana, set the ambush on May 22.  When Barrow stopped his car to help Henry Methvin, a gang member who had agreed to a deal with law enforcement officials in order to save his life, the posse opened fire.  The officers fired about 130 rounds, emptying their weapons into Barrow’s car.  

The bullet-ridden Ford Deluxe was later exhibited at carnivals and fairs – there was a charge of one dollar to sit in it.  In 1988, the Primm Valley Resort and Casino in Las Vegas purchased it for  $250,000.  Barrow’s enthusiasm for cars was evident in a letter he wrote earlier in the spring of 1934, addressed to Henry Ford: “While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got every other car skinned and even if my business hasn’t been strictly legal it don’t hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V-8.”

👉  Here are some humorous sayings before we close:

A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.  

The unsuspecting customer said, “I was worried that my mechanic might try to rip me off.  I was relieved when he told me all I needed was turn signal fluid.”  

A bulldog can whip a skunk, but sometimes it’s not worth it.  

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way if he gets angry, he’ll be a mile away and barefoot.

👉  As my age was turning from single digits to double digits the world was – even more so than today – troubled by international tensions and runaway military weapons productions.  In elementary school we were taught “duck and cover,” an absolutely worthless thing to do in the event of a first strike nuclear attack launched at us by the Soviet Union.  Crawl under your school desk and cover your head.  Some schools provided metal dog tags for students, so their bodies could be identified after an attack.  

When I was 15 we were glued to the television for 13 days as the U.S. and Soviet Union engaged in the Cuban Missile Crisis, a political and military standoff over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores.  

And as the 1960s dragged into the 70s, the nightly news produced the horror of Vietnam War right in our living rooms.

In many ways national governments have backed away from the heat and the rhetoric while quasi-national groups like ISIS and the Taliban are ramping up the tension and the attacks.  But whether you remember the teacher ringing a bell and you ducked under your desk, or if you can still close your eyes and see the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center collapse, we need to be reminded, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling” (Psalm 46:1-3 NKJV).

Not our military might, not our stealth bombers, not our intercontinental ballistic missiles, not the stockpile of nuclear weapons sufficient to wipe all life off of planet earth, our boast is in the Lord God Almighty.  Centuries ago kings boasted of their impregnable castles, built on inaccessible positions, and secured with gates as strong as could be fashioned.  But our God is far and above the ultimate refuge from the distresses of our age.

No matter what the threat – international calamity, lunatic terrorists, a virus that quickly swept away our confidence, or employment troubles, financial troubles, and domestic crises, God is our refuge.  That personal possessive pronoun means God is my refuge and strength, and yours. 

Hymn writer Ira Stanphill wrote “I Know Who Holds My Hand” in 1950.  I don’t know if he had those days in mind with which I opened this piece, but it expresses the confidence the Chief Musician of Israel declared in Psalm 46.  “Many things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand, but I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand.”

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QUARANTINE BLOG # 363

March 28, 2021

If This Is What it Means to Be Favored, I’m Not Sure I Want It!

“The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call his name Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.  And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.  Then Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I do not know a man?’” (Luke 1:30-34 NKJV).

For a moment, imagine you have a teenage daughter, and she walks nervously into your room and says, “Uh, Mom, Dad, I have something to tell you.”

You are expecting her to tell you about a bad day at school, or a lost doll, or at worst, one of the animals she takes care of has died, but she says, “I’m pregnant!”

Mom starts crying.  Dad doubles up his fists, and says, “Where’s that scruffy, no good carpenter you’ve been hanging around with?”

Your little girl puts her hands up in a gesture to stop you and says, “You don’t understand!  I am virgin!”

And while you are both still reeling, she says, “I was visited by an angel who said I would give birth to God’s Son.”

It takes some doing, but your little angel convinces you she is telling the truth.  Now, what will the neighbors say?

Six months earlier, the same angel, Gabriel, had predicted the birth of John, the miracle son of Elizabeth and Zechariah.  Now Gabriel is sent to Nazareth, and given another commission.  From the point of view of earthly thinking the message he must deliver is even more unpredictable.

