The opening lines of Elizabeth Akers Allen’s famous poem are the heart’s cry of a world- weary woman remembering her mother’s tender love.

BACKWARD, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for to-night!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to sleep!

My mother still chokes up when she talks about her mother who passed away in 1997. Mothers have a way of making an indelible mark on us, one way or another. It is an awesome responsibility before God as to what kind of mark we make upon our children. It doesn’t take a big education, plenty of money or books laden with child rearing theory to make a positive imprint on our children. In fact, the humblest mother who simply loves her child above herself is better equipped to parent a child than the most educated careerist who denies her own maternal instincts and pursues instead her own greatness in the business world. A mother who loves herself more than her own child is a great danger to the well-being of that little one.

I love the paintings of American impressionist Mary Cassatt. Her paintings express wordlessly the beauty of the bond between mother and child. What mother can’t identify with the feeling of that soft baby cheek under her lips as in this painting? A woman’s heart won’t find this kind of delight in the boardroom, that’s for sure! We’ve been wired to nurture. You can’t choose career over baby without doing violence to that wiring.

With Mother’s Day approaching, I want to mention my own “babies”, who are now 22, 21, nearly 20, 12, and 11. Jonathan, Charles, Samuel, Mary and William, you are so precious to me. I thank the Lord for the time I was able to nurture each of you. Despite many mistakes and the times I failed as a Christian mother, you still show love and respect for me, and I thank-you for that! I am praying for each one of you that you will seek the Lord with all your hearts and let Him guide your steps.

A blessed and happy Mother’s Day to the mothers reading this, especially those who live in less than ideal circumstances and struggle to be a Christian mother in spite of hard times. God is faithful. Look to Him for everything. God never failed to help me in the dark times I lived through with two little ones years ago, and even the things I saw as terrible and insurmountably bad, God has used for His glory. He continues to guide and direct through all circumstances. Praise His name.

And to my own mother, all three of your children and all 9 grandchildren rise up and call you blessed. Thank you for everything, Mom. You are deeply loved.

It is finally spring in Wisconsin. We had three completely gorgeous days beginning on Sunday, and even today, while a mix of clouds and sun, the air is mild and sweet coming in my window as I write.

My husband and I have established a recent tradition on Sunday afternoons of going for a walk somewhere. Just us. The lakefront is beautiful, so are neighborhoods in Whitefish Bay, Shorewood and other areas we like where the ground isn’t so hilly as where we are. (I simply can’t do those hills.) This time we chose the suburb where we used to live, Wauwatosa. There’s an area off Glenview Avenue where the houses were built in the teens and 20’s. Big front porches with swings are prevalent in these comfortable family homes, with sidewalks where little people gather on their tricycles, and everywhere was the sight of flowers and birds and insects busily going about their business. It was a lovely, slow amble, and especially enjoyed after our longer than normal winter.

Last evening I sat down in my rocker to enjoy the breeze coming in our patio screen door, and I picked up another of my favorite Reiman Publication magazines, Birds and Blooms. This month’s issue features an exquisite Eastern Bluebird on the cover. It got even better from there. This magazine takes your breath away with the reader-taken photographs of hummingbirds and bluebirds and Baltimore orioles, and woodpeckers and Bob Whites. I like the little homey, family anecdotes sprinkled in there as well. Then there are the photographs of flowers: Pink columbine, lily-of-the-valley, jack-in-the-pulpits and saucer magnolias, hydangeas, dwarf irises and phlox, to name a few. My favorite photo is the one with the brown rabbit peering between vincas. Another great photo is a reader with multiple hummingbirds landing on her bright red shirt as she held out a container of the sweet liquid these birds love. What a feeling it must have been to have had those delicate little beauties hovering around you and landing on your shoulder!

