I started my music studio when I was 16, teaching students my own teacher had chosen for me from her waiting list.  Every Saturday, 8 little faces showed up at my door for a half hour of piano time each.           

Unfortunately, they were not the only little faces I saw.  Regularly, their parents would say, “I need to do a little shopping.  They can play outside,” and leave their other children in our front yard, usually far longer than a half hour.  I had been taught to respect my elders and couldn’t even imagine telling them no.  I simply sat there and watched both the small pair of hands at the keyboard and the ever increasing number of children running around the maple tree, jumping up occasionally to open the door and quiet an argument or forestall an accident.  How in the world did they ever expect me to do a good job at piano teaching?

Once I married and moved into my own home, the free babysitting stopped.  I was an adult now, and it didn’t hurt a bit that my college professor helped us all fashion “studio policy letters” that spelled out what would and would not be tolerated.  “You are a professional with a college degree (soon, anyway) so act like one and they will treat you like one,” we were taught.  No longer was I a free babysitter for the siblings during piano lessons.

I wonder if our poor preachers and elders need to make a policy letter.  Regularly, the members, who pride themselves on “knowing better” than the denominations about scriptural practices, expect “free babysitting” from the men God has given other duties to perform.  Read Acts 20 with me this morning. 

Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him, v 17.  Notice, we are talking about the elders.  In the same context, speaking of and to the same men, Paul says, Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you bishops (overseers), to feed (shepherd, pastor) the church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood, v 28.  Did you catch that?  This is one of at least two passages where all the words for elder are used in the same context.  An elder is a pastor is a bishop is an overseer, and there were always more than one in a church.  The preacher is usually not a pastor and certainly not THE pastor of the church.

 I bet you knew that, didn’t you?  But guess what?  He is not THE minister either.  In fact, it’s a mighty sorry church that has only one minister in it.  That word is diakonos and it is used a couple of ways in the New Testament.  The word simply means “servant” but there was also an official position in the church, special “servants” who had specific duties and qualifications as well.  To make the distinction between that role and the other aspect of service, something every Christian is required to do, the translators created a new English word.  They Anglicized diakonos and made the new word “deacon.”  So sometimes that word refers to those specially qualified individuals who took care of the physical needs of the saints and the church as a whole. 

Yet far more often, that word, and certainly that concept, is used of each individual Christian, as we minister to one another and to the world.  The problem is we don’t want to be ministers (servants).  We want everyone, especially the leaders in the church, to serve us!  How in the world can we expect them to do the job God really gave them when we want free babysitting as well?

For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and the love which you showed toward his name, in that you ministered unto the saints, and still do minister, Heb 6:9,10.  The writer is not talking to preachers in this verse, and not talking about them in the next.  You know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints, 1 Cor 16:15.  Could anyone accuse us of being “addicted” to serving?

Anyone who serves is a minister.  Some seem to have special abilities and perhaps we could even say they have “a ministry.” And having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us, whether prophecy, according to the proportion of our faith; or ministry, to our ministry; or he that teaches, to his teaching; or he that exhorts, to his exhorting: he that gives, with liberality; he that rules, with diligence; he that shows mercy, with cheerfulness. Rom 12:6-8.  Some have people in their homes more than others; some teach better than others; some have a special ability to relate to the young people; some seem to know exactly what to say when people are in trouble.  Some of us just do what needs to be done when we see the need.  All of us are supposed to be ministers in one way or another, and we should all reach the point that we don’t need a babysitter any longer. 

When someone asks you who is the minister in your church, tell them it isn’t one man.  It isn’t even someone else.  It’s supposed to be YOU!

But Jesus called them unto him, and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Not so shall it be among you: but whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant: even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.  Matt 20:25-28.

Dene Ward

Actually, this should probably be Conducting 101, but let’s stretch a point this morning.  Meanwhile you are sitting there wondering what in the world an ictus is and why you should care.

The ictus is the point in the conductor’s pattern where the actual beat occurs.  If you are tapping your toes to the music, the ictus occurs when your foot hits the ground.

My conducting professor would have a cow if he saw most of the conducting patterns we see on Sunday mornings.  Not because they are “incorrect,” but because the ictus usually occurs up around the song leader’s ear, when it should be at his waist.  But few of my brethren are professional musicians, so who cares where the ictus is, as long as there is one? 

That ictus, that stable underlying pulse, must be visible and steady so that we know when to sing.  What drives me crazy is when a leader just waves his arm on each word, rather than each beat, and expects us to read his mind about when the next one is coming.  Give me an ictus!  Even if you begin an accelerando (gradually speeding up) or a ritardando (gradually slowing down), we can still anticipate when a beat is coming and stay together as long as there is an ictus in your pattern.  If you’re just beating words instead of beats, who knows when it will come?

