Author: jgarrison

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Nevada 375 and Rachel, Nevada

Title slide with photo of dry rain along Nevada 375
One house we worked on was located near here, where the road is still washed out.

I’ve been away this week, working on a Helene rebuild mission out of Burnsville, North Carolina, so I don’t have time to write anything new. I wrote this piece many years ago and some of you may have read it in another blog. I tried to update and clean up the language a bit before reposting it. Recently, I learned another friend had spent time working around Tonopah, Rachel, Caliente, Nevada on a government contract. He, too, was surprised that not only did I know of these places but had been there many times. Thinking of him, I thought I’d republish it.

The last time I was in Rachel was in 2010, as I drove across Central Nevada, heading from Death Valley to my old stomping ground in Cedar City, Utah.

Rachel, NV during daylight. Photo from the internet


I see the lights of Rachel a good ten miles away, soon after crossing Queen City Summit. “The bar will be open,” I say to myself, “I’ll grab a cup of coffee and stretch my legs and take in some of the night air.”

It’s after ten, early September 1995. I still have two hundred miles to drive to get home, having spent the past two weeks backpacking along the John Muir Trail in the Sierras. When I got off the trail, I learned my parents were driving in the next day, which meant an all-night drive. In the hundred miles since Tonopah, I’ve only passed a couple of vehicles. I roll my windows down and stick my head outside, trying to stay awake and alert. I pop cassette tapes in and out, playing them loudly and trying to find something to keep me awake. Nothing comes in on the radio, except some distant AM talk station from Los Angeles. 

I try to stay awake for nobody’s likely to see if you run off the road in this country. Making it more dangerous, this is open range. I share the road with cows. They’re hard to see at night and often seek the blacktop for warmth. If I run into one of these beasts and die, my estate will get to pay for the cow. 

“Thank God for Rachel,” I mumble, thinking about how this is one of two stops in the next two hundred miles where I can get coffee. I topped off my tank in Tonopah. Experience taught me the few gas stations along this stretch will close before I drive through.

Entering town, I pull off at the “Little A”le’Inn,” the center of Rachel’s night life. I’m shocked to see so many cars and people mulling around. Normally, there might be a car and a pickup or two out front. Tonight, I must search to find a parking place. The line to the bar starts at the front door.

What’s going on?” I ask the guy in front of me. 

“It’s Labor Day weekend,” he says, “people come from all over on Labor Day and Memorial Day weekends to check out the UFOs.” I’d noticed just outside the front door, mounted on a tripod, a parabolic listening device. These people are serious. Many of them have cameras and binoculars dangling from their necks. At the booth closest to me a guy cleans the lens for their cameras I consider telling him not to bother, as I’ve yet to see picture of a UFO taken through a clean lens. But I hold my tongue. 

“Do you think they’re really UFOs out here?” I ask the guy in front of me.

“I’m not sure, but you see some strange things,” he says, adding that he mostly comes up from Vegas to enjoy the party.

I look around at the eclectic crowd. There are dudes with pencil protectors in their shirt pockets talking to guys with tie-died t-shirts. Some look college-aged. Others probably have great-grandchildren. Many appear to have been strung out on drugs since the 60s. A few may have come straight from a desk job at IBM. It looks like a lot of fun, and I imagine myself as a reporter for the Rolling Stones, getting to know these people and writing about their shindig. Unfortunately, I must get back home.

 It takes me a while to get up to the bar and then I must wait for the bartender to make another pot of coffee. Then he fills my Maverick[1] insulated cup. I head outside, climb into the car and drive eastward into the darkness, over Coyote Summit and across Tikaboo Valley. It’s sad to leave the lights behind, for even if they don’t see a UFO, they’ll going to have a good time.

In my travels between California and Utah, I stopped at Rachel a dozen or more times. In the late 90s and early 2000s, there were only two businesses in town. The gas station sat on the east end. It includes a store which would make a 7-11 appear to be a supermarket. I’ve never seen it open after dark and their hours seemed to be irregular, another reason why I topped off my tank before heading this direction.

The Little A’Le’Inn sat on the west end of town. A combo restaurant, bar, casino, and motel, it reminds me of a scaled down version of Bruno’s Country Club in Gerlack, Nevada. The Inn seemed thrown together and wouldn’t make the Triple A Guidebook. But people come here because Rachel is the closest town to the supersecret Area 51, where some believe our government holds intergalactic aliens as POWs. Others think the government made a secret pack with some space race to dominate the world. I don’t believe it, but there are strange things seen in the skies along this highway. 

Driving along this stretch of highway, I’ve been scared out of my pants when a jet, flying what seemed to be 50 feet above my car came up behind me. I first noticed the. shadow. Because of his speed, I didn’t hear him until he’s gone.

Once, while checking out the mining sites in the Timpahute Range northeast of Rachel with Ralph, we watched several jets in apparent dogfight. I’ve never seen such aerial maneuvers, as they turned and swirled back and forth. One jet climbed almost straight up like a rocket, only to turn and come back to earth at supersonic speeds. When the jet disappeared behind the mountain, we looked for a fireball. We assumed it crashed. Then, to our surprise, the plane pulled back up and climb again as two jets made the same maneuver. Neither of us could believe that a plane could perform like that. 

Sun setting amongst Joshua Trees in Central Nevada



This is barren country. The government controls all the land land south of Rachel. This is a training ground and bombing range for Nellis Air Force Base. They tested stealth fighters and bombers here. The vast area also contains the Nevada Test Site, where nuclear weapons used to be regularly tested.

Rachel is a relatively new town. In the 1860s, the town of Tempiute grew up around a vein of silver to the northeast. That petered out. Later, a tungsten deposit was discovered. Until the 1980s, Union Carbide ran a mine there. Most of the miners lived in Rachel. A few ranches dot the countryside along 375, but it takes a lot of this poor arid soil to produce enough grass to feed a cow.

Every time I stopped at the “Little A’Le’Inn” I meet interesting people. Once there was a family from Germany who came to see UFOs. Another time there were several young adults from the Netherlands. One evening, there was a couple at the bar who had driven up from Las Vegas. They were nearly out of gas. The gas station had already closed for the day (and the owners had headed to Vegas for dinner), so the couple rented a room at the motel and made the best of the evening by drinking heavily. They probably saw some good sights that night as well as some bugs on the wall in the morning.

The bartender is always willing to offer advice as to the best places to supposedly see UFOs. And the walls of the place have pictures and clippings about UFOs and even a signed photograph of Spock from Star Trek. In the mid-1990s, Nevada 375 became known as the “The Extraterrestrial Highway,” a move which helped draw in the curious to support Rachel’s businesses. 

I’m sure most people who drive across Nevada 375 think it’s the worst road to travel, but I find comfort in the desolation. US 50 crosses Nevada way to the north. In the 1960s, Life Magazine dubbed US 50 the loneliness road in America. Compared to Nevada 375, Highway 50 is a crowded freeway. 

Each end of Nevada 375 is located at a hot spring. The road begins at the site of Warm Springs along US 6. A gas station with a swimming pool sat at the junction, but by the 90s had closed. You can still stop and soak your feet in the warm sulfur smelling water as it runs through a ditch. Crystal Springs is at the other end of the 98-mile highway, at the junction with US 93, which leads south to Vegas and north to Ely. The springs are huge, with deep pools of warm water creating a large wetland and bird sanctuary which never freezes.

For those interested, there are other hot springs in the area. Just south on US 93 are the communities of Ash and Alamo, both of which have hot springs. Further to the east is Caliente, another town with hot springs located in cement pools at one of the towns 1950ish hotels. 

trains passing through Caliente, Nevada

If you travel this road, be prepared. It’s a long way to help. Limited services can be found in Tonopah (108 miles west of Rachel) and Caliente (98 miles to the east of Rachel). The nearest city is Las Vegas, 140 miles south of Rachel, on the other side of the government’s testing area which is closed off to the public.

[1] Maverik is the name of a chain of gas stations and convenient stores.

Other Nevada Adventures:

Great Basin Mining Adventure

Reno to Pittsburgh (April 1989)

Sunday drive to Gerlach

Driving West in ’88

Matt, Virginia City 1988

Doug and Elvira: A Pastoral Tale

Christmas Eve 1988

Easter Sunrise Services (a part of this article recalls Easter Sunrise Service in Virginia City in 1989)

The Revivals of A. B. Earle (an academic paper published inAmerican Baptist Historical Society Quarterly, part of these revivals were in Virginia City in 1867) 

Eddie Larson, a good shepherd (he ran his sheep on BLM land in Eastern Nevada during the winter).

Riding in the cab of a steam locomotive

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Praising God

Title. slide with photo of Mayberry and Bluemont Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
September 21, 2025
Psalm 113

At the beginning of worship:

I’m sure most of you remember the long running TV show, MASH, which lasted three times as long as the Korean War, which it portrayed. One of the more compelling characters in the show was Father Mulcahy, the Catholic priest who served as field hospital’s chaplain. 

In one episode, Father Mulcahy had the blues. Observing the hard work of the surgeons, nurses, and medics to save lives, he complained that all he could do was pray. But then a man on the operating room table took a turn for the worse. Nothing the surgeons did stopped the man’s decline. Mulcahy was brought over. He prayed. Suddenly, the man began to improve. 

