 |
| MR PIPES TOUR in Olney 2012 |
From my book
Chapter Twelve: Winter and Christmas!
Popular Praise & Historic Christian Worship
I need you to hold me
Like my
daddy never could.
And I need
you to show me
How resting
in your arms can be so good.
—Or—
Fatherlike
He tends and spares us;
Well our
feeble frame He knows;
In His arms
He gently bears us,
Rescues us
from all our foes;
Praise Him,
praise Him,
Praise Him,
praise Him,
Widely as
His mercy goes.
Henry
Francis Lyte
After yesterday’s accident and the late night, Annie
felt herself emerging far too early in the morning from the dullness of sleep.
She sniffed then scratched at her nose and sniffed again. Something was
tickling her nose!
Without opening her eyes she said in a sleepy voice,
“Knock it off, please, Drew.” Feathers, probably; he was always collecting
feathers.
In response, she heard a sort of snuffling breathing
in her face. She opened her eyes wide. Staring back at her were two dark eyes
set in a black and white furry face, tiny moist nostrils flared as they took in
her scent.
“Monochrome! You’re awake!” she squealed softly,
stroking the young skunk under his chin.
Sunlight shone brilliantly off the snow through her
window. She hopped up and dressed. Then, scooping Monochrome up in her arms she
headed for the kitchen.
“Merry Christmas!” boomed Mr. Pipes cheerfully from
the stove. “Oh, and what have we here?”
“Merry Christmas to you, too!” said Annie.
“So he woke up,” said Drew, between mouthfuls of cold
cereal and milk.
“Yeah,” said Annie, smiling at her skunk. “You wanted
to have Christmas with us didn’t you, you cute little thing, you—Oh, Oocheepoo.
And he crawled in bed with me. In fact, I thought you were tickling me, Drew,
but it was Monochrome—whispering in my ear. Oh, you’re the sweetest thing I’ve
ever seen!” She gave him a gentle squeeze.
“Annie, you’re embarrassing me,” said Drew.
Mr. Pipes smiled.
“Drew is having an appetizer,” he said, pouring
boiling water into the teapot, “before Christmas breakfast—bacon, eggs,
pancakes with maple syrup, all prepared just as you like them.”
“Hurrah!”
“Hurrah!”
“Then I thought we would strap on our skis and go to
the health center and wish Dr. Dudley a Merry Christmas.”
“What about a tree?” asked Drew. “We sort of need a
Christmas tree, don’t we?”
“I took the liberty of speaking with the caretaker about
just that matter,” said Mr. Pipes. “She has graciously loaned us a potted
Norfolk pine from her indoor plant collection. The lovely little thing is in
the Garden Room. Perhaps, after our visit to the health center you would help
me decorate it?”
Annie and Drew rushed out of the kitchen to inspect
the tree.
“It’s lovely and it’s almost as tall as Drew,” said
Annie, coming back into the kitchen. For a fleeting moment she felt a wave of
sadness; this would be the first Christmas she could remember not decorating
the tree with their mother.
“But now for breakfast,” said Mr. Pipes, followed by a
loud sizzling as he ladled pancake batter onto the frying pan.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the sky such a deep,
deep blue,” said Annie, as they skied alongside the newly plowed street on
their way to the health center. She adjusted the straps on her knapsack.
Mr. Pipes smiled at the frosted brick houses and trees
laden with mounds of snow along the street. With squeals and laughter,
rosy-cheeked children, making a snowman in their yard, halted and pitched
snowballs at them. Mr. Pipes and Annie and Drew called out season’s greetings
to a family skiing past across the street.
“This will be a Christmas to remember,” said Mr.
Pipes, his cheeks pink with exertion and the crisp air.
At the next cross street, Drew stopped and read a sign
with an arrow pointing left.
“‘Lake Carter, !s
mile,’” he read, with excitement. “I wonder if there’s any fish in it.”
“It would be strictly ice fishing, at present,” said
Mr. Pipes.
“Fishing for ice?” said Drew.
Mr. Pipes laughed. “No, no, my boy. Fishing through
ice. I’m told it’s very good sport, though a bit on the chilly side.”