Reading Birds and Blooms is a trip into God’s magnificent creation. It’s all good and lovely and true in this magazine with virtually no advertising and mostly reader contributions. Reiman publishers have put out so many wonderful magazines that I keep adding one more to my subscription list. It’s cheaper than a vacation, and it is restorative to leave the difficulties and squalor of all that is wrong in our world to spend time admiring the world God created! The subscriptions are very inexpensive, by the way. And no, I was not paid for this post!

I was reading again tonight about the orphan trains that traveled the country from big American cities out to the western farm country. Charles Loring Brace was a pioneer in trying to find homes for city children who had lost their parents. These trains would travel with a group of orphans, accompanied by two adults who would care for the children, clean them up upon reaching a town, and then present them to prospective parents along the trains route. Townspeople were alerted to the children’s need for families by reading about it in newspaper ads. Couples would literally go to the town halls or local theaters where the children were lined up and pick children out to take home. There were some happy endings for some of these children. For others, they were viewed as free farm/household help, and they were mistreated, sometimes horribly. Some of the older boys ran away from their new homes to escape terrible situations.

Despite the tragedies, these train trips represented the best hope many of these children had for any kind of a future with a family. I stared at the picture for a long time, trying to think how anyone would be able to pick out a child. They are all so beautiful. I would have had to take them all home, I’m afraid. Those darling little girls, the serious looking older girl, the scrubbed little boys, (I have a serious weakness for little boys and their mischievous grins. It’s a good thing– I have four sons!) These children had mothers who had died and many times their fathers simply could not care for their children when their wives passed away.

I have a book of stories about children from the orphan train and the cases were heartrending. One of my favorite stories in that book involved an 11-year-old girl who traveled the trains with a little sister. The older girl had a crippled hand and she knew that someone was going to adopt her little sister and separate them. Back then nobody thought anything about separating siblings. Her little sister was adopted by a family who would not take the older girl and at each stop along the train ride, the girl continued to hope that someone would take her. She would hide her crippled hand behind her back so prospective families wouldn’t see it. The woman who cared for the children bought her new hair ribbons to try to help her look her best. But every time a family would come to look at her as a prospective adoptee (many viewed these children only as extra household help) they would see her hand and turn away. Finally, at the last stop along the journey through Kansas, she and two other children with problems were the only ones left. A single woman, a Christian, had read about the train stop and left her boarding house to come and see them. She somehow felt drawn there by the Lord. When she met the girl with the crippled hand, she realized what God was saying to her. Back in those days, single women almost never adopted a child. But she obeyed the Lord and adopted the girl and brought her home to live with her. It was one of those stories with a happy ending. Years later, that same adopted girl who was given a home and love and care ended up caring for her adoptive mother in her old age. The love the woman showed was paid back with interest.

Being an adoptive mother of two children, these amazing stories of the orphan trains still move me. I will be honest. I miss having little ones at home. I adored being a mother of little ones. I miss reading story books, I miss bath time, I miss little tykes running around in their footie pajamas at night, and I miss hugs and kisses that come with the abandon of a little one’s unconditional love. I wish adoption could be easier. It was a tough job when we adopted our two from Eastern Europe within 9 months of each other. Now international adoption is increasingly long (China adoptions are now almost 3 years, I understand), very expensive and fraught with ever more difficult paperwork. Domestic adoption is in a complete mess due to children not being freed for adoption until so much damage/abuse has taken place that the average family is ill equipped to deal with it. Abortion takes the lives of over a million babies a year that could have found loving homes such as ours. For the children’s sake, I’m glad that we don’t have orphan trains any more. But if I had lived back then and had been in a position to have done it, I would have been at the train station, opening my arms to a frightened child, or two, or three…

There are many fascinating books and websites on the orphan trains, including a PBS special that was turned into a DVD about it. Just do a search and see what you can find!

We are not saved by keeping God’s Law. That’s because none of us could ever keep it perfectly, and to break one law is to break them all. That’s why we needed a Saviour who kept the Law perfectly for us and then took the full brunt of God’s wrath against sin in our place. What a miracle salvation is! Praise the Lord.