“You’re sure you’re not useful,” Hawkeye asked. The shy and humble chaplain said, “It’s not supposed to work that way.”[1]

Of course, it is supposed to work that way. Only it often doesn’t. We pray and someone still dies. But we’re still called to pray and to hope and to do what we can to help. Maybe we should remember to include in our prayers the caveat from Jesus who prayed, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”[2]

Before reading the Scripture:
As we jump around the Psalms, today we’ll look at Psalm 113. Like Psalm 112[3], which we explored a few weeks ago, Psalm 113 is a positive Psalm which makes two points. First, we’re called to praise God. The second point is the reason why we praise God, and it has to do with the nature of God to help those overlooked by society. Just like Psalm 112, which seems a little unrealistic in its promise of riches descending on the righteous, this Psalm also has an unrealistic theme. It promises blessings to the poor blessings and children to barren women. We’ll need to think about what this means because we know it doesn’t always work that way. 

The language and the poetry of this Psalm is beautiful. It begins and ends with a Hallelujah, often translated as “Praise the Lord!” Faithful Jews who gathered with family and friends at Passover would recite these words. Perhaps even Jesus used this Psalm during the last supper, celebrating Passover with the disciples.

In the Hebrew, the Psalm consist of three stanzas. Verses 1-3 calls us to praise God, verses 4-6 reminds of God’s majesty and why God should be praised. The final three verses illustrate God’s mercy.[4] Let’s look at the Psalm and see what we might learn about God and why all of us should praise God. 

Read Psalm 113


Our Psalm begins with an imperative. The opening “Hallelujah,” translated as “Praise the Lord” in our reading, isn’t a suggestion. It’s a command with two components.  First, we begin now to praise God, and we continue as long as we have breath. And God’s people are always to be praising the Lord. For those of us exploring this Psalm from this side of the Jesus’ resurrection, as we see in the book of Revelation, this task continues into eternity.[5]

Second, we learn God is to be praised continually, throughout our waking hours. From the rising of the sun to its setting, the Psalm commands. In a world without electrical lights, people slept when it was dark. During the daylight hours, people were awake and going about their work, but they were also to praise God. As the lamp in the temple burned continually, reminding the people that their prayers of praise should continually rise to God. Or as the Apostle Paul said, “Pray without ceasing.”[6]  

In other words, our lives are to be a witness, a prayer. This doesn’t mean we are to be on our knees all day. Nor should Hallelujahs come out of our mouths continually. We praise God by how we live and how we relate to others. 

After the command to praise, the Psalm provides the reasons behind such instruction. First, we’re given a theology of praise. We praise God because nothing is greater. God stands above everything. Nations, the earth, even the heavens. The cosmology of the Psalmist places God outside of everything that’s created. This includes the heavens and the earth. We think of God in heaven, but the Psalmist doesn’t pin God down even there. Instead, God the creator stands free from even the heavens. God stands above all, and no one can compare to God. Our minds cannot understand the grandeur and splendor of God. Yet, we are to praise.

The second set of reasons for praise has to do with God not abandoning creation. Our God is not the God envisioned by the Deists, like some of our nation’s founding fathers, who saw God as the watchmaker. God creates, winds up the watch, then stands back and observes the ticking, not intervening. But the Psalmist doesn’t see God in such a manner. The God of the Hebrew people, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, isn’t like this. God continues to be involved in creation. 

We’re given two examples. First, God remains concern for the least of us. The poor and the needy, those often overlooked by others, remain on God’s heart. We also saw this last week when we looked at Psalm 14. In that Psalm, God stands against those who think they control the world and don’t have to answer anyone as they abuse the poor. God provides a refuge for the poor and the righteous. Those who think they can get away with “eating the poor” will experience the terror of a righteous and just deity.

In today’s Psalm, we learn that God looks out for the poor. God raises up the poor from the dust, which should remind us of Genesis, where God created the first man out of the ground and gave him breath.[7] In other words, God gives new life to the poor. 

During the Passover celebration, this Psalm is paired with Psalm 114, which recalls God’s wonders during the Exodus. In this case, the people are reminded that they were once poor, whether slaves in Egypt or the dust of the ground.  

The second half of verse seven recalls the image of the needy being lifted from the ash heap. We can imagine the lepers and others forced to live outside the city walls literally on the dung heap, as the “ash heap” can also be translated.

God not only lifts the poor and needy but seats them on the podium with princes. The poor and the needy will become people of honor. 

The final example of God’s faithfulness is how God looks upon barren women. The translation is that God provides her a home, but the root meaning goes deeper. God seats such women in a happy home, just as God places the poor and needy on the throne with princes.[8] Finally, God makes such women the joyful mother of children.

For the Hebrew faithful reciting this Psalm in the temple or in their homes during Passover, they would be immediately drawn to consider Abraham’s wife Sarah, and Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Both women were without children until late in life. Other women who might be recalled were Rebekah and Rachel.[9]Barren woman in the ancient world were particularly vulnerable, which is why God looks out for them. 

Of course, there is a problem with this. We’ve all known those who are poor and needy, some who have been faithful and have cried out to God. Yet, not many of them ever sat on the podium with highfalutin folk. Even worse, we hear of malnourished children dying in the Gaza and in the Sudan and Congo. And we’re left to question why God didn’t answer their prayers.  And most preachers know of women who avoid church on Mother’s Day, for their prayers haven’t been answered in the manner they’d like. 

None of us should assume we know better than God, but why does God act sometimes and not in others. Had Hannah been the only barren women in Israel when Samuel was born? Probably not. Yet, there are times when God interrupts in history, which gives us hope and the second reason to praise God.

Today’s Psalm demands us to praise of God and gives us reasons to so. At the very least, we should praise God when the sun rises or when we awake. And again, when it sets or as we fall asleep. While it is okay to ask God for what we need, we should never forget to give God thanks with praise. Will we listen?” Amen.

[1] I was reminded of this episode in Scott Hoezee’s commentary on the text. See https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2025-09-15/psalm-113-4/

[2] Matthew 6:10.

[3] See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2025/08/31/psalm-112-the-blessing-of-the-righteous/

[4] Stan Mast, commentary on Psalm 113. See https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2016-09-12/psalm-113/

[5] See Revelation 4, 7:15.

[6] 1 Thessalonians 5:17. 

[7] Genesis 2:7.

[8] Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms: A Translation and Commentary (New York, Norton, 2007), 404, 9.

[9] See Genesis 11:30, 25:21,29:31, and 1 Samuel 1. See Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984),162.  See also Athur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary (1958, Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 707-708,

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More good and bad stories from the bakery


Looking back over the five of posts I wrote about my experiences in the bakery, it seems a lot of bad things that happen. That’s not true, but the challenging days do stick in my memory more than the regular “good” days. That goes for most of our lives. 

A few weeks ago, I told you about the challenges which happened at night. But sometimes bad things even happened during the day, as was the case one hot afternoon. I was over at the oven talking to John Z, when things started going crazy. All a sudden, the oven, proof box and cooler stopped. But the conveyors kept running. The de-panner was also running, but there was no vacuum and the bread wasn’t being pulled out of the pan. As John started pulling pans off the conveyor, I hit the horn and a mechanic came running. Both of us agreed it appeared we had lost air. 

We headed down to the compressor room. Sure enough, none of the compressors were running. By this time, there were calls coming over the intercom throughout the bakery with other people having problems. Not finding the problem, we ran back up into the plant and were shocked to see several conveyor motors with flames coming out of them. I started shutting down everything (as soon as the power to the conveyors were killed, the motors stopped burning) as the mechanic went to find the maintenance engineer. Coming out of the shop, the engineer realized immediately that we no longer had three phase electricity and pulled the main circuit breaker coming into the building. 

Everything went dark. A call was placed to Carolina Power and Light. It took them about thirty minutes to have the problem fixed and we had a mess to clean up. While production stopped, the bread waiting in pans in the proof box and along conveyors continued to grow. The bread in the oven continued to bake. We had a long night of cleaning up the proof box and getting the dough off the racks with steam cleaning before we could began making bread. If the dough remained on the racks, it could easily fall into a loaf of bread, creating a discolored hard lump within a loaf. We didn’t finish our work and return to production until the first shift crew returned, meaning that most of us worked 16 hours. 

But our mess wasn’t nearly as big as the one in the front office. They drew power off the same circuit. This was around 1980, and they had one large computer. When the engineer pulled the power switch into the bakery, they also lost power and data. It took them several days to get everything restored. 

Not long after this, the company forked over big bucks to the power company and had them to feed the plant from two directions so if we lost power from one substation, another station would take over. This ended the problems with blimps in power which created havoc with the ovens as I wrote about before. Not being an electrician, I’m not sure if it also protected us from “single phasing,” but we never had that problem again. The compressors and the ovens and equipment with big motors stopped because those motors had protection which shut them down if there was an issue. But there were too many small motors which pulled conveyors. Since it was a lot easier (and cheaper) to replace a ¾ horsepower motor than a 20 or 60 horsepower one, they didn’t have such protection. 

Another problem we had to deal with at the bakery was bad yeast. One summer, we changed from Fleischmann’s to a new brand, Dixie yeast. Supposedly the family owning the bakery had a stake in Dixie Yeast, so we were expected to use this product. At first, things went along smoothly, but after a few weeks, we started having problems primarily with the dough-maker bread. And the problems became worse in the afternoons, when the temperatures soared inside the plant. The bread wouldn’t brown nicely and would have large holes in it, appearing as if it had been over-mixed. Most of us suspected the yeast, but the owners were reluctant to agree. They brought experts who were unable to pinpoint the problem. Finally, someone convinced management to go back to the old yeast and things cleared up. When the “experts” checked the processing at the yeast plant, they learned they used fiberglass tanks which couldn’t be cleaned like stainless steel. Over time, they built up some kind of growth which affected the yeast. For a while, we went back to the yeast we had been using while Dixie Yeast worked out these kinks.