Annie halted in her tracks. The bulges in her knapsack
kept wiggling. “It’s okay, Monochrome,” she cooed over her shoulder. “We’ll be
there in a minute; have another cracker.”
A black pointy nose poked out of the knapsack flap and
for a brief moment looked around curiously at the snow. Monochrome disappeared
into the knapsack and the sound of contented crunching came from inside.
“There now,
imagine it,” said Dr. Dudley, his leg shrouded in a fresh plaster cast and
suspended in the air by a chain. “My friends have not forgotten me.”
“Merry Christmas!” they said together.
“How are you, my dear fellow,” asked Mr. Pipes.
“Fine, oh, fine, indeed,” said Dr. Dudley. “Barring
the fact that it is Christmas and I am trussed up with a broken leg and cannot
leave for who knows how long. No, I am fine indeed.”
“We who saw it, thank the Lord you are not hurt more
seriously after such a fall,” said Mr. Pipes.
“Yes, well, I bear all patiently,” said Dr. Dudley.
“Now, then, how is my patient?”
“Monochrome is wonderful,” said Annie, “like nothing
ever happened. Do you want to see him?”
“Rather!” snorted Dr. Dudley. “But you torment me, it
is, of course, impossible.” He turned to the wall.
Smiling, Annie sat down on the edge of his bed and
opened her knapsack. Out waddled Monochrome onto Dr. Dudley’s lap. He snuffled
at the remains of Dr. Dudley’s breakfast pushed aside on a tray.
“I say!” said Dr. Dudley, brightening. “I say, I say!”
He stroked the coarse fur and with grunts and oohs and
ahs of admiration at his work, he inspected the little creature.
“He’s fit as a fiddle!”
“And no more stink for this skunk,” said Drew.
“You have done fine surgery on him,” said Mr. Pipes.
“I would trust my health in your hands without reservation.”
Just then they heard a quick knock on the door and in
bustled a smiling nurse balancing a tray of instruments in her hands.
“Greetings to our English doctor patient,” she called
cheerfully, not yet spotting Monochrome. “Now, you behave yourself while I give
you a little poke and check your blood—”
She broke off. Her eyes bulged and she threw her hand
over her mouth stifling what would have been a blood-curdling scream. The tray
crashed to the floor. Monochrome arched his back and unfurled his fuzzy black
and white tail. Everyone held his breath.
“Oh, oh, i-i-it’s going to—” stammered the nurse,
fanning the air with one hand and gripping her nose with the other.
Annie and Drew looked at Dr. Dudley, the little skunk
poised on his lap. For a moment they thought he looked worried. What would
happen if Monochrome’s surgery didn’t actually work?
“My dear nurse,” said Dr. Dudley. “There is no odor,
for I have surgically removed Monochrome’s odor sac.”
The nurse shook her head and kept her fingers pinched
tightly on her nose.
“My dear, there is no foul odor,” insisted Dr. Dudley,
taking a deep and noisy breath in an attempt to prove it.
“Ge’ i’ ou’ of my hospi’al!” she insisted, pointing at
the door, her nose still plugged.
Mr. Pipes, Annie, Monochrome, and Drew beat a hasty
retreat, wishing Dr. Dudley a Merry Christmas.
Back at Mr.
Whittier’s house, Annie and Drew made cut-out angels, stars, sheep, and mangers
out of colored paper given them by the caretaker. They popped corn—“Like the
Indians used to do,” explained Drew—and showed Mr. Pipes how to stitch it with
needle and thread into stringers to drape around the little tree. They arranged
candles in rows along the mantle and table to be lit that evening. The house
filled with the delicious smells of roasting ham, baking sweet potatoes and
simmering cranberries.
When they finished decorating the tree, Annie prepared
a pot of tea and laid out shortbread Christmas cookies shimmering with frosting
and flecked with colored sprinkles. Drew brought in an armload of logs and they
sat down for morning tea before the cheery warmth of the fire.
“Merry Christmas to us all!” said Mr. Pipes, then
sipping his tea.
“My gift for you,” said Annie sadly, “is at home.”
“So’s mine,” said Drew. “All of our gifts are at
home.”