What I’m writing about today is how true the Scriptures are, and how every time you watch the local news, the truth of God’s Word is confirmed. On Friday, a 39-year-old wife, expecting her third child, was driving home from school with her two children and one of their friends. This took place in Oconomowoc, a town ten minutes away from me. While she sat at a stoplight that had just turned green, a Cadillac Escalade SUV hit her so hard from behind that the vehicle landed on top of the car, pancaking it. The woman and her unborn baby died, so did her 4th grade daughter later at a hospital. Her son escaped harm, but the other child is fighting for life at Children’s Hospital. The driver of the Cadillac? A former, prominent surgeon, 55-years-old who had lost his physicians license two years ago for writing his own drug prescriptions. He had had his license revoked on Wednesday. This lawless individual took three lives so far and devastated many others, including her husband and 12-year-old son.

Think about how one man’s chain of sinful decisions have hurt so very many people. His rejection of authority in his life denuded himself of his medical license, hurting his own family, and then the ultimate act of lawlessness, to drive without a license while under the influence. This is the biblical definition of a fool.

This same man could have had a long and wonderful career of helping others with his surgeon’s skill. He could have had the respect and love of his family. He could have spent his life enjoying not only the material blessings of his medical profession but the regard of all of his colleagues and patients. He could have been the doctor healing the damage for those in accidents instead of taking the lives of innocent people and injuring little children. God’s ways are pure, clean and life-giving. It is only the enemy who comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy.

I thought of this again today while reading an article in the London Telegraph. People are lying awake at night in extreme anxiety in that country (and ours) because of their financial decisions to go into debt. The party is over for those living above their means and the ugly reality that people have bankrupted themselves to live lifestyles they could not afford is hitting home. Doctors are having to prescribe anti-anxiety, anti-depression medication to dull the effect of the consequences in people’s lives. When I read all the warnings in Scripture about greed, about lust and covetousness, about the dangers of debt, it makes me realize once again how Scripture contains the prescription for peace at night. Live within your means. Be content with those things that you have. Don’t envy others. Don’t be greedy. All of those things are taught in Scripture. We ignore those teachings to our own peril.

God’s ways are the ways of peace. There’s a hymn with these lines in it. It is one of my all time favorites. Note the emboldened words. “And let our ordered lives confess, the beauty of Thy peace”. The times I have been the least peaceful have been mostly times of my own making, times when I ignored the instructions of God’s Word. God’s Word is true. We need to believe that and with God’s help, obey it, knowing that God’s peace is found there.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow Thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity
Interpreted by love!

With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of Thy call,
As noiseless let Thy blessing fall
As fell Thy manna down.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!

Here’s the hymn being sung.

This horrendous story of school violence against a little 7-year-old boy from the West coast could be repeated daily in newspapers around the country. That’s if the true extent of abuse in our schools were reported. What this child suffered physically, and the psychological suffering from living in fear all the time is the result of institutionalized child abuse. The problem is not just that the school did not provide adequate staffing and supervision, although here is only so much that prison wardens, er, school principles can do to make sure that their inmates don’t kill each other. The real story here is the creation of a whole generation of barbarians: children who are morally and physically neglected, children who are so filled with anager and hatred that they no longer possess a conscience. These are 5th graders who can hurl a little child into a tree and run to catch a bus, as though they had just kicked a beer can into the curb. Reading these statistics from the news story was horrifying. These are the top 5 “most violent” elementary schools in Oakland, California. Each of these numbers represent the suspensions, not the violent acts that led to the suspensions. No child gets suspended on his first fist full of hair, his first punch, his first kick in the groin. Kids today get multiple chances to harass, abuse and otherwise violate fellow students before the velvet hammer falls.

- Preparatory Literary Academy - 106 suspensions.

– Piedmont Avenue Elementary - 97 suspensions.

– Webster Academy - 77 suspensions.

– Lockwood Elementary - 52 suspensions.

– New Highland Academy - 42 suspensions.