But life at the bakery wasn’t always one problem after another. There were also good times. Although we came from a lot of different backgrounds, we were a family. I enjoyed listening to the old timers tell stories about their career at the bakery or their lives growing up. I don’t remember his name, but the oven operator on the roll line talked about working on an old kerosene oven when he was young, which blew up. He also had a hearing aid and when management came around yelling, he’d turn it off. Several of the people who worked on the roll line had spent a lifetime in the bakery. Harvey, whom I wrote about earlier, had managed a dairy, which had closed when he came over to the bakery.

Scotty, who worked in sanitation, lost an arm in an accident in the Wilmington shipyard during World War II. I asked him if he knew my grandfather who also worked in the shipyard, having left the tobacco farm of North Carolina behind during the war. He said he did,but I think he tried to be nice. When I pressed for information about him, as my grandfather died in 1967, he could recall no real memories. I’d later learn that the shipyard at its peak employed 21,000 people. While Scotty was always nice to me, he had one of the most vulgar minds in the bakery and often said the nastiest things to women. Thankfully, he retired a year or two after I started working at the plant and before I had a chance to supervise him. However, I still called him on his comments, and he agreed it was inappropriate. But it didn’t stop him. 

At break, we’d crowd into the air-conditioned lounge for cold drinks. The air would soon become stale from cigarette smoke. I was one of the few who didn’t smoke, but that was okay for everyone knew I was different. I was the “college boy.” 

Sometimes our friendship extended outside the plant. There were at least half a dozen parties during the years I worked at the bakery (like Linda’s, which I wrote about earlier). Looking back on these, it’s interesting that the parties (at least the ones I attended) had only white folks. Another shock was the number of supervisors who were ten or twenty years older than me who would smoke joints during these parties. As one who eschewed drugs, I found this odd. But in the late 70s and early 80s, smoking pot was common. I expected it at school and with the younger employees, but not among older ones. 

Racial lines were crossed at the annual company picnic and some of us did get together to play basketball in the projects across the street from the plant. While working there, I hunted deer, rabbits and squirrels with Bobby, an African American who ran the bread slicing and wrapping area on first shift. 

Often, we’d have to work on holidays and at Thanksgiving and Christmas. On these days, the company would supply turkeys which were roasted in the back of the roll oven. They also provided the other parts of the meal included mashed potatoes, gravy, vegetables, and brown and serve rolls which we’d be making for weeks before the holiday. On these days, everyone got to pig out on their lunch breaks. 

One of my favorite treats of working night shift occurred shortly after the first bread left the oven. We’d split up a loaf of freshly baked bread, slather it with hot butter (which we had available for the butter-top loaves) and then add honey or molasses. Of course, we worked hard and in heat, so we didn’t have to worry as much about the extra calories.

Upcoming: I have one more post planned I which I will discuss leaving the bakery and it’s demise several years later. 

MORE BAKERY STORIES

More Bakery Stories: Bad Things Happen at Night

Coming of Age in a Bakery: Linda and the Summer of ’76

A College Boy in the Bakery

Harvey and Ernest

Frank and Roosevelt

The Perils of Working on the Christian Sabbath

Remembering Charlie

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Is Atheism really the problem? What does Psalm 14 say?

Title slide with photos of Bluemont and Mayberry Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
September 14, 2025
Psalm 14

Sermon recorded at Mayberry on Friday, September 12, 2025…

At the beginning of worship: 

There are many times I wonder what to say on a Sunday and this morning is one of them. We gather with the assassination of Charlie Kirk fresh in our minds as well as another school shooting in Colorado. Such events are too common. Just in the past few months we’ve witnessed the assassination of a Democratic legislator and the attempted assassinated of another in Minnesota. And there was the burning of the Governor of Pennsylvania’s home while he and his family slept. And a host of school shootings occurred. Outrage on social media seems to be at an all-time high.  

At times like this, as Christ’s followers, we should concern ourselves with how we reflect the love and the grace of Jesus Christ. How can we not enflame the rhetoric and be the peacemakers we’re called to be? How can we love, even our enemies, as we’re called? 

Psalm 1, which I’ll refer to later in my sermon this morning, speaks of the two paths before us.[1] Do we follow the path of the sinners and scoffers, or the path of the righteous who delight in the law and ways of the Lord? As we’ll see today, carrying and not abusing others for our personal benefit is imperative if we want to be with the godly. 

Before reading the scripture: 

Two weeks ago, in our journey around the Psalms, we looked at Psalm 112. I mentioned my dislike of the Psalm, as it proclaims blessings for righteousness. At times, that seems far-fetched.[2]At least, in the present world. Today, we’ll look at the opposite. 

Psalm 14 curses those who live as if God has no control over their lives. Both Psalms are tricky to peach.

A couple of things about this Psalm. Most Psalms address God. Instead of speaking to God, this Psalm is a prophetic statement by the Psalmist, directed at those whose actions go against God’s Word. While God is mentioned, the Psalm addresses the fools who think God won’t be concerned over their actions. 

Next, this Psalm is repeated almost word-for-word in Psalm 53. However, scholars generally preferred the 14th Psalm as the original seems better preserved here. As much as I would like to ignore this Psalm, when it’s repeated, I should realize God values these words and not disregard them. Repetition biblically emphasizes importance. 

This Psalm can be divided into three parts. It starts with a lament against the wicked who don’t believe in God. But it’s not really about atheism, as I’ll explain. Next, the Psalm serves as a warning against the wicked, followed by a hopeful wish of God intervening and bringing relief to those who suffer at their hands. [3]

Read Psalm 14

I’m going out on a limb and at the risk of oversimplification, suggest there are two kinds of atheists. The philosophical atheist doesn’t believe in God. This doesn’t necessarily make him or her a bad person. You don’t have to believe in God to be a decent human being. And all of us should strive to be decent human beings. 

The second type of atheist may say they believe in God. In fact, they may insist they’re not an atheist. However, their lives don’t act like they believe in God. They live as if they control their own destiny. Such atheists may even be a member of a church. They may proudly proclaim a profession of faith, which makes the second type of atheism more dangerous. And, I suggest, this is the type of atheism referred to in the Psalm. 

Philosophical atheism wasn’t really known in the biblical world. Of course, the Greeks discussed it. Socrates was even condemned to death for atheism. But Socrates denied the charge. He had challenged the leadership of Athens, and the trumped-up charge of atheism allowed the city’s leaders a way to silence him. Plato, from whom we learn much of what we know about Socrates, considered atheism foolish. But that all occurred in Greece, far from Israel.

In the Biblical world, instead of worrying about atheists, Israel’s larger concern were people who went after the gods of their neighbors, especially Baal. A second concern would have been people who lived as if they were God. Such a temptation reaches back to Eden and the Serpent’s promise that eating of the forbidden fruit would make our first parents like God.[4]

So, this opening line isn’t really about atheism as we know it. After all, modern philosophical atheism became popular in the 19thCentury with philosophers like Nietzsche and Marx and brought back into popularity more recently by the likes of Richard Dawkins. But this is not what the Psalmist refers to when he says, “fools say in their hearts there is no God.”  

Notice this Psalm isn’t directed toward those who proclaim out loud that God doesn’t exist. Instead, the Psalm makes such a claim against those who say such things in their hearts. In other words, those who at their very being live as if God doesn’t exist. All of us probably find ourselves tempted in such a manner at some point. And the temptation to want to be our own god is as old as humanity, reaching back to Adam and Eve. 

Let’s face it, those who act as if they are God or above God, or as if for some reason God gives them the right to do what they would like, are all around us. It’s to such people this Psalm speaks. For the Psalmist, these may have been the religious and political elite in Jerusalem, as John Calvin seems to have understood the passage. In his handling of this Psalm, he directs his message toward the clergy during the Reformation who failed to care for their flocks.[5]

Furthermore, this Psalm concerns itself with moral issues more than with theological ones. It’s not that the one doesn’t believe in God, but that one doesn’t act like they don’t have to answer to anyone.[6] The villain in this Psalm doesn’t believe in divine retribution, or that he or she will sooner or later have to atone for his or her sin.[7]

Psalm 14 has a countertheme, this is still God’s world.[8]  And the Psalmist has a message for such villains who think the world belongs to them. God’s watching. The wise aren’t those who act as if they’re almighty, but those who seek after God. The villain, who doesn’t concern him or herself with God, have gone astray or adrift from the truth. In verse four, we learn such individuals think they can use other people for their own enrichment. “They eat up God’s people as if they’re bread,” the Psalmist says. 

This Psalm is attributed to David, who, if you remember, had a righteous streak within him. Do you remember Nathan telling David about a rich man who, instead of taking from his own flock a lamb to feed a traveler, stole the only lamb a poor man owned. David was incensed. He wanted the rich man’s head for his crime, only to hear Nathan’s condemning words, “You are the man.” David had stolen Uriah’s wife and had set up Uriah’s death.[9]

In a way, with this Psalm, David proclaims such a prophecy as he heard from Nathan. But he’s also convicted by it. And in that manner, he’s no different than most humans. We have our good moments and our less than good moments. Our bad moments include trying to use other people for our own benefits without concern for their wellbeing. This Psalm speaks to such situations. That’s abusing and disregarding the needs of others for personal profit, especially the poor who have no means to protect themselves. 