Of course, the group has to be watching the leader for any of it to work at all.  Funny how the ones who recite, “Let all things be done decently and in order,” will sing what they want when they want, regardless what the leader is doing, and do it loudly enough that they take half the congregation with them.  But don’t get me started…

God is the ictus in a Christian’s life.  [The Lord] is the stability in your times, Isaiah said, 33:6.  That word is the same word translated “faithfulness” in many other passages.  God’s faithfulness endures forever, Psa 117:2.

Interestingly enough, it is also the word “steady” in Ex 17:12.  Moses lifted up his hands as the people fought the Amalekites, but as his strength failed and they sagged, Aaron and Hur sat him on a rock and held his hands “steady” for him until the battle was over.  God holds his hands steadily on high as we fight our battles.  That is how we defeat Satan and overcome sin.  It’s how we handle trials and tribulations—with the steady helping hand of a God who never wavers. 

Even if you aren’t a trained musician you can feel the beat.  That’s why your toes tap and your hands clap.  It’s why your head bounces when you hear a tune you enjoy, but none of it matters if you aren’t watching the leader.

God doesn’t leave you wondering when the next beat will come.  Look for the ictus as He leads you.  Sometimes it may slow as the toils of life bog you down, but it will not leave you behind fending for yourself.  Sometimes it may speed up as you run from the Enemy, but it is always there for the ones who care to watch and be led. 

I often listen to music when I exercise.  I find I can go longer and do more than just counting repetitions.  If you are in a particularly difficult time of life, let God’s ictus help you put one step in front of the other, again and again and again, until you have finally reached the end of the trial.  Let it help you keep moving until you achieve the final goal.  God’s steady, stable, faithful hand will lead you on, until you sing that final triumphant note in the song of life.

 I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD, forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I said, "Steadfast love will be built up forever; in the heavens you will establish your faithfulness." Psa 89:1-2.

Dene Ward

While I was teaching music I was a member of several professional organizations.  My favorite was the local group which met seven times a year in members’ homes for business, some high-spirited performances, and a potluck lunch.  Once we met in a house just off the highway, down a lime rock road.  In the middle of the meeting, a rain came up—not just any rain, but one we around here call a “toad strangler,” several inches in less than an hour—they happen all the time in Florida. 

The rain had stopped when it was time to leave and we took off down the dirt road shortcut in a caravan of cars headed to our various studios to meet the students for the day.  Suddenly, the cars ahead of me came to a halt, and ladies started climbing out, gathering together and peering up ahead.  I turned off the engine and joined the milling crowd at the head of the line. 

Water had run across the road.  It had not cut a deep rut, and in fact, was a nice shallow-looking, easily fordable stream, but we had all lived in the country long enough to know you don’t just drive through water running across an unpaved road.  “Someone needs to walk out there and check the road,” was the consensus. 

Have I mentioned that at 35 I was the youngest in the group by about thirty years?  Instantly, all heads turned toward me.  Having been silently elected, I slipped off my shoes and started across the newly created waterway.  I took five firm steps only to have to grab my skirt and hike it up over my knees as I sank exactly that deep on the sixth.  Instantly I had visions of those jungle movies I used to watch on Saturday afternoons as a kid, where the first one in the safari line sinks in the quicksand because, in spite of everyone telling him to be still, he wiggles and squirms and sinks before anyone can even think to cut a vine and use it to pull him out—or if some bright fellow does think of it, twenty people on the other end cannot out-pull the suction of a big mud puddle.. 

A good minute later it dawned on me that my name was being called, and I still had not sunk any farther.  My feet had found a solid layer of hardpan about two feet below the surface so Tarzan swinging to the rescue was totally unnecessary.  I made my way back to the group with the most unladylike thwock, thwock, thwock noises as the suction released with each step.  We all carefully backed our cars down the one lane road, turned around in the driveway from where we had started and went the long way home, down the paved state highway.

Hopelessness in the scriptures is often pictured as “sinking.”  Jeremiah prophesies that Babylon will sink and shall not rise again because of the evil I will bring upon her, 51:64.  Amos warns Israel that they are in for the same punishment: they shall sink again like the River of Egypt, 8:8; 9:5.  And all because of sin.  Even Peter, when he tried to walk on water, began to sink because of little faith and doubt, Matt 14:31.  And truly, just like sinking in the quicksand (at least in the old grade B movies), there is nothing we can do but hope a savior happens along.  Praise God, he has!