These barbarians did not come out of nowhere. They are products of parents who have totally rejected their parental responsibilities before God and man. The children are only mirroring the barbarism of their parents who nightly sit and bow low before the screen that brings pornography, murder, rape, fornication, adultery, disrespect for authority, filthy language and mockery of God into their homes. When these children act out the same in the halls of our government schools, we have little 7-year-olds with fractured skulls and hand-wringing “educators” who can do nothing more than lecture parents not to leave a student unattended for any time, for any reason because this is what could happen. The idea of an American child walking safely home from school in his neighborhood is now apparently viewed as Mayberry fantasyland. We’re living in a war-zone now, and parents better know it.

What parents should do is pull their precious heritage out of these violent prisons and bring them home to learn. I was assaulted twice at the Christian high school I attended, once having had hair ripped out by a screaming, drug-crazed student whose eyes I made the mistake of meeting in English class. In short, if your children are in a Christian school, make sure that it truly is one of the rare, truly Christian environments. If not, you’re wasting your money and harming your children. The world is driving the “church” now, and the students coming out of many homes reflect it.

The child in the news story will carry the trauma of losing four teeth and of having his skull fractured for the rest of his life. His father needs to stand physically, if necessary, between him and those who would injure him. That’s what fathers are for. It’s too bad it got to this point before the father intervened.

Nurturing and teaching one’s own child is a delight. Seeing their God-given intellects develop and unfold like little flowers is a blessing and a privilege. Directing your little ones God-ward is the highest privilege of all as a parent. I can still remember little William and Mary, (my “twins) at age 3, learning a verse for the letters of the alphabet.

A- A wise son maketh a glad heart, but a FOOLISH son is the heaviness of his mother. (They would always emphasize the “foolish” part.)

B- Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than GREAT treasure and TROUBLE therewith.

And so on. If at all humanly possible, don’t put your children where God is not honored and where they are at the mercy of the new barbarians. Barbarians and their parents need evangelism, but the spiritual war in our land today does not need to be fought by little ones who are forced to spend their time just trying to keep a full set of teeth and an intact skull to take home with them at the end of the day. Let Christian adults in their Christian armor engage the enemy of souls and let the little ones be kept safe until they are ready for battle. If you think you can’t do it financially, seek God. Ask Him to provide a better situation for your little one. I have seen God’s intervention in my life so many times when my back was to the wall. Pray in faith, knowing you pray according to His will when you seek to raise your child for Him. He will provide what is good and right if you ask.

Related to my post below, I saw this story yesterday on MSNBC. Our children’s generation is expected to be the first one that will go backwards in terms of life expectancy. Our lifestyles have consequences, and for many of our children, today’s lifestyle is deadly.

It was so nice out this morning that I got up early and decided to take a walk at the playground up the hill from our house. (Our area is so hilly that only a marathoner could walk with ease so I head up to the playground where it is level for walking.) Will grabbed his bike and came along. At the playground he said, “Mom, they’ve just ruined childhood.” Startled, I asked what he meant. He gestured toward the bright primary colored playground equipment set up on several inches of rubbery material, the new standard in child safety. “When I was a kid (he’s 11, almost 12) we had that very high slide at that park by our old house, remember? And we had swings. This park doesn’t even have them. They took them out.”

“What do you mean this park doesn’t have them? There are swings right over—” I stopped because where I pointed there were no swings. They had been replaced recently with some sort of wheel thingy that kids could turn for entertainment. I realized in shock that they had removed the swings completely. “They’ve been changing everything to make it SAFER,” Will pointed out. “The slides are plastic and two feet high now. There’s nothing kids can do here.”

I remember hours on swings as a child. If you really got going, it was the closest thing to flying. All that energy expended also kept us thin as rails. No obesity problems that I can remember among my friends. Think of the children who will never know what swinging high into the sky is like. It’s sad.

