“Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.”

- C.S. Lewis

Filings is an ongoing section of this blog where the posts focus specifically on issues of Christian life. The name comes about because "filings" are the natural by-product of Proverbs 27:17: "as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

A Little Girl’s Prayer
(As told by Helen Roseveare, a doctor missionary from England to Zaire, Africa)

One night I had worked hard to help a mother in the labor ward; but in spite of all we could do she died leaving us with a tiny premature baby and a crying two-year-old daughter. We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive, as we had no incubator (we had no electricity to run an incubator) and no special feeding facilities. Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly with treacherous drafts. One student midwife went for the box we had for such babies and the cotton wool the baby would be wrapped in. Another went to stoke up the fire and fill a hot water bottle. She came back shortly in distress to tell me that in filling the bottle, it had burst. Rubber perishes easily in tropical climates.

"And it is our last hot water bottle!" she exclaimed.

As in the West it is no good crying over spilled milk, so in Central Africa it might be considered no good crying over burst water bottles. They do not grow on trees, and there are no drugstores down forest pathways. "All right," I said, "Put the baby as near the fire as you safely can; sleep between the baby and the door to keep it free from drafts. Your job is to keep the baby warm."

The following noon, as I did most days, I went to have prayers with any of the orphanage children who chose to gather with me. I gave the youngsters various suggestions of things to pray about and told them about the tiny baby. I explained our problem about keeping the baby warm enough, mentioning the hot water bottle. The baby could so easily die if it got chills. I also told them of the two-year-old sister, crying because her mother had died.

During the prayer time, one ten-year-old girl, Ruth, prayed with the usual blunt conciseness of our African children. "Please, God," she prayed, "send us a water bottle. It’ll be no good tomorrow, God, as the baby’ll be dead, so please send it this afternoon."

While I gasped inwardly at the audacity of the prayer, she added by way of corollary, "And while You are about it, would You please send a dolly for the little girl so she’ll know You really love her?" As often with children’s prayers, I was put on the spot. Could I honestly say,"Amen"? I just did not believe that God could do this. Oh, yes, I know that He can do everything. The Bible says so. But there are limits, aren’t there? The only way God could answer this particular prayer would be by sending me a parcel from the homeland. I had been in Africa for almost four years at that time, and I had never, ever received a parcel from home. Anyway, if anyone did send me a parcel, who would put in a hot water bottle? I lived on the equator!

Halfway through the afternoon, while I was teaching in the nurses' training school, a message was sent that there was a car at my front door. By the time I reached home, the car had gone, but there, on the verandah, was a large twenty-two pound parcel! I felt tears pricking my eyes. I could not open the parcel alone, so I sent for the orphanage children. Together we pulled off the string, carefully undoing each knot. We folded the paper, taking care not to tear it unduly. Excitement was mounting. Some thirty or forty pairs of eyes were focused on the large cardboard box.

From the top, I lifted out brightly colored, knitted jerseys. Eyes sparkled as I gave them out. Then there were the knitted bandages for the leprosy patients, and the children looked a little bored. Then came a box of mixed raisins and sultanas – these would make a nice batch of buns for the weekend. Then, as I put my hand in again, I felt the . . .could it really be? I grasped it and pulled it out – yes! A brand-new, rubber hot water bottle! I cried. I had not asked God to send it; I had not truly believed that He could.

Ruth was in the front row of the children. She rushed forward, crying out, "If God has sent the bottle, He must have sent the dolly, too!" Rummaging down to the bottom of the box, she pulled out the small, beautifully dressed dolly. Her eyes shone! She had never doubted! Looking up at me, she asked, "Can I go over with you, Mummy, and give this dolly to that little girl, so she’ll know that Jesus really loves her?"

That parcel had been on the way for five whole months! Packed up by my former Sunday school class, whose leader had heard and obeyed God's prompting to send a hot water bottle, even to the equator. And one of the girls had put in a dolly for an African child – five months before – in answer to the believing prayer of a ten-year-old to bring it "that afternoon."

"Before they call, I will answer!" Isaiah 65:24

*Helen Roseveare, a doctor missionary from England to Zaire, Africa, told this as it happened to her in Africa. She told it in her testimony on a Wednesday night at Thomas Road Baptist Church.

Filings is an ongoing section of this blog where the posts focus specifically on issues of Christian life. The name comes about because "filings" are the natural by-product of Proverbs 27:17: "as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

Yes, everyone has a level of morality, whether it is self-formulated or externally applied: "I won't do this, even though I might want to, because I think it is wrong," vs. "I won't do that, even though I might want to, because I don't want to get arrested." And if you're grading on the curve, there are "good" people everywhere inside and outside of religion. I'm reminded, however, of the account of the rich, young ruler in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke who came to Jesus and asked:

"Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus responded to him by saying, "Why do you call me good? There is none good but God. But if you will enter into life, keep the commandments." (Matthew 19:17, Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19).

This essentially becomes a worldview issue. To use my friend's terms (though perhaps not his definitions), a "humanist" sees people as essentially good, a "fundamentalist" sees people as essentially bad, or sinful (there are obviously a lot of shadings within the groups, including those in either camp who wouldn't necessarily include themselves in their respective groups, but let's go with these terms for now). You can argue over which side can bring the most compelling evidence in support of its case.

People generally accept there should be a standard of goodness; it comes down to whether this should be a fundamental and timeless standard, or an evolving one complete with exceptions and penumbras. Roping myself to the fundamentalist side, I'd go for the eternal, if unattainable, standard over the one that relies on the shifting currents of human wisdom and fashion. I do so even though I believe that all of us, regardless of philosophy, have what Bonhoeffer calls "the vigilant religious instinct of man for the place where grace is to be obtained at the cheapest price." It's my belief that society is better served by acknowledging these "stretch goals," even if large numbers ignore them, and even if there is a wide gap between what the culture deems "desirable" and what it sees as "acceptable".

What struck me about the SCOTUS rulings on the Commandments and the Constitution is that both are important documents and were written down so that we could remember them and consult them authoritatively. If the people don't know what they say then you can make them - commandment or the Constitution - say whatever you want, especially if you are a Supreme Court justice.

Now some will question the reasonableness of believing there is a divine standard in the first place, and the constitutionality of displaying it even if there is. It certainly makes for robust and, sometimes, even civil debate. For me, however, God is not a concept or an ideal. I have felt His tangible presence, seen His miraculous intervention in my life, even heard His voice. (So has Sandy, and you can read her recent account here.) And yet I still have better than an even chance of breaking many of the commandments every day. That, however, will have to wait for another post, as will my thoughts on the rest of what my friend e-mailed to me:

It's not a matter of whether what's on the Commandments is a standard or not, it's rather that they talk specifically to a standard established by a religion--they are, after all, supposedly the word of God, but that's a very specific, Judeo-Christian God. The laws of the country are established by consensus of the individuals herein (in theory, of course, being representational government and all) and one of the key parts is that said government "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Accepting the commandments de facto does just that. Establishing murder as illegal establishes that the society has deemed this behavior immoral, regardless of our varied religions. Laws can and do incorporate the ten commandments, but the 10, as a group, in the wording of the Bible, represent a specific religious segment. That's why we find it offensive. We believe that standards of behavior as established by the state should not pander to any one religious order but rather to the collective will of the moralities of all the American religions, which includes no religion. Contrary to fundamentalist belief, even humanists have morality. :)

There are some good points in there and some things I want to respond to, especially regarding what "establishment" means and how the "collective will of the moralities of all American religions" are expressed, but this post is already long even though I've avoided any number of tangents that occurred to me while I was writing this. I hope to return to this topic soon, and I invite your comments as well.