The Psalmist pleads in 22:8 Commit yourself to Jehovah, let him deliver you; let him rescue you, seeing he delights in you.  In spite of the fact that, like an ignorant city slicker, we walked out into that mud on purpose, in spite of the fact that we ignored warning after warning, and kept right on wiggling and squirming, and even when we have been pulled out before, but keep stepping right back into the same pool of quicksand, Jesus is ready to hold out a hand and save us. 

Deliver me out of the mire and let me not sink… Let not the waterflood overwhelm me and swallow me up…Answer me, oh Jehovah, for your lovingkindness is good.  According to the multitude of your tender mercies, turn to me; and hide not your face from your servant, for I am in distress; answer me quickly. Psa 69:14-17

Dene Ward

When I was teaching piano and voice, besides my own annual Spring Program and Awards Ceremony, my students sometimes participated in as many as seven joint recitals a year, programs featuring the students of several teachers at once. 

Sometimes the students were chosen according to their age—the Young Performer’s Recital was strictly for talented beginners.  It was their chance to shine rather than being lost among a studio’s advanced students.  Sometimes it was all about their music—the Parade of American Music featured students playing or singing the music of American composers.  If his best piece that year was Mozart’s Rondo in D, that particular student was ineligible.

Sometimes a panel of judges chose the students based on their performances in a recent competition.  The year we had five chosen for the Student Day Honors Recital was a banner year for us.  To have one or two chosen from a group of over two hundred students from a dozen studios was a good showing.  Five was almost unheard of.

At the receptions after these events, we teachers always enjoyed basking in our students’ successes.  We mined each other for teaching strategies and resources.  The experience exposed us to more crowd-pleasing music we could use with our own students, and our students to teachable moments we could discuss at the next lesson.  They could see for themselves why I insisted on such picky things as not taking your fanny off the seat until your hands left the keys when a student from another studio stood up without doing so, looking as if someone had glued her fingers to the ivory.  They could hear why long fingernails were verboten when it sounded like someone was trying to tap dance to Debussy and Haydn.  It also worked wonders for parental attitudes—suddenly they appreciated things they had before viewed as silly.

My favorite moments after these recitals came when people approached me with these words:  “I can always tell which ones are yours.”  It wasn’t because they played or sang particularly well—every student at these recitals did that—but not every student performed well.  We spent hours on things like how to approach or leave the piano, how to hold a pose over a final note, what to do in a memory lapse, how a singer should hold the mood until the accompaniment stops, and especially how to bow.  It’s one thing to know your piece; it’s another to be able to present a polished performance of it to an audience.

Sometimes I imagine God as the teacher watching our performances.  He knows we can do it.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me, Phil 4:13.  He gave His Son to show us how.  …because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you might follow in his steps, 1 Pet 2:21.  I don’t think it is out of line to think of the angels saying to Him, “I can always tell which ones are yours.”  Isn’t that the picture we get in Job 1?  Perhaps not literally, but in essence if nothing else. 

If life is one big recital, we should learn from the performances of others—what to do, what not to do, why some of the picky things we have always heard are important after all.  We should learn from our own mistakes as well—why do I always miss the same note?!  Your daily practice should take of that.

God is in the audience.  What He wants to hear more than anything is, “I can always tell which ones are yours.”

By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. 1 John 3:10

Dene Ward

While my students did win solo awards in piano solo, art song, and musical theater, our specialty seemed to be piano ensembles.  The point of an ensemble is not just to play the right notes at the right time, but to make a piano duet sound like one person with four hands and a trio like one person with six.  Not an easy thing to do when one partner plays with a heavy hand and the other with light finger work, one with the ebb and flow of rubato and the other the steadiness of a machine.

My teacher friends laughed at me when they saw all my students make a point to approach the piano together, sit at the same time, put their hands on and off the keys at the same time, then stand together and leave together.  I guess they never thought about whose students were bringing back trophies and whose weren’t.  The point of all that togetherness was to infuse oneness into them.  Your performance starts from the moment your names are called; that single four- or six-handed creature acted as one from then till they hit their seats in the audience afterward.

The performance aspects were trickier.  Who has the melody?  Does the partner have a counter-melody or an oom-pah-pah chordal accompaniment?  Does the partner enter with the same melody a few bars later?  How can the one with the steady underlying rhythm make it stable enough to help the syncopated partner, without overpowering him?  Are the dynamics terraced or interlaced?  How each partner plays his part depends upon the answer to all those questions.  What a lot to remember and listen for. 