The contrast between the two settings is revealing.  The announcement about John came to a priest in the midst of a public worship service at the high holy place of Israel’s capital.  The announcement about Jesus comes privately to a humble young woman in an unremarkable rural village.  

Gabriel was not sent by God to Rome, or to Jerusalem, but to Nazareth, a little Galilean town with a bad reputation.  Nazareth is never mentioned in the Old Testament.  It is never mentioned in the writings of the historian Josephus.  But it was to Nazareth that Gabriel was sent.  

Well, then, the womb that will carry this greatest treasure of all is a princess, right?  No, it is that of a virgin pledged to be married to the village carpenter!  

“Greetings, highly favored one,” Gabriel says.  Mary was perplexed by Gabriel’s introductory remarks.  She is mulling this over, “what manner of greeting this was.”  She heard that God was with her and that she was an object of his grace.  What was God going to do to her?  She is going to have a son, God the son.

Debate the Greek, discuss the historiography of Luke, but Mary settles the issue.  “I have never had sex with a man!  I cannot be pregnant!”

“Therefore also the holy offspring will be called the Son of God,” Gabriel says.  Therefore.  That’s it.  All wrapped up.  Mary, you have a clear understanding, right?  No!  Neither God nor Gabriel demand that Mary must understand everything she was told.  What is required of her is only this, that she believes and willingly submits.

Mary said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.”  She is eager to be the handmaid of the Lord, ready to do his will and be used to carry out his purpose – whether she understands it all or not.  

Mary was young, poor, female – all characteristics that, to the people of her day, would make her seem unusable by God for any major task.  But God chose Mary for one of the most important acts of obedience he has ever demanded of anyone. 

You may feel that your ability, experience, or education makes you an unlikely candidate for God’s service.  Don’t limit God’s choices.  He can use you if you trust him.  Take him at his word.

We can trust God to perform his promises.  He will do it at his own time and his own way, but it will come to pass.  Our attitude should be, “Use me as you will.  I will not refrain from serving because I do not feel qualified or useable.”

I started to call this devotion, “With God, Nothing Is Impossible.”  But I think this title is a better fit: “If This Is What it Means to Be Favored, I’m Not Sure I Want It!”

To “find favor” is an expression that is used frequently in the OT.  Gideon finds favor, asks for a sign and is chosen to judge Israel (Judges 6:17).  Hannah finds favor and receives the child she asked for (1 Samuel 1:18).  David finds favor and is allowed to restore the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 15:25).  

In each of those three cases, the phrase involves a requested granted on the condition that they had found favor with God.  But with Mary, the favor was announced without any request.  It was freely bestowed.  She is a picture of those who receive God’s grace on the basis of his kind initiative.  It is what Methodists call “prevenient grace” – the grace that goes before; the wooing of our souls by the Lord God Almighty before we ever knew we needed him.

To accept God’s plan might involve her in potential problems with Joseph.  She will be exposed to painful criticism and ridicule; perhaps even death – “If a young woman who is a virgin is betrothed to a husband, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he humbled his neighbor’s wife” (Deuteronomy 22:23-24) – but she made a complete surrender.  

God’s favor does not automatically bring instant success or fame.  His blessing on Mary, the honor of being the mother of the Messiah, would lead to much pain: her peers would ridicule her; her fiance would consider leaving her; it would be a difficult journey to the town where she would give birth, birthing would be under unsettling, unsanitary, isolated, and traumatic conditions.  Eventually her Son would be rejected and murdered.

But through her Son would come the world’s only hope, and this is why Mary has been praised by countless generations as the young girl who “found favor with God.”  Only in retrospect do we grasp all that was included in Gabriel’s admonition, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”

William Barclay says, “Mary had learned to forget the world’s commonest prayer – ‘Thy will be changed’ – and to pray the world’s greatest prayer – ‘Thy will be done.’”

There is risk in agreeing to go God’s way, but as the Lord’s servant, Mary willingly accepts it.  She literally says, “Let this be whenever he pleases.”  Moffatt translates Mary’s response as, “I am here to serve the Lord.  Let it be as you have said.”