“That we are here together,’ said Mr. Pipes, “is gift
enough. But, I just happen to have a little something I’ve brought for each of
you, my dears.”
“What?” asked Drew eagerly.
Annie frowned at her brother.
Mr. Pipes handed each of them a neatly wrapped parcel.
Drew said thanks and tore into his.
“Well, go on,” said Mr. Pipes to Annie.
In each of their boxes they found a little leather
case with two gold pens, one a fountain pen and the other a ball-point. Mr.
Pipes had engraved their names on each pen. Digging further down into the
rustling tissue paper, they both found a beautiful leather-bound book. They
opened them eagerly.
Drew looked at Mr. Pipes in surprise.
“There’s nothing in mine!” he said.
“Oh, it’s such beautiful leather,” said Annie, running
her hand over the calf binding. “But mine’s blank, too.”
“Precisely,” said Mr. Pipes, smiling at them. “They
are extra thick and you are to fill them—fill them with poetry and music
written in praise of God.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Pipes,” they said together.
“Now, dig just a bit further,” said Mr. Pipes.
“Giant chocolate bars!” exclaimed Drew.
“English chocolate,” said Annie.
“Watch yours closely, Annie,” said Mr. Pipes, eyeing
Drew, who had already torn into his wrapper.
Annie opened her old sketchbook on the desktop and
reread her versification of Psalm 86. She sighed. It was Christmas; she was
happy here with Mr. Pipes and her brother—and Monochrome. And she’d just
decided not to think about not spending Christmas with their parents, not to
think about it at all … no, not at all.
Mr. Pipes studied Annie’s face as he offered her
another cookie.
“We need some Christmas cheer,” he said. “Annie, what
carol would you have us sing for you?”
“Mr. Watts,” said Annie, brightening a little.
“‘Joy to the World,’ it is,” said Mr. Pipes. They
lifted their voices together in praise: “‘… Let earth receive her King!’”
“And, how about Mr. Brooks?” suggested Drew, when they
finished: “‘O, little town of Bethlehem.…’”
And on and on they sang.
Then Mr. Pipes read from the Christmas story in
Matthew: “… [S]he was found with child by the Holy Spirit.… She will give birth
to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his
people from their sins … and they will call him Immanuel—which means, ‘God with
us.’”
“It’s amazing,” said Drew, studying a wisp of smoke
curling up into the chimney. “Jesus could be a little baby born to poor parents
in a barn—and at the same time be God.”
“Yes, it is amazing,” said Mr. Pipes.
Annie pulled her knees up under her chin.
“Do you think he cried?” she asked.
“Cried?” said Mr. Pipes.
“Jesus, when He was a baby,” said Annie. “Do you think
even though He was God that He cried?”
“Ah,” said Mr. Pipes, smiling at her. “You are
thinking of the phrase from ‘Away in a Manger,’ are you not?”
“‘No crying he makes,’” said Annie. “I’m not sure
that’s true. What do you think, Mr. Pipes?”
“Perhaps an instance of sentimentalism,” replied Mr.
Pipes. “Jesus was a real man—‘in all points tempted like as we are, yet without
sin.’ I am most certain that as a baby he cried—not in fits and tantrums, mind
you—but in discomfort and the like, he would have cried like any other real
baby.”
“It’s sort of a balance then,” said Drew.
“Balance?” said Mr. Pipes.
“Yeah, between our thinking of Him as a real child and
as God.”
Mr. Pipes sighed and rubbed his hand across his chin
before replying.
“It’s kind of like that when we worship God,” said
Annie. “He’s God, the Creator, the King of kings and He’s all powerful, on the
one hand. But on the other, he’s more gentle, like a Shepherd. How do we keep
all this straight?”
“And doesn’t the Bible call us children of God,” said
Drew. “And if Jesus was God’s Son (a son’s a child)—then, hey, that makes Jesus
our brother!”
“To be sure, my dears,” began Mr. Pipes, “there is
familiarity in man’s address to God in Scripture—‘The Lord is my Shepherd …’
and we call God ‘Abba Father,’ or ‘Daddy.’ But many today prefer the familiar
dimension of God’s being and have little taste for His transcendence.”
“What does transcendence mean?” asked Drew.