In verses 5 and 6, the Psalm speaks of the terror those who abuse others face. God stands with the poor, with those who are abused by others. God remains a refuge for the righteous. The villains will find themselves, in their quest for ill-gotten gain, in a battle against God. 

Our Psalm ends with a wish and hope.[10] The promised reward, as we learned from Psalm 112 two weeks ago, may be off in the future. The ending of Psalm 14 reminds us that the accounts have not all been settled. Those “fools” who live and act as if God doesn’t exist may seem as if they’re winning in the short run, but judgment awaits. 

What the Psalm encourages the reader to do is to live in a manner which honors all people, especially those who are unable to care for themselves. Then, we won’t have to worry about God seeing what we’re up to and our conscience can be clean. Furthermore, the Psalm wants the readers to know that just because someone seems to live high on the hog while mistreating others, they’ll sooner or later experience the terror of a righteous God.  

Like Psalm 1, this is a wisdom psalm. There are two ways to live, we learn from the first Psalm. We have the path of the sinners, the wicked, and the path of those who delight in God. And as Psalm 14 reminds us, this includes carrying for others. The choice is ours. Amen. 

[1] For a sermon I preached on Psalm 1, see https://fromarockyhillside.com/2023/01/08/psalm-1-two-roads/

[2] See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2025/08/31/psalm-112-the-blessing-of-the-righteous/

[3] Artur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary (1959, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), 164. 

[4] Genesis 3:5.

[5] See Stan Mast’s commentary on this passage: https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2018-07-23/psalm-14/

[6] James L. Mays, Psalm: Interpretation, A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1994), 81.

[7] Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (New York: Norton, 2007), 40. 

[8] Walter Brueggermann, The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 44. 

[9] 2 Samuel 12:1-15. 

[10] Brueggemann, 45. 

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August Book Reviews and James Taylor in Concert

book covers and a photo from the James Taylor concert

I’ve taken this week off to officiate at a funeral in Georgia, which is why there were no sermon posted on Sunday. I’ll be back next Sunday. 

James Taylor Concert

James Taylor and band with the multimedia presentation behind them

In addition to the trip to Georgia, we made another trip with friends to Raleigh, North Carolina last Thursday night, September 4, to attend a James Taylor concert. Although the singer has aged, he’s 77, he put on a good show. And whenever he sings, Carolina in My Mind,” in North Carolina, the crowd erupts as they did this past Thursday.  Before the concert, a friend warned there would be no standing ovations as no one in the crowd would have the knees to get on their feet more than once. But that was not the case. He brought the crowd onto their (our) feet repeatedly.  I loved all his songs about the road and travel. I appreciated his humor and political insights. When speaking about Carole King, he paused, looked to the crowd and said something like, “Oh, by the way, NO KINGS.” It was a good night. 

Most of the summer we have been attending concerts at the Blue Ridge Music Center, which is mostly bluegrass, so it’s good to get back to a bit of rock-n-roll and the music of my youth.

The group of us waiting for James Taylor
The group of us waiting for James Taylor

Derick Lugo, The Unlikely Thru-Hiker: An Appalachian Trail Journey, 

Book cover for "The Unlikely Thru Hiker

narrated by Derick Lugo, (2021), 7 hours and 12 minutes

I picked this book up on a two-for-one sale from Audible. It sounded interesting and humorous. While it doesn’t quite reach the humor of Bill Bryson’s, A Walk in the Woods, I enjoyed reading about his hike and recalling my own hike on the trail nearly 40 years ago. 

Lugo is an African American, which makes him unique on the trail. While I met a few African Americans while hiking, most were only out for a day. The exception was Felipe, a reporter for Springfield Massachusetts, who hiked through his state to write an article about the 50th anniversary of the trail.  While he seemed to get on the nerves of other hikers, I got along with him. When done, he sent me a copy of his articles along with a wonderful black and white photo of me resting against my pack as I wrote a letter. 

Photo of me from 1987, writing a letter while on the Appalachian Trail
1987, on the AT

Lugo was a city dweller. He had spent little time outdoors, which makes him an unlikely hiker. But he is open to learn from others. Furthermore, hiking the trail these days are different in that there are a lot more people on the trail. This allows him to learn from others the skills necessary for such a hike. Furthermore, he appears to be a genuinely nice guy. He strove never to use bad language and respected other hikers. His attitude paid off and he had a wonder trip, telling his readers about this journey and the people he met along the way. 

If interested in the Appalachian Trail, I recommend Lugo’s book.  An excellent storyteller, the book is a delight. 

Gary D. Schmidt, Okay for Now  

Book cover for "Okay for New"

(New York: Clarion Books, 2011), 360 pages with chapter illustrations.

I have enjoyed many of Schmidt’s young adult books (Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, The Wednesday Wars, Orbiting Jupiter , and Trouble). His books deal with serious issues facing adolescence boys and the larger society.  He reminds me of a male version of C. Lee McKenzie, who also takes on such topics with adolescent boys and girls. Lizzie Bright deals with racial issues in early 20th Century, Maine. The Wednesday Wars are played out against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. Orbiting Jupiter deals with teenage parents. And all the books deal with boys coming of age. I met Schmidt a couple of times when I was in West Michigan as he taught in the English Department at Calvin University. I had not heard of this book, but learned about it from Kelly’s blog and immediately picked up a copy at my local library. 

Doug Swieteck is a young teenager who adores the New York Yankees, especially Joe Pepitone. The middle brother steals a hat of his that was a gift from Pepitone.  It’s the 1960s. His oldest brother serves in Vietnam.  While things don’t look good for him, it gets worse.  He moves with his parents and older brother from Long Island to a town in Upstate New York when his father accepted a job in a paper mill. He doesn’t want to move and his first impression with his new town are not good.  

In time Swieteck makes a friend, Lil Spicer. He takes a job with her father delivering groceries on Saturdays. The people in the town seem weird to him, but he gradually warms up to them. He also becomes enamored with the paintings of John James Audubon and with the guidance of a man who works at the library, learns how to paint. 

Swieteck has much to overcome. His father steals from him, taking the salary from his Saturday job (even though he hides the tips he receives). His father’s friend, who got him the job at the meal, is a jerk and seems to egg his father on. The young Swieteck becomes a friend with the manager at his father’s mill at a company picnic. He introduces him to horseshoes, which Swieteck excels. 

For a kid who seem to feel the entire town hated him, Swieteck has amazing experiences. Though one of the clients whom he delivers groceries to, he finds himself on Broadway in her play makes its debut (and Joe Pepitone is in the audience). Also, by the end of the book, things with his family seem to have improved, despite the fact his oldest brother has returned from Vietnam without his legs. But things are not all well, as his friend Lil suffers for an illness that threatens her life. 

This is an easy read. Growing up is seldom easy as Schmidt shows. But a few helpful adults, hard work, and the right attitude can make a difference.

Joseph Heller, Catch 22 

Book cover for Catch 22

(New York: Simon Schuster, 1961), 443 pages, Audible edition (2017), 19 hours and 58 minutes. 

I don’t know why I never read this book. I’ve seen the movie several times, but it’s been 15 or 20 years since I watched it last. The book, I think, funnier than the movie, which is hilarious. As this is a novel about war, it’s dark humor. 

Yossarian (I love that name) is a bombardier on an island in the Mediterranean. The commander of his unit keeps raising the numbers of flights required before they can return to the states. Feeling he’ll die in combat, and that he has already flown more missions than others in the operation theater, he tries everything to avoid making more flights.  His fear is heightened by the death of Snowden, a tail gunner on his plane. Yossarian comforts him and bandages up his leg, telling him he’ll be fine, only to discover a mortal wound under his flight jacket. The incident haunts Yossarian. Yet, when Yossarian is offered a deal to go back to the states, he can’t accept. The deal would be dishonest and not be fair to his fellow airmen. 

This book has a legion of characters such as Major Major (named by his father as a joke) who becomes a major. One can imagine the confusion. Doc Daneeka, the flight surgeon, hates flying and bargains to be added to the flight rooster without flying. This allows him to receive his flight pay. His gig works well until the plane he’s supposedly on is shot down. The army declares him dead. His wife is notified and finds herself the recipient of all kinds of life insurance and burial benefits. She and the kids move without leaving a forwarding address while the doctor is stuck on a war theater without pay.

And then there is the dead man’s stuff in Yossarian’s tent who took off on a flight without having been officially received in the unit. His flight crashed and no one can touch his things since he wasn’t in the unit. And then there is Milo and ex-PFC Wintergreen, who run black market operations who trade with anyone, including the enemy. While they are making a profit (and everyone has a share in Milo’s operations), there are also missteps as when Milo buys all the Egyptian cotton one year and then is unable to unload it. 

There’s plenty of sex in the story. The whores in Rome, cause some of the airmen to fall in love. One, Nately, dies in a plane crash. Yossarian has the unpleasant task of telling “Nately’s whore” of his demise. She, in turn, tries to kill Yossarian, and continues to try to kill him to the end of the book.