Perhaps like Mary, you are facing discouragement, or despair, or an unexpected change of direction, or a loss which dims your hope.  Now the Still, Small Voice of God whispers, “You have found favor.”  What is your response?  Do you answer, “Let it be as you have said” or something else?

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QUARANTINE BLOG # 362

March 27, 2021

Returning to the story of the Mercury 13: The Right Stuff, the Wrong Time, Jerrie Cobb had completed all of the tests which the Project Mercury astronauts had gone through. But Dr. Randolph Lovelace knew that NASA would view Jerrie Cobb’s exceptional test scores as a fluke and not representative of women pilots in general. So he began compiling a list of women pilots who had racked up more than 1,000 hours in the air, not an easy task in the 1960s, since women were not allowed to fly for the military and were not being hired by airlines.

Here are the Mercury 13.

Jerri Sloan’s flying credentials: 1,200 flying hours, commercial pilot’s license, multiengine rating, air-race honors, and experience flying B-25s.

Jan Dietrich and Marion Dietrich were identical twins. Jan became a flight instructor and corporate pilot, logging a phenomenal 8,000 hours flying time. Marion flew charters and ferried aircraft for various clients, piling up 1,500 hours.

Wally Funk got her first job at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1959, at age 20, as a Civilian Flight Instructor of noncommissioned and commissioned officers of the United States Army. She passed her Mercury tests, scoring higher than John Glenn did in his testing and was the third best in the Mercury 13 program. At age 81 she still flies every Saturday as instructor, having logged almost 20,000 hours – over 2 years in the air.

Gene Nora Stumbough was an air race competitor. In 1962, after NASA refused to consider the “girl astronauts” she captured what at the time was to her the best possible job in aviation for a female. She flew as a sales demonstration pilot for the Beechcraft factory in Wichita, Kansas. Initially she flew as one of the Three Musketeers, an introductory formation flight through the contiguous 48 States. Only the Navy’s Blue Angels (1946) and France’s Patrouille de France (1931) are older formation flying units.

Janey Hart earned her first pilot’s license during World War II, and later became the first licensed female helicopter pilot in Michigan. Even though she was 40 years old, the oldest woman to be invited for astronaut testing, Hart made the cut.

Bea Steadman earned her private pilot’s license at 17 and her commercial rating at 21.  She earned the highest FAA license, the Airline Transport Pilot license.

Janey Hart (left), Bea Steadman (right).

Rhea Hurrle was a competitive air racer and charter pilot with more than 2,000 flying hours.

Sarah Gorelick had B.S. in Mathematics, with minors in Physics and Chemistry. She held a Commercial Pilots license, with Airplane Single and Multi Engine Land ratings, Single Engine Sea, Instrument, Rotor and Glider ratings. 

Myrtle Cagle, known as “K,” had 4,300 hours of flying time – more than some of the Mercury 7. She held a Commercial Pilots license, with Airplane Single and Multi Engine Land ratings, an Instrument rating and was a Certified Flight Instructor, Certified Flight Instrument Instructor and Certified Ground Instructor. 

Irene Leverton tried to join the WASPs (Women’s Air Force Service Pilots) at age 17 using fake id. When she was tested for Dr. Lovelace, she had built up 9,000 hours, more than any of the Mercury 7.

Jean Hixson, carefully listed all her qualifications, including her WASP experience, 4,000-plus flying hours, high-altitude flying, explosive decompression experience, low-pressure chamber indoctrination, graduate degree in education, specialization in science and mathematics from the University of Akron, and her study of Russian as a foreign language. Hixson emphasized the value of a teacher in space in capturing the imagination of the nation’s schoolchildren – 25 years before Christa McAuliffe died in the Challenger explosion.

By the end of August, 1961, Randy Lovelace could confirm that 13 American women, these  12 plus Jerrie Cobb – the Mercury 13 – had passed the same tests as the Project Mercury astronauts.