“It means that God is high above us, that we are His
creatures and He is the Holy, Almighty God Who made and rules the universe at
His will.”
Annie cradled her chin in her hands and frowned.
“We sing what Mother calls ‘ditties’ at church with
the Smiths,” said Annie. “She likes us singing those better than the hymns you
teach us. I’m not sure why.”
“She calls your hymns, ‘dirges,’” said Drew.
“I like the hymns, but they do take more work to
sing—and understand,” said Annie.
“Yeah, they’re way better,” said Drew. “You know, you
can’t really sing the praise choruses loud,” he went on, “like you can with
‘Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken,’ or lots of the others. I can sing those
loud.”
“Why is that?” asked Mr. Pipes.
“Well, with the choruses you sort of have to squint
your eyes closed and sway from side to side,” said Drew, demonstrating. “And it
gets kind of mushy—lots of the girls like ’em, but most of the boys just mumble
along and feel kind of uncomfortable.”
“But lots of people who sing praise choruses,” said
Annie, “really do love Jesus—the songs are all about a close relationship with
Jesus—most of them.”
“I don’t entirely doubt that, Annie,” said Mr. Pipes.
“But, alas, the praise choruses of the postmodern church often feature a vague
sort of relationship—a familiarity based on rather elastic sorts of notions
about God—ones that can be stretched and pulled to fit in with popular ideas.
Hold a great hymn of Ray Palmer, for example, up next to a praise chorus and
you will observe several important differences.”
“Like what?” asked Annie.
“The timeless hymns of the church are full of the
reasons for our sung devotion to God. Praise choruses contain less and less
doctrine so the praise springs not from clearly stated truths about God, His
person and works, but from an ill-defined feeling of love and adoration. And
the one doing the singing is much more the focus of consideration in most
praise choruses than God, the stated object of the praise.”
“What do you mean?” asked Annie.
“Well, typical first lines of postmodern praise
singing illustrate my point best: ‘I bless You,’ ‘I only want to love You,’ and
‘I just want to praise You.’ What we are doing and hoping to get out of this
kind of singing seems much more important than the more difficult work of
extolling the attributes and works of our Lord in a more Psalm-like manner.”
“But lots of the praise choruses are straight from
Scripture,” said Annie, “even from the Psalms. How can there be anything wrong
with those?”
“One must look at the bigger picture of what is
happening in the church. The Psalms have been sung for thousands of years, but
there is an important and disturbing difference between the Psalm singing of
historic Christianity and today’s singing of portions of the Psalms.”
“How is it different?” asked Drew.
“Christian musicians today edit out the more complex
doctrinal portions of Psalms and merely leave the praising bit in—now with
fewer, if any, reasons stated for that praise. The simplest parts of Psalms are
sung today—usually sung over and over again creating a warm but often only
vague feeling of adoration.”
“So is feeling … bad in worship?” asked Annie.
“By no means,” replied Mr. Pipes. “The Psalms and the
hymns of the church are full of deep emotion and heart-felt praise. But that
spiritual feeling always follows objective doctrinal truth adorned in the
poetry. The church today has an insatiable appetite for the religious feelings
hoped for in worship but virtually no appetite for the theological content that
must come first and inform the experience of God’s presence in our worship.”
“It’s sort of like you can’t get there from here,”
said Drew. “You can’t have real feeling without the reasons for the feelings,
right?”
“Precisely,” said Mr. Pipes.
“Mr. Palmer’s hymn, ‘Lord, My Weak Thought in Vain
Would Climb,’ is a good example of what is not happening in worship today. Few
want to lift weak thoughts to greater heights of understanding leading to true
praise; why should they, when it is so much easier to have feelings created by
popular mood music and simplistic words. It’s hard work thinking about the high
truths of which Scriptural praise is so richly filled.”
“But choruses are okay for kids, aren’t they?” asked
Annie.
“Ah, yes; an argument often insisted upon in their
defense,” said Mr. Pipes. “But let me ask you: at the Smiths’ church, are these
choruses sung only by the young? Or by adults as well?”
“That’s a good point,” said Annie. “They sing hardly
any hymns—real hymns. It’s everybody, kids and adults, singing mostly choruses
in church.”