There are also relationships between airmen and nurses. The wives of their superiors are also tempting, especially the ignored young wife of training officer back in the states who insisted on drilling the cadets every Sunday afternoon. Violence and sex go together in the book. One officer rapes a maid, then throws her out of a window to her death. Yossarian confronts him as the sirens wail in the distance. Expecting him to be arrested for murder, the MPs march by the dead woman on the sidewalk and up the stairs. They arrest Yossarian for being in Rome without a proper pass. The book is filled with such surprising twists. of events. 

The book, obviously reflecting on the anti-communist sentiment of the McCarthy era, has intelligent officers trying to trap everyone into confessions, from the airmen to the chaplain. Milo, with his syndicate, displays a weird loyalty to capitalism. He will do anything for a profit, including lifting morphine from the plane’s first aid kits. And why he tries to create his own monopoly, even buying and selling products among his own businesses, he doesn’t want to deal with other monopolies as that wouldn’t be capitalistic.

The incompetent rises to the top, such as the special services officer, who oversees entertainment and such pushing out the general over aviation to claim the spot.  Absurdity wins.  The classic “Catch 22” holds that you can’t fly if you’re crazy, but if you claim to be crazy, you can’t be crazy because only a crazy person would fly over enemy territory.  Of course, in the book, everyone is crazy which drives Yossarian crazier.  The book ends with Orr, who everyone thought had died when his plane crashed, is found washed up in Sweden, a neutral county.  Of course, no one knows how Orr make it from the Mediterranean to northern Europe, but it’s enough to give Yossarian hope that he too can make it. 

This is a classic book which I had a used copy for decades. I have no idea why it took me so long to get around to read and listen. I recommend it with a warning. The contains dark humor. Adult situations are numerous and there’s plenty of violence within the pages. The later should come as no surprise as the book is about war. The writing is amazing. Heller can twist a sentence and a delight to witness.  

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Psalm 112: The blessing of the righteous

Title slide with photos of the two churches where this sermon will be preached

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
August 31, 2025
Psalm 112

Sermon recorded at Bluemont on Friday, August 29, 2025

At the beginning of worship: 

Twenty years ago this month, I officiated Jodi’s funeral. An attractive and delightful woman, about my age, she moved back to Hastings where I was serving a church. She was in her late 40s. Her last year she lived with her elderly mother because of a terrible illness. I don’t remember the name, but the disease, which I think was hereditary, caused a stiffing of muscles. It eventually killed her because she could no longer breath, a terrible way to go. 

Jodi’s mother, Joan, was a saint. When Jodi moved back to town, it was all Joan could do help her move from the bed to a chair or go to the bathroom. Joan herself was frail, but she threw herself into the task at hand. Eventually, she had to have nursing help and Jodi remained mostly in bed. During this time, I visited her several times. Her mind was sharp, and she always expressed a joyful attitude despite being in pain. She was a lovely soul who never complained. I could only imagine how I would be if I was in her situation. 

I haven’t thought about Jodi for years, but as I started reading our morning’s Psalm in preparation for today’s sermon, she came to mind.

This morning I want you to ask yourself, “Why do we praise God?” Is it out of the hope to be rewarded? Or because of God’s nature? 

Before the reading of the Scripture: 

This week, as we explore the Psalms, we’re looking at Psalm 112. There are good reasons why I haven’t preached on this Psalm in my 36 years of preaching weekly. It sounds too simplistic. Obey God and you’ll be blessed. I expect most of us know godly people, like Jodi whom I introduced earlier, who in this life wasn’t blessed. At least not blessed in any recognizable fashion. 

There is a close connection between Psalm 111 and Psalm 112. Neither Psalm is attributed to a particular author, but most scholars think the same author wrote both. Nor do we have any hints as to the date or circumstance of either Psalm. Psalm 111 focuses on God’s praise and ends with a line from wisdom literature, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”[1]This is followed in Psalm 112 with the blessings offered to those who fear God. [2]

Furthermore, both Psalms 111 and 112 are acrostic poems. Each “measure” within the poem begins with the next letter within the Hebrew alphabet.[3] Of course, it’s impossible to faithfully translated such a poem. After all, the Hebrew language has only 22 letters verses our 26 letters. And it’s impossible to have a word starting with the same letter in both languages. 

Let’s listen to this Psalm. You might want to keep your Bibles open afterwards, as we work through this poem. 

Read Psalm 112

At our Men’s Breakfast and Bible Study on Tuesday, we read this passage. Before I say anything, I generally begin by asking for everyone’s first thoughts. One person pointed that this passage challenged the concept of the inerrancy of scripture. 

Certainly, there are things in scripture which go against these words. Job, the faithful servant, who lost everything. Jesus, the faithful Son, who dies a horrible death. And even in our own lives, we all know people who are basically good, but don’t reap the benefits spoken of here. My mind went to Jodi, whom I introduced earlier. So, let’s take a few minutes and explore this Psalm, asking ourselves what we might learn from it. 

Psalm 112, like Jesus’ opening lines in the Sermon of the Mount which we used as our call to worship this morning, is a beatitude.[4] The Psalm promises blessings to the righteous. And who are the righteous? The first verse identities them as those who fear God and delight in God’s commandments. The fourth and fifth verse tells us they’re a light in darkness. Graciousness, mercy, righteous and justice characterizes them. The seventh verse tells us of their lack of fear of evil and in the ninth verse show they care for the poor. 

In other words, the blessed righteous in this Psalm don’t just have faith or trust in God. They haven’t just prayed the sinner’s prayer and then gone about their lives. They live out their faith by helping others. Their conscious is clear, and they trust God enough to know everything will be okay.

We’re not provided with much insight about the makeup of the wicked in this Psalm, only that they become angry at the blessings experienced by the righteous. Just like the blessings of the righteous, this seems paradoxical. After all, it often seems as if the wicked prosper. People who cheat and win are often applauded, but such actions do not find approval in scripture.

The movie Wall Street, which was released in 1987, shows this. The movie also provides hope that things might turn out differently. In the movie, Bud, played by Charlies Sheen, struggles as a young stockbroker. Trying to get ahead, he develops a relationship with Gordon Gekko, a shady character played by Michael Douglas. Gekko has lots of money to invest and likes sure things, which he usually obtains from illegal insider trading. I remember reading a few years after the movie who Douglas was shocked by people’s reaction. He thought they should be repulsed by his character, but too many wanted to be Gekko. 

Bud becomes fabulously rich, but when he learns Gekko plans to destroy the airlines where his father (played by his real father, Martin Sheen) works as a mechanic, he has a change of heart. He begins to plot against Gekko. As this plays out, the Security and Exchange Commission, who has been investigating Bud’s activities, step in and arrest him. It’s obvious, he’s bound for jail. 

The next scene involves a meeting with Gekko in a park. Gekko beats up Bud for turning against him and causing him to lose money. Bud takes the beating, refusing to fight back. As he cleans himself up afterwards in a rest room, we learn he wore a wire, provided by investigators who hope they can also take down Gekko’s illegal dealings. Bud goes to court expecting to go to jail, but also knows he’ll get a lighter sentence. Furthermore, he’s promised an honest job once he pays his dues. 

While the movie’s final scene shows Bud walking up the steps to the courthouse, we have some sense Gekko himself will experience the long arm of the law. 

Sadly, things are often not as clear cut as we’d like. Sometimes justice takes time, as the movie shows. Neither justice nor blessings move as fast as we’d like or as this Psalm indicates. Rotten and corrupt people often end up on top, at least in the present. 

Because of the condition of this world, the Psalms of Lament, where we cry out because of the injustice we experience or see, seem much more appropriate than a Psalm of blessings. 

Which leads me to ask how are the righteous blessed? In the present, their blessing might just be one thing. They don’t lose sleep over their sins, their dishonesty, and their crimes. They can relax and sleep well, knowing they’ve strived to live honorable and noble lives. That’s why the Psalm says they’re not afraid. On the other hand, the wicked who live with skeletons in their closets must always stay on top of their lies. They know that at any time, their house of cards might topple down.[5] They are like Bud in the movie Wall Street, knowing a knock on the door could bring the Security and Exchange Commission with handcuffs. 

And, of course, if the wicked are not caught in this life, like all of us they will have to stand before the throne of judgment one day and give account of their lives.[6] So even if the wicked appear to win, they will lose where it matters most. 

The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann classified Psalm 112 as a “Psalm of Orientation.”  This Psalm shows how we should adapt our lives to live within God’s favor. We’re to focus on God and do what God desires from us. The Psalm shows that our contentment comes from how we relate to others.[7] Do we give generously, practice justice, care for poor, and remain faithful to God? Goodness isn’t just a state of being. It comes from our actions as we work for the wellbeing of others. 

This Psalm teaches us that our happiness is created within social relationships.[8] When we let greed or our desire to be self-sufficient get in the way of our relationship with others, we have missed the boat. 

One thing this Psalm demonstrate is that riches are not proof of one’s relationship to God. The Psalm does not support the heretical Prosperity Gospel, which teaches blessings come to the faithful. That goes against much of Scripture. After all, God sends rain upon the just and unjust.[9] Money and possessions are not signs of a blessed life in this Psalm. The blessed in this life (and the next) are those who follow God’s teachings and strive to help others. 

Use this Psalm as a guide for your life. You might not become rich, but you’ll be living in a godly manner. Amen. 

[1] See Job 28:28, Proverbs 1:7, 9:10, 15:3.  In the Apocrypha book of Sirach, the opening chapter is a praise of wisdom (see Sirach 1:14, 16, 18, 20). See also Sirach 15:11, 19:20 and 12:11. 