Jerrie Cobb next took part in an experiment more psychologically challenging than any test the Mercury 7 encountered. The men’s isolation test confined the astronauts to a silent, dark room for two or three hours. John Glenn’s experience was typical. By feeling his way around the darkened chamber, Glenn located a desk and then discovered a writing tablet left in the desk drawer. With a pencil that he had tucked into his shirt pocket, Glenn scribbled eighteen pages, tracing one line to the next by sliding his finger along the paper. By contrast, Cobb faced the sensory isolation tank. 

Jerrie Cobb’s run in the tank shattered every previous record. Six hours in the water was thought to be the absolute limit of tolerance. Cobb remained in sensory isolation for nine hours and forty minutes, her run finally terminated by an observer. 

Rhea Hurrle spent 10 hours in the tank before her run was stopped by a testing observer. Wally Funk remained in the tank until observers asked her to come out. The report to Dr. Lovelace, stated that Funk “gave no evidence of any approach to limits to her tolerance.” Her total time in sensory isolation was ten hours and thirty minutes. 

Jerrie Cobb had passed all of the Mercury 7 tests. Lovelace wrote to each of the Mercury 13 announcing that they would begin to undergo the same tests on September 18, 1961. 

On September 12, telegrams arrived at their houses. Randy Lovelace had received word that NASA had no interest in the tests going forward. NASA determined that sending an American woman into space was not a priority. The official statement was, “NASA does not at this time have a requirement for such a program.”

Jean Hixson being given a going away part (she had resigned her position to take part in the tests).

We will bring the story to a conclusion next week, beginning with a Congressional hearing that could hardly have been more prejudiced against the Mercury 13.

👉  Sweet Fragrance

Today we take our last visit, for this time, to the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

“. . . And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil” (John 12:3 NKJV).

Mary did not go from room to room dropping a little of the oil in each room.  She did not tell anyone she had an expensive perfume in the house.  The aroma of the spikenard simply diffused through out the house as a natural consequence of Mary pouring it on Jesus’ feet.

May I suggest from this that it is better to do our works for Jesus, to express our worship for him, and do it in a fashion that never attracts attention to us, but always to him.

To have stood and shouted, “Spikenard!  Precious oil!  Expensive oil!” would have been repulsive.  Just pour it on Jesus’ feet and she need do nothing more because quickly the whole house will be filled with the sweet fragrance. 

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Watch out!  Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven.  When you give to someone in need, don’t do as the hypocrites do – blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity!  I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get.  But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.  Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you” (Matthew 6:1-4 NLT).

Mary’s act and Jesus’ sermon focus on the motives behind what we do in the Christian life.  I have told people as I led worship, that the thing to do as we left the House was not to ask, “What did I get out of it?” but instead ask, “How did I do?”  Did I worship God for the sake of God alone?  Was my heart in what I did, or was I just going through the motions?  Did I open the container and pour out the perfume just for Jesus, or so people would say of me, “What a wonderful gift he gave”?

Charles Spurgeon said, “Keep the thing so secret that even you yourself are hardly aware that you are doing anything at all praiseworthy.  Let God be present, and you will have enough of an audience.”

By concentrating our love and attention on Jesus, and not seeking to be noticed, we will, like Mary, bless our whole house.  Anything less degrades the gift and the giver.

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QUARANTINE BLOG # 361

March 26, 2021

From Pearls Before Swine, a reminder about the coronavirus vaccine.  And as of yesterday in Georgia, everyone over 16 can be vaccinated.  If you haven’t already, make an appointment and roll up your sleeve.

👉  Yesterday QB showed you an ad for the most expensive Volvo station wagon known.  Well, maybe you are not in the market for a used car, but you may be looking for a new wrist watch.  If so, check out the Omega Seamaster 300 made with Bronze Gold.  To produce this new patent-pending alloy Omega combined gold, palladium and silver.  Its movement features the Omega Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 8912 – whatever that is – that is self-winding in both directions (up and down? back and forth?) and offers a power reserve of 60 hours.  The new Omega Seamaster 300 Bronze Gold will be available starting in June with a price of $11,600.