“It is a striking thing, is it not, that with all the
emphasis of Holy Scripture on children that God did not include a junior
Psalter in the Bible from which generations of Jewish children might have sung
simple tunes.”
“That would seem kind of silly,” said Annie.
“But alas,” said Mr. Pipes, “that is what the church
has done today—made a junior Psalter, in which the message is altered to be
simplistic and easy. And I fear many sincere Christian adults will offer only
this juvenile singing to God all their lives—‘even down to old age.’ That is a
great pity.”
“They’re missing out on the best,’ said Drew.
“All the while thinking they’ve got it,” added Mr.
Pipes sadly.
“Most Christians actually think,” he went on, “that
today’s praise choruses are a great improvement over the sung worship of the
church in the past—perhaps they are somewhat better than the more recent past.”
“If they only knew,” said Annie.
“Employing the most up-to-date popular expressions of
praise,” said Mr. Pipes, “can tend to give people a sense of spiritual
superiority over those who are considered to be not with it—I believe that is
the accepted slang for being contemporary and up to fashion.”
“Well, Mr. Pipes,” said Drew, smiling, “you are
definitely—not with it !”
“Thank you, my boy,” said Mr. Pipes, touching his
fingers to his forehead in salute. “I want for you, my dear ones, to bind
yourselves with the church throughout the ages by singing with her what is
timeless and enduring, not what is fashionable, predictable and thus, eminently
disposable. Generations from now Christians will not find light in ‘Shine,
Jesus, Shine,’ I assure you. Nor will composers of great music in future
generations borrow praise chorus tunes—or should I say, tune.”
“Most of them are pretty much the same,” admitted
Drew, “over and over.”
“But none of this means that you and I have nothing to
add to the canon of Christian hymnody, my dears,” said Mr. Pipes.
Annie looked down at her sketchbook and the new lines
she had been scribbling. She just couldn’t bring herself to scribble on the
clean white pages of her new leather writing book—not yet.
“You must contribute to the church throughout the
ages,” he continued, “by adding hymns and melodies of the highest quality,
adorning the timeless truths of Holy Scripture and lifting high the cross of
our Lord Jesus—Whose birthday it is!”
“And I smell dinner!” said Drew, licking his lips and
rubbing his stomach.
Mr. Pipes looked at his watch and strode casually into
the parlor to look out the front window.
“What are you looking for?” asked Annie, cradling
Monochrome in her arms.
Mr. Pipes smiled at Annie. “It is a lovely day for
Christmas, isn’t it, my dear?”
“Yes,” replied Annie, blinking out the frosty windows.
“Shall we set the table and finish our dinner
preparations?” he asked, his eyes twinkling merrily.
Annie smiled and followed him into the kitchen. She
took down three plates from the cupboard and began setting the table.
“Only three plates?” said Mr. Pipes, his eyebrows
aloft.
“I get to set one for Monochrome?” asked Annie
eagerly.
“Well, my dear that is not exactly what I had in
mind,” said Mr. Pipes, laughing. “It’s his manners; I fear the table would
become a shambles.”
“But Dr. Dudley’s at the hospital,” said Annie,
looking puzzled. “That leaves only the three of us—at the table.” She reached
down and patted Monochrome sniffing along at her heels.
“It does?” said the old man, his eyes sparkling.
“What’s he got up his sleeve?” said Drew.
Just then from the front of the house came the blaring
of a horn. Drew and Annie bolted into the parlor.
“It’s a snowplow!” said Drew. “And it’s stopped right
in front of the house.”
Annie watched as the passenger door opened. She caught
her breath and squealed with delight.
“It’s Mom and Dad!” said Drew. “All the way out here!
I can’t believe it!”
Mr. Pipes smiled at their side.
“You knew all along!” said Annie.
“Not all along,” said Mr. Pipes.
Once in the front door, hugs, kisses, and handshakes
were exchanged all around. Annie’s mother recovered herself quickly after
seeing Monochrome and said, “Skunks are people, too.” Their stepfather shook
hands warmly with Mr. Pipes, commented on how primitive the house was, and
asked what smelled so good. The children’s parents explained how the train line
from Boston deposited them only a few blocks from Mr. Whittier’s house, and how
they were able to hitch a ride with the snowplow right to the front door.