[2] Artur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary, Herbert Hartwell translator (1959, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), 703. 

[3] James L. Mays, Psalms: Interpretation, a Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1994), 359. 

[4] See Matthew 5:3-12.

[5] Idea from a commentary on this passage by Scott Hoezee. See https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2019-08-26/psalm-112-2/

[6] While the concept of eternal judgment wasn’t fully developed as the Psalms were written, the Psalms are within a larger canon including the New Testament in which judgment exists. This doesn’t mean those who break such laws are unable to get into heaven, but for them to make it into heaven, they will have to be purified of their greed and injustice. 

[7] Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 47. 

[8] Brueggemann, 46. 

[9] Matthew 5:45.

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Bakery Stories: Bad Things Happen at Night

title slide with loaf of Holsum bread

The Horrific

During my five years at the bakery, it seems bad things often happened at night. Shortly after I started, a woman working the night shift on the roll line was raped in the women’s locker room. I never knew her, don’t even know if I ever saw her, but she never came back to work. The rapist slipped into the plant and hid in the women’s locker room. I don’t even know if they ever caught the man. 

This incident forced the company to develop more stringent security around the plant, including a card reader at the entrance. It was probably long overdue.

A Neighborhood Shooting

A year or so later, on a hot sticky night when I was working night shift during my summer break from classes, I drove up to a surreal scene. Police and ambulances with their lights flashing were parked in front of the plant. The chalk outline of two bodies could be seen on the sidewalk. Yellow police tape ran from the corner by the entry door and across the front of the plant along 13th Street. They were loading two body bags into the waiting ambulance as I arrived. 

I wondered if I should even go to work that evening. It was eerie entering the plant as I no idea what had just happened. Obliviously, people died. As soon as I got inside, co-workers told me about the few exciting seconds. Several versions of stories spread around the plant. The only thing anyone could be sure of was that no one from the bakery had been involved in the shooting. 

It turned out, as we learned the next day in the newspaper, the shooter was a jealous husband who lived in a housing project across the street from the bakery. He hid in shrubbery out in front the bakery waiting for his wayward wife and her lover to walk by. When they did, he stepped out and shot her. He then took aim at her lover but missed. As the man ran for his life, the husband turned the gun on himself.

Riding a bicycle to work

I often rode my bicycle to work, especially when I lived in an apartment on Greenfield Lake, about five miles from the bakery. During my first year out of college when I worked the night shift as a supervisor, I had a small office, just large enough to store my bike. I got into the habit of only driving a car when the weather was inclement or on Saturday night. With the housing projects across from the plant, I felt it too risky as a white guy to ride a bike through the neighborhood at midnight on Saturday night.

During the warmer months, I would often leave the bakery in the morning and ride out to Wrightsville Beach and sleep on the beach and do a little swimming before riding home. Then, I’d stay up for a while, going back to bed around 6 PM to catch a few more hours of sleep before returning to work.

Almost burning the bakery down

During the year I worked as a supervisor on the night shift, I was nervous going to work at night, but had only one small disaster. This happened on a rainy night. Harvey, my oven operator, was on vacation. John, who had taken over the second shift oven operator job from me when I was promoted to supervisor, worked Harvey’s shift. This night, I was short staffed in the mixing area and was pitching in when I got a desperate call over the loudspeaker from John telling me that he was having problems raising the temperature on the oven to the proper setting. I checked my watch. It was still 30 minutes before the bread would begin leaving the proof box for the oven. 

As soon as I could, I headed back to the oven with a mechanic. About the time we got to the oven, one of the truck drivers who hauled bread to the warehouses around eastern North and South Carolina, came running back yelling that the roof was on fire. Something clicked. I knew immediately the problem. The dampers on the oven had not been closed. As the mechanic headed to the roof with a fire extinguisher, I told the driver to call the fire department as I ran back to the oven. 

Fixing the problem

Sure enough, the dampers were the problem. Lighting the oven, which was about the size of a house, required that one first open the dampers and purge the oven with air. This made sure there was no gas present and reduced the risk of an explosion. Only after purging could you open the gas valves and begin to light the burners. There were around 70 burners, and each had to be lighted individually, but with an electrical ignition. As soon as all the burners blazed, you closed the dampers. John forgot that part. 

What happened is that thermostats kept calling for more heat. The flames grew larger and drawn into the dampers. Obviously, as we discovered the hard way, the dampers hadn’t been cleaned in some time. Grease built up in one of the dampers, catching fire. As soon as John and I shut the dampers, I grabbed another fire extinguisher and headed to the roof where the mechanic had already extinguished the fire. The rain kept the fire from spreading, but there was a small section of the roof which needed repair. The fire department arrived and checked things out, and the night returned to normal. Thankfully, the rain help prevent a disaster. 

Dealing with mechanics

As the night shift mechanics often found places to hid and sleep, I resorted to walking around with a pair of channel locks, an adjustable wrench, and a screwdriver in my back pocket. I quickly gained the skill necessary to do minor adjustments to keep things running. Inexperience became another problem with night mechanics. Most would spend a week or two on day shift, where they worked with an engineer before being moved to night shift. I often knew more about the equipment. 

Of course, there could be worse things than an inexperience mechanic sleeping on a job. We began to use a lot more granulated sugar than we should have as most of our sweetener came in liquid form. We received corn sweeter from tank trucks. Honey and molasses came in 55-gallon barrels. We even used more brown sugar than granulated, both of which came in 50-pound bags. Our inventory showed we were using almost twice the amount of granulated sugar than we should have been consuming. It turned out one of the night mechanics would park his truck by the loading dock. When no one was around, he would place a few bags in the back and cover it up with a tarp. We assumed he stole the sugar to supply a liquor still. Of course, he lost his source of free sugar when he was fired. 

Replacement workers

Working the night shift, especially as a supervisor, had its challenges. It was always difficult to find a replacement when someone called in sick. There weren’t too many qualified replacements and even fewer available at 2 A.M. All new hires had to go through the Personnel Department, which kept 9 to 5 business hours. I’d be given a name and number when a new hire was coming in. 

You’ve already met Frank, one of my problem employees. A month after I had tried to fire him and personnel overruled my decision; he was fired after an “expensive joke.” The next night, a new employee showed up.

The new hire was an attractive young woman just out of high school. That evening, while attempting to teach her how to do the job, I had to shoo away guys from other parts of the plant. Everyone wanted to flirt with her, and she enjoyed the attention. Being new, she hadn’t been issued a uniform. The next night, she came dressed like Daisy Duke, of the Dukes of Hazard, which was a popular show at this time. The girl wore short-shorts and a halter top. I sent her home to get more appropriate clothes, which made her mad. She never returned. The next night, I started to train a guy who I knew from high school, and he worked out.

Mostly monotonous

Despite the stories above, the night shift was mostly monotonous. I became good at anticipating sunrise and a few minutes before, when not cloudy, I’d grab a cup of coffee and head out to the loading dock. Standing on the side of the platform, caressing my cup in my hands, I could look back toward the east and watch for the sun to rise between the plant and the flour silo across the street. I knew my time was almost up and soon my worries would be over, and I’d be in my bed sleeping.

Other Bakery Stories:

Coming of Age in a Bakery: Linda and the Summer of ’76

A College Boy in the Bakery

Harvey and Ernest

Frank and Roosevelt

The Perils of Working on the Christian Sabbath

Remembering Charlie

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Psalm 103: Praising God

Title slide with photo of two rock churches along the Blue Ridge Parkway

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches  
Psalm 103
August 24, 2025

Sermon recorded at Mayberry Church on Saturday, August 23, 2025

At the beginning of worship:

Johnny always wanted to take a ride in a balloon.  He’d heard about how quiet it was as you floated over the countryside. Finally, he had a chance. Johnny climbed into the basket with the balloon pilot. They dropped the weights as the pilot fired up the heater. In no time, the balloon rose above local buildings and barns. Then they were above trees. It kept going higher as the wind kicked up and whisked them away. Soon neither Johnny nor the pilot knew where they were at. The pilot dropped the balloon down in a safe area without trees and powerlines and Johnny called to a man walking along a sidewalk: ‘Excuse me, sir, can you tell me where I am?’

After looking Johnny up and down, the passer-by says: ‘You are in a red balloon, ten feet above ground.’ 

‘You must be a lawyer,’ Johnny mumbled.

‘How could you possible know that?’ asked the man. 

Because your answer is technically correct but useless. I am still lost’.

“You must be in management’, said the passer-by. 

‘That’s right” Johnny said.  “How did you know?’ 

‘You have such a good view from where you are,” the lawyer said, “and yet you don’t know where you are, and you don’t know where you are going. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now your problem is somehow my fault!”[1]

One of the problems in life is that we often take credit for things when they go well and then blame someone or something else when they are not. Such an attitude is neither honest nor helpful.  

Before reading the Scripture:

Last week, we explored Psalm 80, a Psalm of Lament.[2] The author of that Psalm wondered if God had given up on the people of Israel. Honesty is a hallmark of the Psalms. These ancient hymns bring all kinds of emotions to the Lord. From the bitter feelings of abandonment, the fear of defeat, to the joy of praise, the Psalms have it all. The Psalms show it’s okay to be honest with God. We’re just not to give up on God. Consider your prayers. Are you honest about your feelings with God? 

Today, we’ll explore Psalm 103. Attributed to King David, instead of a lament full of complaints, David rejoices in God, acknowledging all God has done for himself and for his people. The Psalm begins by calling on himself to praise and ends by calling on all creation to praise God. 

