From the penny jar to fine copper.

Ezra 8: 24 Then I separated twelve of the chief of the priests, Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their brethren with them, 25 And weighed unto them the silver, and the gold, and the vessels, even the offering of the house of our God, which the king, and his counsellors, and his lords, and all Israel there present, had offered: 26 I even weighed unto their hand six hundred and fifty talents of silver, and silver vessels an hundred talents, and of gold an hundred talents; 27 Also twenty basons of gold, of a thousand drams; and two vessels of fine copper, precious as gold. 28 And I said unto them, Ye are holy unto the Lord; the vessels are holy also; and the silver and the gold are a freewill offering unto the Lord God of your fathers.

This morning, Ezra 8:27 jumped out at me. Ezra has been given permission to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Among the list of gifts and offerings, Ezra writes, "and two vessels of fine copper, precious as gold."

What? The stuff of pennies and electronics can be as precious as gold? 

What we have translated "fine" is from the Hebrew tsahab nchosheth. Tsahab is a root meaning "to glitter, i.e. to be golden in color / fine." Nchosheth is copper or something made of copper (or brass).

Remember the penny jar? As kids, some of us would raid the penny jar to buy ice cream from the ice cream truck. But then, there were those mysterious greenish discs at the bottom of the jar. You didn't touch them. Oxidized and defaced, those pennies at the bottom of the jar were meant to be thrown away - or hidden inside the middle of a penny roll when you collected 50 of them.

Then we learned the vinegar trick. It didn't always work. You put pennies in a glass of vinegar. Some came out shiny, but some turned black. Some were filmy but almost returned to their glorious copper tone.

In 7th grade science, we did experiments with a mystery substance called "blue stone." We had to figure out its composition. In one experiment, we diluted the crystals to make a deep blue liquid. We hung a nail in the solution. The nail came out covered in copper! It was shiny and the most gorgeous copper I'd ever seen. In my heart, I didn't believe that the lovely blue could actually contain the metal we saw every day. I remember my disbelief. I remember the gleam of the suddenly shiny nail. How could it be? But there it was before me.

To this 12 year old girl, gold had NOTHING on pure copper. 

As we are all human beings tainted by the horrors of today's world, I want to offer hope and encouragement. We may find ourselves sitting in a jar on a shelf, feeling unused and forgotten. We may feel like there is no hope for how low we've sunk, that there is no hope for the corrosion of our souls.

Take heart. Under that green, corroded, nasty surface of each of us is fine copper, precious as gold. Malachi 3 says:

Malachi 3:1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. 2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: 3 And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.

You are precious as gold. The LORD whom ye seek wants to purify you for His purpose. Think about it.

Shalom!

The sleep aid that woke me up

       There are certainly some advantages to being in what I call "the power demographic." Although it initially hurt my sensibilities, it is nice that the "oldies stations" play MY music. At this point in life, I can live from every other paycheck to every other paycheck. My child is old enough to be at home alone. Yes, these are advantages.
       One drawback, however, is the change in my sleep pattern. I usually only achieve five or six hours of sleep. If that's all I needed, I would have no concern. If that's all I needed, I wouldn't have this story to tell.