“Annie, you’d better put on two more plates,” said Mr.
Pipes. “Dinner is served right this way.” He led them to the table. Annie took
a lit candle from the mantle and soon the table glowed with warm shimmering
light as she lit a row of white candles. Drew added a log to the fire in the
dining room.
When the last chair legs had scraped into position
around the feast, a moment of uncomfortable silence hung over the cozy room.
Annie and Drew looked at each other. Who would lead in prayer? They never prayed
before meals at home.
“It is Christmas,” said Mr. Pipes, nodding for
emphasis with each word. “The celebration of the birth of Christ the Lord. Let
us pray.”
Baked ham and roasted potatoes drowning in melted
butter, creamy sweet potatoes spiced with cinnamon, stuffing, and savory gravy
soon found its way onto plates and into stomachs as they feasted together. When
they could eat no more and dishes were cleared away, Annie made a pot of tea
and served plates of shortbread and chocolate for anyone who had room.
“Pass the chocolate, please,” said Drew, for the third
time. “Hey, Dad, there’s a lake nearby.”
“There is?”
“Yeah,” said Drew eagerly. “And how about if we men go
ice fishing tomorrow morning—early?”
This was discussed for several minutes with Mr. Pipes
explaining how it was done. The caretaker had offered Drew hooks, line, and a
hole cutter, as well as advice on the best spot to fish on Lake Carter. It was
settled.
“You know, I’m really sorry,” said Annie and Drew’s
mother, “that we couldn’t bring along any of the gifts.”
“Would have taken a cargo plane,” mumbled the
children’s stepfather.
“That’s okay,” said Annie. “I just wish I had my gifts
to give Mr. Pipes and all of you.”
“Ah, yes, everyone loves gifts,” said Mr. Pipes,
leaning forward and looking intently at Annie and Drew’s parents. “Have you
ever wondered, Mr. Willis, why we offer gifts to one another at Christmas?”
Annie and Drew’s stepfather blinked several times and
set his teacup on the table. “Frankly, I’ve never given it much thought,” he
said. Then laughing, he added, “I always assumed it was a conspiracy started by
children and encouraged by toy stores.”
“There is that,” agreed Mr. Pipes, laughing along with
him. “But, of course you know Christmas is the celebration of the historic birth
of Jesus Christ, Whom Holy Scripture describes as the ‘indescribable gift.’”
Annie bit her lip and looked at Drew.
“So you are suggesting,” said Mr. Willis, looking
sideways at his wife, “that gifts given at Christmas are some sort of symbol of
this Jesus?”
“Oh, that can’t be the reason,” said Mrs. Willis with
a toss of her head.
“It doesn’t seem very logical that God would give
human beings a gift,” agreed Mr. Willis. “Besides, I thought most religions
were about humans giving gifts to God. You know, to pay for imagined sins, and
all that.”
“Precisely, my dear sir,” said Mr. Pipes. “You could
not be more correct about the uniqueness of Christianity. Like no other
religion, the Bible declares men righteous—”
“Men and womyn,” interrupted Mrs. Willis, frowning at
the old man. “Or, persons; could we be more inclusive, here?”
“Oh, to be sure, madam,” said Mr. Pipes, “The
Scripture declares anyone who believes, righteous on the basis of Christ’s
perfect righteousness. For Christ’s sake, He washes repentant sinners’ sins
away and gives them—one and all—the gift of eternal life. Every other religion
declares that you are capable of goodness and that God accepts you based on
gifts of good works given to Him. Whereas, the Christian Gospel tells us the
truth about ourselves: no one is capable of true goodness.”
“Hold on a minute,” said Mr. Willis. “Are you
suggesting that I, who profess no religion, cannot be good without believing in
your Christianity?
“So, you admit that there is a difference between
goodness and badness?” said Mr. Pipes, his eyebrows rising with his enthusiasm.
“Of course I do,” said Mr. Willis. “Who doesn’t?”
“Ah, but on what basis do you decide what is good and
what is bad?” replied Mr. Pipes.