Read Psalm 103

One of the delights of eating with my late friend and a theological mentor, Jack Stewart, was listening to him say grace.[3] At the table, once everyone sat down, he’d reach out and grab his wife’s hand and the hand of whoever sat to the other side of him.  Then he’d begin with a strong deep voice, “Bless the Lord, all my soul and all that is within in. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, all my soul, and do not forget all his benefits.” As soon as he began, everyone became quiet and listened.

Jack almost always said the same grace at meals, opening with the first two verses of this Psalm. Sometimes he’d add his own prayers after the opening, but not always. These two verses are sufficient. When in a restaurant, it’ll be the same prayer, only not quite as loud as at home. At home, the dishes might rattle from the booming sound of his voice as if even they joined in the praise of God. 

The opening verses of Psalm 103 is a fitting prayer. Like many of our prayers, it may be more for us than for God. These words remind us of our duty to praise God and to remember what God has done for us. God cares for us. God forgives us. The God who gave us the breath of life, heals us and offers us a second and third and forty-ninth opportunity to get it right.   

Part of what makes this Psalm so rich is how the Psalmist draws from his personal experiences and from the experiences of his people with God. Even though, like all of us, he has succumb to sin, which cut him off from God, he is able to, as one commentator writes, “enjoy the full sunlight of the grace of his God.”[4] Martin Luther called this Psalm the proper master and doctor of Scripture.”[5] He’s right as these words encapsulates much of our theology, which focuses on the praise of God.

Notice how the Psalm builds. In the opening verse, the Psalmist speaks to himself as he calls for his need to bless or praise the Lord. But then in verse seven, he brings in Israel, who experienced God’s mercy and grace. Then, in verse 15, he adds to the Hebrew voices all mortals, who live like grass and are frail. In verse twenty, he calls on the angels in the court of heaven. And then, at the end, he calls on all creation. All of God’s works and dominion joins in the song. 

Think about listening to a piece of music that begins with a single instrument, then the conductor calls in more instruments from a different section of the symphony, then brings in instruments from another section. Each time new instruments are added, the sound rises and becomes fuller. Finally, when all have joined in, the music reaches a crescendo. That’s what’s happening in this Psalm.

The Psalmist tells us why we should praise the Lord. God gives us abundant matter for praising him,” John Calvin wrote about this Psalm. If we could only remember God’s benefits, “we would be sufficiently inclined to perform our duty.”[6]

In verses 3 through 6, using a series of verbs, the Psalmists points out what God has done: forgives, heals, redeems, crowns, satisfies, renews, and works. There are two great themes of God’s work highlighted in this Psalm. First is forgiveness. The other combines the traits of the Almighty: love and compassion.[7]

From the vantage point of the present, looking back, the Psalmist sees where God intervened on his behalf. He knows the stories of how God has guided and protected Israel, going back to Moses and leading the people out of Egypt. He quotes from Exodus the line that God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.[8] As we saw in Psalm 33, which we explored a few weeks ago, David understands God’s enthronement in the heavens. God, with an overview of all the world, remains intimately connected in our lives.[9]

God is compassionate, like a father. And as Creator, God knows our beginning. Our lives, when measured against history, are short, but God’s love is everlasting.

Yes, we should praise God for all that God has done for us. The Psalmist, in bringing in all the voices that have experienced God’s providence, calls on you and me to join in this song of praise. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Be thankful and grateful so that all might know of God’s goodness.  

The message of this Psalm is one that we need to take to heart. Too often, these days, people look askew at the Christian faith. They see the church as judgmental, even hateful.[10] We must change that perspective! We need to reflect a faith grounded in this Psalm instead of one that just condemns all that we see wrong in the world. As one individual who gave up on church said: “The church should be a place where people are loved collectively rather than judged individually.”[11] Certainly, there are lots of things wrong with the world, but love (not condemnation) is the only thing that will redeem it.  

God loves the world. John 3:16 tells us he sent his only Son to save us. As followers of Jesus, we strive to live Christ-like lives. This Psalm shows us what God is about, reminding us of God’s loving care. We should be thankful. As we worship and praise God, we should humble ourselves while bringing God glory. Amen.  

[1] Adapted from http://fuertenews.com/fun-stuff/jokes-mainmenu-135/2929-may-day-traditions-and-jokes.

[2] https://fromarockyhillside.com/2025/08/17/a-desparate-plea-to-god/

[3] I wrote about Jack after his death here: https://fromarockyhillside.com/2023/10/12/remembering-jack/

[4]Artur Weiser, The Psalms, translated by Herbert Hartwell, (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 657.

[5][5] James L. Mays, Psalms: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press,1994), 405.

[6] John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, viewed at https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/cal/psalms-103.html

[7] Stan Mast, “Notes on Psalm 103:1-8 for Proper 16C (August 15, 2016) for the Center of Excellence in Preaching at Calvin College.  See http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/proper-16c/?type=the_lectionary_psalms

[8] Exodus 34:6

[9] https://fromarockyhillside.com/2025/08/10/psalm-33-trusting-in-a-merciful-god/

[10] There are a lot of books and articles that are making this case.  See Dan Kimball, They Like Jesus but Not the Church: insights from emerging generations (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007). 

[11] Josh Packard, Ph.D and Ashleigh Hope, Church Refugees: Sociologists reveal why people are DONE with church but not their faith. (Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, 2015), 32.

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1957: The Year of My Birth

title slide with photos of the author and his family from 1957 and 58

I arrived at the Moore County Hospital, just outside of Pinehurst, on a Wednesday morning in the middle of January 1957. The highways through the Sandhills of North Carolina were paved by then, but many of the county roads were still dirt. Longleaf pines surrounded the golf courses around Pinehurst and small farms dotted the rest of the county. Bright-leaf tobacco, cured in barns heated by wood, was the cash crop. It was a simpler time. 

The national average family income had doubled since World War II, rising to just above six thousand dollars a year. Of course, per capita income was lower in the South. But on paper Moore County appeared prosperous thanks to its numbers being inflated by rich Yankee golfers. Six thousand went a long way as the average house cost $12,000. However, furnishing it with a pair of Rembrandt portraits remained out of reach for most. A pair of his portraits sold for an even half a million dollars later in the year. 

For non-golfers in the Sandhills, such as my relatives from the Highlands of Scotland, tobacco remained king. People considered the leaf safe and when the markets opened in late summer, it sold for 59 cents a pound. North Carolina raised nearly a half million acres of the crop, producing over 1700 pounds an acre. You can do the math.  

The year began with a meeting of African American pastors who formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We’d hear more about them in the next decade, but integration moved into the forefront. A year after the last veteran from the war which ended slavery died and three years after Brown verses Board of Education ruled segregated schools unconstitutional, it took the military to desegregate Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. Things appeared to move slowly in the right direction, but I’d be in the 9th Grade before schools were completely integrated. In Congress, the Senate under the leadership of Lyndon Johnson passed the first (mostly benign) civil rights legislation since the Reconstruction. We’d be hearing more about civil rights and Johnson in the years ahead.  

Two days after my arrival, three B-52s made the first non-stop around-the-world flights. General Curtis LeMay bragged we could drop a hydrogen bomb anywhere in the world. New Mexico became the one place we did drop one that year, accidentally. Thankfully, it didn’t detonate which is why no one knew about it.  The military exploded bombs in Nevada but said everything was safe. No one knew differently except for the sheepherders whose flocks lost their wool and began to die off. There were other nuclear accidents in ’57 in the US and UK, but no one talked about them. What you don’t know won’t hurt you, right? And we all knew our government would never do anything to harm us. That myth died before I graduated high school.

Although there were no major wars going on, the world remained tense. The Suez Crisis and the threat of a Soviet nuclear attack loomed. Our government, working with the Canadians, established the DEW line in the arctic to provide us a six-hour warning before the first Soviet bomb could be dropped on an American city. Canadian cities would have a little less time to prepare. By the time the Dew Line became operational, they reduced the margin to three hours as Soviet jets had doubled their speed. In a few months it all became extraneous as the Soviets launched the first intercontinental ballistic missile.

Later in the same year, the Soviets launch Sputnik, and we’d spend the next decade in a space race. Amidst the space race, some yo-yo created the first plastic pink flamingo. The end was near as prophesied by Nevil Shute in On the Beach, his post-nuclear war novel, published in 1957. I’d read it in high school.

To save us from calamity, we placed our faith in Ike, the President. Many thought I resembled as I, too, had a bald head. Ike wasn’t Herod and didn’t see himself as a king. Nor did he waste any time worrying about a newborn impostor as he perfected his golf swing while supposedly preparing himself for a second term as the leader of the free world. 

Jack Kerouac published On the Road in 1957. People headed out on the road sporting a new line of fancy cars with high fins and excessive chrome. The ’57 Chevy would become an icon of the era as Ike announced the building of interstates to connect the cities of our nation. Off the radar was a little-known Japanese company, Toyota. They loaded a ship with their first vehicles for the US market.

People began flying more and taking the train less. New York City abandoned its trolley cars in 1957. Shortly afterwards the Brooklyn Dodgers (originally the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers) announced their move to Los Angeles. They took the last of Las Angeles trolleys out of service six years later as I started the first grade. Now people think the Dodgers must either be named from their ability at dodging wild pitches or an obscure reference to an artful Charles Dickens character. 