Times have changed, and health and safety experts have made sure that any element of childhood that contains any risk at all is completely removed. In this litigious age, schools and playgrounds don’t want the liability issues. Kids are safer, but in the end I wonder if they are really better off. I say this particularly regarding boys. Here’s what 19th Century boys’ adventure author R. M. Ballantyne said about boyhood:

Boys [should be] inured from childhood to trifling risks and slight dangers of every possible description, such as tumbling into ponds and off of trees, etc., in order to strengthen their nervous system…. They ought to practice leaping off heights into deep water. They ought never to hesitate to cross a stream over a narrow unsafe plank for fear of a ducking. They ought never to decline to climb up a tree, to pull fruit merely because there is a possibility of their falling off and breaking their necks. I firmly believe that boys were intended to encounter all kinds of risks, in order to prepare them to meet and grapple with risks and dangers incident to man’s career with cool, cautious self-possession….

—R.M. Ballantyne, The Gorilla Hunters

Well, a man’s career today seems to be sitting on a couch with a remote control while drinking beer. So, in that sense, I suppose the poofter playgrounds of today are actually an ideal training ground for today’s American manhood. But I think it’s too bad.

Safety is not unimportant. My husband had a terrible bike accident that could have fractured his skull if he hadn’t been wearing a helmet. But how far are we prepared to go to limit risk in life? There’s risk in anything we do as humans. We can’t save our children from every abrasion, every bruise, every injury in life, no matter how much we would like to as mothers. Particularly for sons, I think it is extremely unhealthy to keep them in a bubble. I see boys like that who are 11, 12 years old who break into tears at a stubbed toe and go running home to mama. Surely there’s a middle ground between emotionally repressing young boys and telling them never to cry and allowing total emotional incontinence that never requires them to be manly when something goes wrong or they are in pain. Fathers are key in this area in helping boys learn self-control and expecting them to not burst into tears at the slightest difficulty. Physical challenges are key to developing self-confidence in boys. They don’t get enough of them in American suburbia.

Last summer, Will was building ramps to jump with his bike. His father helped him set them up so they wouldn’t be wobbly and he proceeded to do some magnificent (mother heart-stopping) jumps with his bicycle. His dad set some limits for obvious reasons, but it was the challenge that got Will excited. Before long, some teenage boys even drifted down from up the block where they had been lounging languidly with their iPods on the front porch. Then they had to try the jumps. It was a guy thing, and it was a big hit. In the age of video games, non-play playgrounds, Internet and television, parents have to fight back and send the kids outside. Left to their own devices, they’ll find things to do and they’ll be the stronger for it.

P.S. If you’re looking for some non-effeminized boys’ historical fiction that highlights manly strength and courage, see the Ballantyne link above and also the books of 19th century author, G. A. Henty. You can often get these books much more cheaply on Ebay or at used book sites.

I know that I often talk about music here on my personal blog, but I really can’t help it. It’s important to me. I have spoken frequently about Psalms and hymns, both in corporate worship and at home. But the third type of singing spoken of in Scripture is the “spiritual song” or what we sometimes call the gospel song. These are not the great soaring hymns of corporate worship and praise that sing out God’s attributes, that testify of His holiness and righteousness. These songs have a different role. These are the songs of the heart that sometimes speak to others around us about God. They tell of what God has done in our lives and they speak of the personal walk we have with the Lord. I have heard those Christians who consider themselves musical purists sneer at these songs as too lowbrow and dumbed down and “revivalistic” or whatever. I’m sorry, I do not agree. These are the songs that minister when a loved one is suffering, or when you are suffering, when you are worried and anxious, or have suffered loss, when you feel so alone in what you’re going through except for Jesus. Nobody can know how some of these simple songs can minister until they have walked through a very dark and hurtful place. Some are also uniquely suited to tell out the gospel in song in an evangelistic setting.