👉  Old TV shows and movies are constantly being resurrected and remade, their stories told from different points of view.  What would it look like if producers combined Star Trek and Batman?  Perhaps like this.

👉  John Herbert Dillinger was a gangster and bank robber during the Great Depression. He led a group known as the “Dillinger Gang,” which was accused of robbing 24 banks and four police stations. Dillinger was imprisoned several times but escaped twice, one time carving a bar of soap to look like a gun. 

Dillinger began his life of crime in 1924 when, unable to find a job, he planned a robbery with his friend Ed Singleton, who was an ex-convict and umpire for a semi-professional baseball team, the AC Athletics, for which Dillinger played shortstop.  The two robbed a grocery store, stealing $50, and were arrested the next day. 

After robbing 12 banks in one year, and feeling pressure from the Bureau of Investigation (the precursor to the FBI) Dillinger dropped completely out of sight, and the federal agents had no solid leads to follow.  He had, in fact, drifted into Chicago where he lived under an alias.  J. Edgar Hoover created a special task force to locate Dillinger.  On July 21, 1934, Ana Cumpanas, a madam from a brothel in Gary, Indiana, contacted the Hoover’s agents.  She was a Romanian immigrant threatened with deportation for “low moral character” and offered agents information on Dillinger in exchange for their help in preventing her deportation.  The FBI agreed to her terms, but she was later deported nonetheless.

On July 22, 1934, local and federal law enforcement closed in on the Biograph Theater, where Dillinger and Cumpanas had gone to see the crime drama Manhattan Melodrama, which starred Clark Gable.  

Agents moved to arrest Dillinger as he exited the theater, but he ran, and died in a shootout after he was identified by Cumpanas, who wore a red dress and became known as the “Woman in Red.”  There were reports of people dipping their handkerchiefs and skirts into the pool of blood that had formed, as Dillinger lay in the alley, as keepsakes.  

Dillinger’s body was available for public display at the Cook County morgue.  An estimated 15,000 people viewed the corpse over a day and a half.

👉  Finding out where your ancestors came from is big business.  The DNA market has doubled every year for the last 4 years, to say nothing of ancestry research sites.  I’m content to know that my ancestors came from Adam and Eve (like everyone else’s did).  But for one man, a genealogical project at Ancestry.com, resulted in a prison sentence for identity theft and an order to pay $2 million in back child support.

In 1993, Richard Hoagland called his wife and said he was not feeling well and needed to go to the hospital.  The married father of two boys disappeared that evening.  Hoagland was officially declared dead 10 years later, but he was not really deceased.  He had abandoned his family, assumed the identity of a dead fisherman, remarried, and even had a child.  He might have gotten away with it if not for genealogy.  The fisherman’s real nephew was working on a genealogy project on Ancestry.com and was puzzled to see his dead uncle was married a few years after he supposedly had died.  Police followed up, and Hoagland eventually confessed.

👉  Holding Nothing Back

Let’s return again to Bethany and the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

Martha prepared a meal.  Lazarus talked to their honored guest.  What could Mary do to show her love for Jesus?  I’ve imagined Mary’s face as she tries to think of a way to honor Jesus.  Her eyebrows pulled down.  Her eyes looking around.  If not a frown, then she had a serious, meditating look on her face.  But then you can see the moment when she thinks about that container of spikenard oil, the one Judas calculated was worth a year’s wages for the average working man.  She has decided that this oil which came only from India and the Himalayas is the perfect gift.

“Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair.  And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil” (John 12:3 NKJV).

It was very costly, but it did not cost a penny too much now that it could be used on him.  There was a pound of it, but it was not too much for him.  It was sweet, but not too sweet for him.  Instead of keeping it for herself, she will use it on Jesus.

She brings the pound of oil and pours it on his feet as he reclines at the table, and then begins to wipe his feet with the hairs of her head so that her personal beauty as well as her valuable treasure is given to the one she loves.

What Mary did was the result of a soul on fire.  She gave all that she had, holding nothing back.  May she challenge us to be total in our devotion to Jesus!

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