In other sporting news, the University of North Carolina beat Kansas in the NCAA basketball finals.  These teams have remained at the top throughout my life. The Milwaukee Braves led by a young Hank Aaron beat the New York Yankees in the World Series. As a junior in high school, I watched TV as Aaron surpassed Babe Ruth’s home run record. The Milwaukee Braves faded over the next decade and high-tailed it to Atlanta. The Detroit Lions, a team whose demise parallels the city, won their last NFL championship.

Ayn Rand published Atlas Shrugged in 1957.  Almost seven decades later, “Who is John Galt?” bumper stickers are occasionally spotted on American highways. In the theaters, The Ten Commandments became the top box office success. For a country which seems so religious, the last commandment about not coveting appears overlooked. Rand launched a frontal assault on this commandment with her godless “look out for me” philosophy. Other commandments were also being broken as the movie “Peyton Place, which debuted in theaters, reminded us.      

Radios in ‘57 played the music of Elvis, Buddy Holly, Debbie Reynolds, the Everly Brothers, Pat Boone and Sam Cooke. In Philadelphia, love-stuck teenagers danced for the first time on American Bandstand as more homes acquired televisions. And in England, two chaps named Lennon and McCarthy met and would go on change music as we know it. Humphrey Bogart died just two days before my arrival, but it was still a good year for Hollywood. Not only was Moses selling, but so were dogs. Children everywhere cried watching Old Yeller. Hollywood also released The Bridge over the River Kwai. It inspired whistlers with its catchy theme music (an old British army tune). That tune would later be used in a commercial for a household cleanser which inspired one of the great ditties of my childhood: 

Comet – it makes your teeth turn green.
Comet – it tastes like gasoline.
Comet – it makes you vomit.
So, buy some Comet, and vomit, today!


Even today, I have a can of Comet stashed under my kitchen sink. Some things change, and some don’t. 

Posted on

A Desparate Plea to God

Title slide with photos of two rock churches where the sermon is to be preached

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
Psalm 80
August 17, 2025

Sermon recorded in the sanctuary of Bluemont Church on Friday, August 15, 2025

At the beginning of worship: 

Ernest Hemingway, when recovering from wounds received during World War I, noticed those who could patiently wait were strengthened during their recovery. Others, those who were impatient, struggled. From his experiences, Hemingway developed his basic story line. He placed good people into difficult situations and forced them to wait and then through the story enabled his readers to see his character’s true strength or weakness unfold. 

Hemingway’s characters often find themselves waiting. The Spanish republican lying in wait for his end in For Whom the Bells Toll. The matador anticipating the deadly bull in Death in the Afternoon. The old man spending all night fighting a giant fish, which in the end will only be eaten by a shark, in The Old Man and the Sea. And the threat of charging beast as big game hunters work the brush in his African short stories.[1]

When we are patient and willing to wait on God, we show character and resolve. But too often, we want to jump the gun. We want to get things started and prematurely set out to accomplish something, only to fail because we haven’t waited for the Lord to lead us. 

We have such great potential. The advances of science and technology continue to amaze us. And it makes us as members of humanity feel powerful. But in the end, we don’t have that much power. We’re weak and frail. We should bow before the power of a God who comes and willing dies for us. We should spend time in prayer and meditate upon the Scriptures in preparation for what is next. 

As in the Psalm we’ll explore today, we need to call upon and trust God to answer. We demonstrate our character by our willingness to trust in the Lord. Can we take our burdens to God? Can we rely on God to do something—accepting that God knows best—or do we try to go it alone and experience more disappointment and failures? 

Before the reading of Scripture:

We’ll explore Psalm 80 this morning. This is somewhat of a unique Psalm as it appears to have come from the Northern Kingdom of Israel. These are the ten “lost tribes” of Israel, who disappeared after Assyria conquered the Northern Kingdom in seven centuries before Christ. The writing of most of the Old Testament came through the eyes of the Southern Kingdom, who maintained a semblance of independence until the Babylonian exile. 

The Psalmist here expresses the desperation of his people. They are in danger and only God can help. Yet, it appears as if God has disappeared.[2] Let’s listen: 

Read Psalm 80

The Psalmist calls on God to save. Desperate, he cries out three times repeating the same phrase. “Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.” He’s so desperate he’ll risk looking at the face of the Almighty. We’re not supposed to do that. It’s dangerous; it can be fatal for God is so holy and we’re not. But the conditions are such the Psalmist sees no other way out of his situation. He hit bottom. He’ll will risk it! There’s no other hope. 

His willingness to call upon God to show his face demonstrates the intimate relationship possible between God and his children. To call upon God to show his face requires a relationship with the Almighty—one where the human party trusts God enough to risk it all.  

It’s also a plea for God to see our desperate condition. If you remember from last week, when we looked at Psalm 33, while God exists outside of creation, God remains concerned about what happens on earth.[3] Here, things are so desperate, the Psalmist fears God has turned away and calls God to again look at what’s happening. 

In his plea, the Psalmist uses two motifs to describe God.[4] “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel.” God is seen as a shepherd who leads his sheep through the wilderness. This image arises from Exodus, when God took care of his people as a shepherd might care for his sheep. This is the image from David’s famous Psalm, “the Lord is my shepherd,” a God who leads his people by the still waters and to fields of green grass, the God who protects us in the shadow of death.[5] In times of peril, it’s comforting to know God as our shepherd.  

The second motif used to describe God is that of one who tends grapes, in other words a farmer. This description implies a more settled state. No longer are the Hebrew people wandering in the wilderness. They’re settled in the Promised Land. God has planted them as a vine. And as the vine grows, God nurtures the struggling plant with water and fertilizer, by pruning and building walls to protect his vineyard from wild animals and thieves. The Psalmist and the Hebrew people know God’s activity from how God cared for them, both in the wilderness and at their new home in the Promised Land.

But all that was in the past. For the Psalmist and those reciting this psalm in worship, God is absent. They know and recall all of God’s deeds of the past, of how God led their ancestors out of Egypt and settled them into Palestine. However, continuing with the view of the vine, they complain to God that the walls have been broken down and their fruit poached by those wandering by and ravaged by the animals of the forest. 

There struggles are kind of like my ongoing battle to keep the deer and beetles from eating my grapevines or the groundhog eating my cucumber vines. Only their struggle is worse. They call on God to once again look down from heaven and see their plight and save them from their enemies.

The Psalmist concludes with a vow: if God gives life, they promise to never turn their backs on God. We wonder if this is a type of a deathbed conversion promise, you know, the type we keep only during the dangerous hours. These types of prayers are more like bargaining with God— “God if you get me out of this mess, I’ll be good”. It’s the type of prayer I might have prayed while battling waves and wind in a kayak far offshore. I’ve called out for help this past June when a gale overtook me during my paddle around Drummond Island in Lake Huron.[6]

We’ve all been where the Psalmist is at. There are times God is distant. Mystics call it “the dark night of the soul.” In these situations, what do we do? We continue to pray.; we continue to bring our concerns to God. We continue to trust, for as Peter says to Jesus, “Lord, where can we go? Only you have the words that lead to life.”[7]

The request for God to fulfill these two motifs—the shepherd and farmer—is achieved in Jesus Christ. In the gospel of John, Jesus says: “I am the good shepherd.” The author of Hebrews calls Jesus the great shepherd of the sheep.[8] Jesus fulfills the call for God to be the shepherd of his people.

Likewise, Jesus is also likened to a farmer and is referred to in Luke’s gospel as the “Lord of the Harvest.” But this analogy is even more intimate than the Psalmist imaged, for Jesus tells us that he is the vine and we’re the branches.[9]  Baptism grafts us onto the vine of Jesus Christ, he is with us, and we are with him.

The Hebrew people probably gathered at the temple in times of peril and recited Psalm 80. Maybe they felt threatened by an enemy on their borders. Or it could be pestilence and disease spreading through the countryside, or drought and the fear of its corresponding hunger. Whatever the situation, they gather, hopeless, and seek God’s help. Asking God to show his face means they trust God to see their concerns and to provide relief. 

In time, God answers their prayers by coming in person, in the life of Jesus Christ.  They called upon God and God answers in a surprising way, coming to earth as an infant, growing up and living among his people, and then dying for their sins—and for our sins.

Of course, God didn’t answer their prayers right away. They had to wait. They waited for generations. Decades and centuries floated by. Unlike those of us who live in the 21st Century and expect immediate results, they had no concept of instant gratification. They prayed, they waited, they hoped, and they remained faithful to their God. Sometimes, we must do the same. Amen.

[1] Idea from M. Craig Barnes, Sacred Thirst: Meeting God in the Desert of our Longings (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 112.  Examples from Hemingway’s writing are from my readings. 

[2] For background on the Psalm, see Artur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962) 545-551; James L. Mays, Psalms: Interpretation, A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville KY: John Knox Press, 1994), 262-265; and Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007), 284-287. 

[3] See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2025/08/10/psalm-33-trusting-in-a-merciful-god/

[4] The idea of two motifs from Claus Westermann, The Living Psalms (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 34.

[5] Psalm 23.

[6] I did pray for help, but I didn’t get to the point of bargaining with God by promising such things. After all, I’m in God’s hands and if God so desires, I’ll be saved.  See: https://fromarockyhillside.com/2025/07/24/completing-my-trip-around-drummond-island/

[7] John 6:68.

[8] John 10:11, Hebrews 13:20.

[9] Luke 10:2 (also Matthew 9:38), John 15:5.