My dad sat down at the piano the other day down at the VCY America studios and joining him was a pastor friend of his from Australia that he has known for decades. The pastor used to minister here in a church not far from our studios in central Milwaukee and now has moved back down under. He was here in Milwaukee for a visit when he and Dad decided to record some of the old gospel songs together. I heard about the project and didn’t think much about it, and then I was riding to lunch with Dad one day and he put in the CD they had recorded. The tender but strong voice of the pastor with the simple accompaniment made the perfect combination for these great old songs that have comforted so many generations of Christians. It moved me to tears. One of the songs was this one, which I can still remember hearing my Grandma Mary Thomas sing next to me in church when I was a child. It was written by Fanny Crosby.

Pass me not, O gentle Savior,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.

Savior, Savior,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.

Let me at Thy throne of mercy
Find a sweet relief,
Kneeling there in deep contrition;
Help my unbelief.

Savior, Savior,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.

Trusting only in Thy merit,
Would I seek Thy face;
Heal my wounded, broken spirit,
Save me by Thy grace.

Savior, Savior,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.

Thou the Spring of all my comfort,
More than life to me,
Whom have I on earth beside Thee?
Whom in Heav’n but Thee?

Savior, Savior,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by…

Isn’t this all of us as believers? Despite our veneers of confidence and our brave faces to the world, we are really beggars all, as Luther said. We are completely dependent each and every moment of the day on the Savior, even for our next breath. If you have ever gone through a physical struggle where you have felt so weak and helpless you could hardly get your head off the pillow, this song means a great deal. We are like the blind Bartameaus who called out to the Lord from the side of the road. “Don’t pass me by, Jesus! Please”. I am so glad the Lord hears our smallest cry for both our spiritual and physical needs.

There are so many wonderful old gospel songs. I sometimes long to be in a large church or auditorium with other believers who really sing out, like in the old days. Here’s one that is usually accompanied by a lively, joyful tune. I used to play this on the organ at the little mission church years ago where they sang this. Note that this one is also a hymn of praise as well as a spiritual song speaking of what Jesus did for us. It even has a doxological ending, praising the Triune God. Sing it out if you know it!

When I saw the cleansing fountain
Open wide for all my sin,
I obeyed the Spirit’s wooing,
When He said, “Wilt thou be clean?”

Refrain
I will praise Him!I will praise Him!
Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;
Give Him glory, all ye people,
For His blood can wash away each stain.

Though the way is straight and narrow,
All I claimed was swept away;
My ambitions, plans and wishes,
At my feet in ashes lay.

Refrain
I will praise Him!
I will praise Him!
Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;
Give Him glory, all ye people,
For His blood can wash away each stain.

Then God’s fire upon the altar
Of my heart was set aflame;
I shall never cease to praise Him
Glory, glory to His Name!

Refrain
I will praise Him! I will praise Him!
Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;
Give Him glory, all ye people,
For His blood can wash away each stain.

Blessed be the Name of Jesus!
I’m so glad He took me in;
He’s forgiven my transgressions,
He has cleansed my heart from sin.

Refrain
I will praise Him! I will praise Him!
Praise the Lamb for sinners slain
Give Him glory, all ye people,
For His blood can wash away each stain.

Glory, glory to the Father!
Glory, glory to the Son!
Glory, glory to the Spirit!
Glory to the Three in One!

Refrain
I will praise Him! I will praise Him!
Praise the Lamb for sinners slain;
Give Him glory, all ye people,
For His blood can wash away each stain.

The CD of these songs will be available publicly soon. I’ll let you know the details when I have them in hand.

It was an unusual week for beautiful music. Last weekend, our family headed to Chicago for a recital with the Chinese pianist Lang Lang at Symphony Center. The place was packed for an unforgettable afternoon of Bartok, Debussy, Schumann, and an unbelievable rendition of Chopin’s Polinaise in A flat Major which brought the crowd to its feet. If you’ve ever been to hear Lang Lang, you’ve seen the crowd response he generates. There was an 8-minute ovation, followed by another Chopin piece, followed by a ten-minute ovation. It was a truly wonderful concert. It was heartening to see so many young faces in the audience. Young, exciting performers like Lang Lang are good for classical music.