I had one duo that excelled at all of this.  They played together for ten years and by the time the older graduated from high school, I was positive they were even breathing in sync while they performed.  They played pieces where one partner got up, walked around the piano and sat down to play again; then later in the piece got up and went back to his original position, all without stopping, without errors, and without one of them falling off the bench!  They played pieces where the one higher on the keyboard picked up his hand and put it between the other’s two hands and then continued playing, without a hitch.  If you were not watching, you would not know anything had happened.  Once they played a piece where one’s left hand was on the black keys above the other’s right hand on the white keys, and they never once got in each other’s way.  Now that’s teamwork.  (Did I mention that Nathan was one of the partners?)

Perfecting the piece was not enough for them.  They even created entrances, with both walking down opposite aisles exactly together and approaching the judges’ bench from opposite directions with a flourish precisely at the same time in the middle of the front row.  At the end of the piece they each crossed the outside hand to bounce off the last note with the inside hand, and held their hands up for exactly the same three count—non-verbally.  They simply knew each other that well.

And I remember my baby duet.  A little stepbrother and -sister act in the Primary 1 category performing “O Susanna.”  When one had the melody the other played softer; when the other came in with the melody, the first one pulled her tone way down almost instinctively, and then back up again when it was her turn.  These were 8 year olds, mind you, and it was flawless, seamless, and so amazing the judges looked at each other as soon as it happened.  I knew then we had it, and sure enough, we did.

That is what teamwork is all about.  You know that old coach’s saying, “There is no I in team?”  Unfortunately, many people still manage to spell “me,” and the team is never as unified as it could be.  Teamwork means doing what is best for the group.  It means constantly putting someone else ahead of me.  It means making an objective judgment of what is most important at a given time and not forcing my issues to the forefront if they are less critical than another’s.  It means not complaining if I don’t have the lead and trying to horn my way in anyway.  It means not whining when I don’t get the praise I think I deserve.  If one of my students had said, “I don’t care if I don’t have the melody.  I am just as important as her, so I’m playing my chords just as loudly,” they would have never won anything.  In fact, they would never have gotten a superior at the district level and not made it to the state competition.  What’s best for me will very often ruin it for everyone else.  And we all need to have that feeling.   If we do, no one feels left out or unappreciated. 

Why is it that we cannot see these things when we are the ones involved?  Are we really so dense?  Is it pride?  Is it arrogance?  Is it our rights-oriented society?  Whatever it is, we need to get over it, so the church can once again make known the manifold wisdom of God, Eph 3:10, and we, through our unity, can cause the world to believe, John 17:21.

Doing nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, each counting other better than himself, not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others.  Phil 2:3,4     

Dene Ward

I never had much trouble sightreading piano music.  You read the note, you find it on the piano, and you play it.  I wasn’t perfect by any means—trying to read music and translate that to a mental keyboard in your mind and then have your hands immediately go to the correct place on the real keyboard in just a matter of milliseconds takes a quick mind and perfect eyesight, neither of which I had even then.  But for the most part I was a good music reader and got the job done, even if I did have to slow the tempo down so I could play in the correct rhythm too. 

Then I got to college theory classes and was expected to sightsing!  Now that is a completely different issue.  Looking at a page of notes and singing them seemed like an impossible task to me.  It takes a natural ear.  If you don’t have one, you have to train it.  I had to put mine through boot camp the entire first year of theory classes.  Eventually I learned to do it—I could look at a piece of music and sing the notes, without accompaniment of any kind, not even chords to keep you in the right key.  I wasn’t any more perfect at it than I was at the piano, probably less, but I was musician enough to pass my tests, classes, and juries, and to make two college choruses and a women’s sextet.

Most of the hymns in our books are written in standard major keys, with standard four part harmony.  They are nothing like the music I had to sightsing in college, so I can usually sightsing them without too much trouble.  It’s sort of like being asked to boil an egg when you have been making soufflés for four years--simple.  Most of the congregation, though, do not have the advantage of being trained musicians and they just sing it the way they first heard it, which in many cases was incorrect. That means that very often I stick out like a sore thumb (or a sour note).

I have tried to sing what everyone else is singing just so I won’t, but I have trained myself so diligently that I can’t.  I’m a musician—I see the note, I sing what I see.  We were singing “When We All Get to Heaven,” the other day, and every time (at least three) I sang it right I created a clash that was hard to go unnoticed.  “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” creates at least five such clashes.  With “Amazing Grace” the list is nearly as long as the song itself.

But you know what?  While I don’t want to cause those clashes, my training makes it nearly impossible to sing the songs wrong, and my desire to please God by obeying His commands to sing makes it completely impossible for me to stop singing.