       A couple months ago, I had joined one of those wholesale store clubs. For the hey-why-not of it, I looked at a bottle of melatonin. The label said it had 365 tablets in it. "Cute," I thought, "One for each night of the year." The ingredients said it also contained B6, valerian and chamomile. It seemed safe enough. I bought it.
       On this particular night, it was getting late but my mind was still humming with the day. Over the previous weeks, I had taken maybe 10 doses of the melatonin. I have no conclusive proof whether it works or not. Regardless, that night I wanted what help it could give me.
       Being a nurse, I have a particular revulsion about using my hands to touch a med until I pop it in my mouth. In nursing school, we practiced pouring M&Ms from one medicine cup into another. When we could do that successfully, we then practiced pouring meds into the cap and putting only one pill from the cap into the med cup. It is standard aseptic technique. If you watch any nurse pouring meds, you'll see him/her work hard to not touch a pill with his/her fingers. If a pill falls onto the cart, you'll see the nurse use a plastic spoon or another aseptic method to pick it up. This is also a safety measure for the nurse. There are some drugs we "handle" that we don't want to touch with our bare skin, such as chemotherapy or nitroglycerine. 
       This tired but awake nurse opened the container of melatonin. She gently shook the bottle over its cap. Four or five of the tiny tablets fell into the cap. She gently shook the cap over the bottle. All of the tablets fell back into the bottle. Stuck inside this time loop, she repeated it. 
       She repeated it.
       She --
       She managed to spill almost 365 melatonin pills.
       She moaned, "Awwww, maaaannnn!" 
       Her husband called from another room, "Are you okay?"
       "I just spilled melatonin all over."
       "Can I help you pick them up?"
       "No, it's okay. I'll just throw them out."
       But how? It was approaching 11 pm. The neighbors in the next apartment would excuse 10 seconds of a vacuum cleaner. It's not like I vacuum a lot.
       I plugged in the vacuum cleaner. I turned it on. I ran it over the pills. The vacuum cleaner made an awful, rattling, bone-jarring, make-your-teeth-hurt noise. The next thing I know, a semi-automatic melatonin gun is shooting melatonin at me.
       Just like the time I unwittingly stirred up a yellow jacket nest, I stood there in a daze while the melatonin assaulted me. Ping! Ping! Brrrrrrt! Ping! Ping! Ping!
       By what seemed like heavenly intervention, I managed to turn off the vacuum.
       Defeated, I surrendered. I took a broom and a dustpan and swept up what I could.
       For the next few days, I was still finding melatonin in the bathroom, behind doors, under the vanity.

       I have a suggestion for the melatonin makers. Along with the admonition to not operate heavy machinery, they should print a warning:
       This medication may cause you to laugh yourself to sleep.
       

On mullein and Isaiah 61

Earlier today, a friend posted a picture of a fuzzy-leafed mystery weed that sprang up in her garden. I knew immediately what it was: mullein. When I was a child, my mom introduced me to the tall, spiky plant with the yellow flowers. A weed? Perhaps, but it was never that to me. Mullein was a plant that grew anywhere, a fuzzy, tall spot of color along dull roadways and otherwise barren hills.

  My friend that posted the picture said she had a knack for growing weeds. To assure her of her serendipitous talent, I looked up the plant for her. Apparently, mullein also has medicinal uses, but that is a little beyond my scope of knowledge. The (online) literature said is that mullein grows where everything else has been cleared and along waste places.

    When I read “waste places,” something began stirring in this Old Testament gal. I remembered a verse about rebuilding the wastelands. I had to look it up, though. To my delight, it comes from a passage so beloved that even Jesus quoted from it:

Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; 2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; 3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.

4 And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.

5 And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers.

6 But ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves.

7 For your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them.

8 For I the Lord love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering; and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. 9 And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people: all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.

10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.

11 For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.

            Verse 4 says, “And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.” I kept thinking about my friend the mullein.

            About a half mile from my home, near the Winooski River, there was once a wooded area. Over the last 2 years, the land has been cleared, presumably for development. Among piles of stumps, debris and tree corpses, a familiar fuzzy plant began to spring up. By the second year, these biennials had spikes of flowers among the hairy leaves. Some day the land may be under asphalt or under manicured lawns, but right now, my friend the mullein “bringeth forth her bud.”

            About 20 years ago, I lived in an apartment that had a garden space in the back.  For those who wonder, a large portion of Chittenden County has near 100% clay soil. A garden of clay doesn’t tend to allow much to grow. Over 5 or 6 years I composted, planted and waited. I became rather proud of my once barren garden as it gradually changed from clay to viable soil. It even returned some pleasing vegetables and flowers for my efforts.

            There is something inside me that is born to turn clay into viable soil. I’m not an expert gardener but I love leaving the ground better because I was there. My friend’s photo of a “weed” jump-started my prayers today. As I meditated upon the symbolism, I couldn’t help but conclude that the plant world is very like the world of humanity. Each soul has its place and destiny in this marvelously intricate life.

It may sound goofy, but aren’t some of us born like clover, fixing nitrogen into the soil so other plants can thrive? Some of us vine and wrap the soil so it won’t wash away. Some of us send down mighty roots bringing water to a thirsty land. Some of us flourish after others have laid the groundwork, bringing joy and beauty and nourishment.

            Today, I salute the mulleins of the world. Your work is hard, but you do it, growing and blooming where you are planted. You bring hope and color to a barren place. Stark beauty draws you and you can’t help but make it more beautiful for the next generation.

            And if you can soothe an earache or calm a cough, that’s an added bonus.

            Shalom.