Although not planned this way when the tickets were bought months before, Wednesday found our family returning to Chicago to hear the choir from King’s College, Cambridge at an old Presbyterian church across from the Hancock Building on Michigan Avenue. We stood in line for half an hour with the cold wind blowing off Lake Michigan, but it was worth it to hear this historic choir that dates back to the reign of King Henry the VI. We entered the wonderfully warm church at 7:15pm when the doors opened, and were rewarded for our wait by getting seats near the front. The huge church grew so packed that a vigorous, if subdued, argument broke out behind us over how many could fit in the pew. In the end, it was crowded, but that was forgotten when the door opened and the choir entered. 16 young boy trebles came out, then 14 young adult male choral scholars followed. Looking at the darling young boys, several as young as 8, with their rosy cheeks and mischievous smiles, it was hard to believe they sing some of the most complicated choral music ever written. One adorable little choir boy had a hard time holding his sizable music book and his black scholar’s cape kept falling off his right shoulder. The moment the music began, these were not children any longer but professionals whose voices soared into the rafters. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

Here is the music that we enjoyed.

Weelkes - I heard a voice
Tomkins - When David heard
Gibbons - O clap your hands
Dean - Now comes the dawn
Poulenc - Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël
Bach - Komm, Jesu, komm
Berkeley - The Lord is my shepherd
Howells - Take him, earth, for cherishing
Vaughan Williams - Valiant for Truth

There were also two organ pieces by two of the organ scholars from Cambridge.

At the end there was a long ovation followed by an encore, William Walton’s Set me as a seal upon thine heart from Song of Songs.

Watching the boy trebles in the choir, it struck me how children are so often patronized by adults. Here were children who had not even reached the age of 10 on a world tour, in front of audiences comprised of many musically sophisticated people, yet able to sing this vastly complicated music. I heard a BBC interview with Stephen Cleobury, Director of music at King’s, discuss how he brings the best out of these ordinary little boys who come to the choir school. He takes their raw, undeveloped talent and over the course of many months, works tirelessly with them, encouraging them to do their best. These boys grow musically and personally disciplined and accomplish great things as a result. So often things are dumbed down for children. There is an assumption that children can only relate to music that has them bouncing off the walls, or theology that is pablum-ized and turned into cartoon-style entertainment. With love and encouragement, children can do truly amazing things with the gifts God has given them. Never patronize children but help them reach for high goals.

I saw this recently when I discovered my 11-year-old William half way through one of my books entitled, Regeneration and Justification. It surprised me, and I asked him why he had chosen that particular book. “It looked interesting,” was his response. Carry on, Will, carry on. There’s more where that one came from!

All in all, it was an unforgettable week for music. There are certain concerts I have attended that will always stay with me in my heart and mind. My husband and I have a large hatbox for keepsakes into which we put all of our tickets, programs and other momentos of the music we have enjoyed throughout the years. When you open it, it’s like a sweet fragrance comes out. I’m so glad the Lord gave us music. Despite all that sin has destroyed in the world, the beauty of great music is still with us, and reminds us of the great glory of our Creator, the author of all that is beautiful and good and true.

Here is a radio interview from Minnesota Public Radio featuring Stephen Cleobury, Director of Music at King’s College. He talks about the choir boys and their daily schedules, and his philosophy of teaching.

Here you can hear some of the first song performed at the concert thanks to YouTube.

A reader sent me a number of links to clothing sites that promote their “modest” clothing. I found them all very interesting, particularly the website selling bridal gowns for “Latter Day Brides”. The Latter Day Saints emphasize modesty in their teachings and have created a website with wedding gowns that actually contain tops. For years, the look in the bridal world has been what I call the “bath towel look”: no sleeves, bare shoulders. Despite all the braying about diversity these days, it seems to be something of a challenge for brides to find a gown that contains sleeves. My husband frequently plays trumpet for weddings around the city and has done so for 30 years now. It was 20-below with windchill last winter in our state, but the brides all came down the aisle with their “bath towel” dresses in those cold, old churches. Winter brides used to have all kinds of scope for sleeves and even elegant trim on high collars on their dresses. It was a regal look, unique to a winter wedding. Not so any more. Whether you are bone thin or overweight, if you’re a bride, you’re expected to have bare arms and shoulders. The wedding website had some beautiful gowns with actual sleeves. True diversity would offer some options for brides who want a different look. I wish there were more such places that offered true diversity. There’s a sameness to things these days.