Mr. Willis opened his mouth to speak, but for a moment
no sound came out.
“Well, I feel that whatever is good for me—is good,”
said Mrs. Willis. “But I’d never impose my ideas of goodness on someone
else—and you shouldn’t either.”
“Hey, that doesn’t make—” began Drew.
Annie drove her elbow hard into his rib cage and gave
him a look that said, “Not another word; we’ve tried our way; let Mr. Pipes
speak.”
Mr. Willis looked at his wife and frowned. He met Mr.
Pipes’s eager gaze for a moment and looked away, blinking uncomfortably as the
inconsistency of her words—and his own beliefs—began to sink in.
“I-I think we just sort of know what’s good,” he
stammered with a shrug.
“Scripture calls that ‘the law of God written on the
heart,’” replied Mr. Pipes, reaching for his Bible. “But we, none of us, likes
submitting to God’s law. In fact, Scripture teaches, what every sinner who
honestly examines his heart knows, that we are enemies of God and His law. We
are sinners, through and through, desperately in need of Christ, the gift of
God and the only Savior of sinners.”
For the next hour, while Annie and Drew listened, Mr.
Pipes answered questions and reasoned with the children’s parents from his
Bible. Drew, who had seen Mr. Pipes urge the truth on unbelievers before,
twisted a clenched fist into his palm in excitement as he looked at Mr. Pipes’s
animated eyes and flushed cheeks. He loves this, Drew thought, watching the old
man lick his finger eagerly and turn the familiar pages of his Bible, readying
another reply.
Annie eventually stopped biting her lip as she watched
the hint of change come over her parents. They’re actually listening, she
realized; and she sent silent petitions up to her heavenly Father: “Salvation
is from You, O Lord,” she prayed. “Give them humble hearts and open their blind
eyes.”
Mr. Pipes paused and studied the children’s parents.
They looked sufficiently disturbed with what must be the beginnings of a
realization of the sore inadequacies of their self-made ideas. He had no
intention, however, of entirely humbling them at this point. No, that would
never do. After final urgings and a whispered prayer, he turned to the
children.
“Annie,” he said, smiling, “Your parents look as if
another pot of tea might be in order. I shall help you. And Drew, I believe the
fire in the Garden Room could use a fresh armload of wood and a bit of a poke.
Mr. and Mrs. Willis, do make yourselves comfortable in the Garden Room. We
shall have a fresh pot of tea in a jiffy.”
A few minutes later, before a spitting and snapping
fire in the cozy sitting room, Mr. Pipes and the Willis family sat in rocking
chairs, sipping tea and talking about Christmas.
“Well, I still wish I had the gifts I made for you,
Mr. Pipes, and for everyone,” said Annie, at last.
“Perhaps you do,” said Mr. Pipes.
“What?” said Annie.
“Why don’t you read us the poem you’ve been working on
whilst snowbound,” said Mr. Pipes. “No gift would make me happier, and I’m sure
your parents would love to hear it.”
Annie looked wide-eyed at Mr. Pipes. What would her
parents think? They might even listen.
His chair creaking merrily as he rocked, Mr. Pipes
steepled his fingers and nodded encouragingly at her.
She opened her sketchbook, tilted it toward a candle
to see better, and cleared her throat. After one last look around the room, and
after gently pushing Monochrome’s curious nose out of the way, she read:
Great God,
compassionate and kind,
The God who
hears my plea,
You are my
Help whose name I fear;
My Strength
forever be.
In you, O
Lord, I put my trust;
Salvation
is from you.
From dawn
to dusk I call your name;
Your
mercy’s ever new.
All my
desire I give to you;
Pure joy
from you does flow.
For those
who call with humble heart,
Your grace
and love will know.
In all your
works how great you are!
I praise
you Lord my God.
Teach me
with undivided heart
To walk
where you have trod.
“You wrote that, Annie?” said her father.
“Did you learn how in school?” asked her mother. “No,
that couldn’t be it. Did Mr. Pipes teach you how to do it?”
Color rose in Annie’s cheeks.
“It’s still a little stiff. But Mr. Pipes is teaching me—he along with all his
old friends.”
Posts