I am amazed to witness what appears to be a 19th-century revival among some believers in the quest for “modest” clothing. As I told the reader, I don’t believe that the only way to be modest is to revert to the Victorian era, but judging by the various websites, apparently many do. Here is an article of clothing, gentle women readers, that is available on several of these sites. They are “bloomers”. These bloomers are apparently to be worn under the calico outfits for “modesty” purposes. In that most of the dresses offered come to the ankles, I am trying to picture an eventuality that would result in bloomers being necessary for modesty reasons. Short of a Category 5 hurricane, I couldn’t.

May I say something? Living in Babylon grieves those of us who love the Lord Jesus Christ. Walking through a mall, buying groceries, even driving down the street as I did yesterday in Chicago, we are hit in the face with billboards, magazines, ads and women that are all about being sexually provocative. We want to be different. We don’t want to raise our daughters to live and dress that way. We want to honor the Lord and promote purity. But in our haste for modesty, let’s not react in a way that is poorly thought out and that ultimately does not glorify the Lord in heaven. What do I mean by that? I’ll elaborate.

Throughout history, clothing and the statement it makes has changed. Fundamentalist churches today would be horrified if one of their elders or male church members arrived at church in a velvet waist coat with gold buttons, a white blouse with lace on the sleeves, a curly wig that came to his shoulders, velvet knickers, white stockings and shoes with significant heels, pointed toes and a gold buckles on them. He would be viewed as effeminate and truly in spiritual need of help. I have just described, however, the attire of America’s founding fathers. Go back still further to the Puritan era and the men’s hairstyles are still long, without ears visible. The drawings of Christian giants like Thomas Boston, Thomas Watson, Jonathan Edwards, and John Newton, all show the same type hair. It was the dress of the day. Go back still further, and men didn’t wear trousers at all. They wore what we would call dresses. They wore a shift underneath an outer coat. No pants existed back then. That was in our Lord’s day. So what is my point? My point is that dress and hairstyles for men and women will change. Which era is most godly based on dress? None of them. Godliness starts inside, folks. But some in the Christian realm are telling women that in order to be godly and modest, they need to return to the Victorian era with bloomers, long calico dresses, even aprons as offered on one website. Why not go back to the Pilgrim era and dress that way? Would it not be even more godly to go back to the post-Garden of Eden time for mankind and wear animal skins, in that those were the clothes that God himself constructed? Of course not.

While it is more of a challenge to find clothes that cover modestly in our era, it is not impossible. I am not one of those who subscribes to the “bloomer” philosophy of modesty. We can look as though we are present in the 21st Century, without looking like one of Babylon’s lost women. It just takes some ingenuity and some careful searching. While it may be fun to dress up like Little House on the Prairie for an hour, I don’t believe that generating snickers and wide-eyed stares as you walk down the street ultimately brings glory to God and can hinder one’s Christian witness. We are to be a peculiar people, but not because our bloomer legs are sticking out from underneath multiple petticoats which are sticking out from our floor length Victorian costumes. Readers? Your thoughts.

**In a bizarre twist, one website that offers old order Amish clothing, (I’m not sure how these Amish would order online without credit cards, electricity, the internet, etc.) also features a page from Italian Vogue Magazine which featured some Amish chic styles with their products. Isn’t this, um, missing the point of not being worldly, etc. which these women are trying to achieve? What a strange messed up confusion this all is. When teachings go extra biblical, i.e., godliness through a style of clothing, things get very strange, very fast.**