Isn’t that the way life is supposed to be for a Christian?  You really don’t want to clash with your neighbors.  You really want to “live peaceably with all men.”  But you should have trained yourself so well that you find it nearly impossible to sin.  Sticking out like a sore thumb shouldn’t matter to you.  Yes, it may be difficult, but no one ever promised us “easy.”  We are supposed to be different from unbelievers.  We are supposed to “conform to the image of His Son,” not to the world. It should be a habit by now.

Sometimes when I sing things correctly, but differently, I get funny looks.  Once, a song leader even went to the microphone when that section came up on the next verse so he could sing the (wrong) note loud and clear.  I guess he heard my different note on the first verse and it bugged him. 

This coming Sunday morning, if you hear someone sing a different note than you are singing, maybe you should check the notes you are singing.  Then do something much more important.  Use it as a reminder to check your life.  Could anyone tell you apart from your neighbors, or do you blend right in?  Out there in the world, you should be sightsinging a completely different tune.

But the wisdom from above is first pure—then peaceable…James 3:17.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed…Rom 12:2.

Dene Ward

 I was humming that old tune a few weeks ago when I suddenly thought of that phrase in a slightly different light.  “Tell me about it!” we sometimes say to people who are complaining about something, not realizing that we have had the same or worse experience.  Or sometimes people say it to us, and if we are as mature as we like to believe, we suddenly stop whining out of sheer embarrassment.  I often wish Jesus were here to say that to those who complain about his church.

So they hurt your feelings?  They didn’t come see you when you were sick, they didn’t help you when you were depressed, they didn’t praise you in public after you did a good deed, the preacher preached a sermon that stepped on your toes, and you don’t like the way the Bible class teacher looked right at you when he mentioned a particular sin. 

Tell it to Jesus.  No one complimented him on his sermons. They usually just got mad and walked away.  Even his own disciples scolded him for insulting the Jewish rulers.  They called him a liar, a blasphemer, a madman, demon-possessed, and a child of fornication, none of which was true.  He didn’t sit there pouting, he kept right on teaching, right on serving, even people who didn’t deserve it, like you and me.

So the elders won’t listen to you, especially when you think you have discovered something new.  They won’t use you in the way you think you should be used.  You aren’t asked to lead the singing as often as you think you should, or teach the classes you think you should be allowed to teach.  They won’t give in to your pet ideas about how things should be said or done or presented.  So why should you bother to try any longer?  Why should you keep a good attitude, or do the things you are asked to do as well as you can when you aren’t even appreciated?

Tell it to Jesus.  I found ten passages in the gospels where the people in charge “communed with one another” to see how “they might destroy him.”  At least seven of those ten were completely different events.  Has anyone in the church done that to you yet?  Has anyone taken up rocks to stone you?  Has anyone nearly pushed you over a cliff?  Has anyone even come close to crucifying you yet?

No, but the church is full of hypocrites.  Why should I even have to sit in the same building with them?  Why can’t I just leave and do it my own way?  You know their two-faced worship isn’t acceptable to God, so why must I keep company with them? 

Tell it to Jesus.  He never stopped attending the synagogues on the Sabbath, and that wasn’t even part of the Law, it was simply a tradition that had begun after the return from the captivity.  He still attended the feast days right along with all those horrible people, even the Feast of Dedication, which was just a civil holiday.  He never left the work God gave him to do because someone hurt his feelings.  He never quit because people didn’t give him the due he deserved.  He never allowed the sins of others to cause him to forsake the God who deserved his love and loyalty.

Are you going to let those phonies do that to you?  If you do, doesn’t that make you one of them?

…The LORD is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. 2 Chronicles 15:2

Dene Ward

When I was teaching piano and voice, my students often participated in an evaluation day at the university with judges rating their performances—superior, excellent, very good, good, and fair.  When I was a child I participated in the same event and the words given as ratings were exactly what they said they were.  Even a “very good” was very good. 

By the time my students participated we were well into the philosophy of promoting self-esteem by never telling a child he was wrong about anything.  The vast majority of the 1000 entrants received a superior, which simply meant he didn’t play or sing more than one or two wrong notes.  It had nothing to do with his musicianship or his artistry.  If a judge handed out more excellents than superiors, he was taken aside and enlightened.  As a result only a small handful of “very goods” ever hit the rating sheet, and news of a “good” spread like the plague, with exactly the same reception.  Everyone knew that a “very good” wasn’t, and a “good” was just plain awful.  Judges were actually forbidden to even look at the “fair” rating, much less circle it.

That sort of philosophy may be why “good” means little to us these days.  It is probably why we just read right over it when Luke calls Joseph of Arimathea and Barnabas “good” men.  Luke did not use that term lightly; those were the only two times I found that particular Greek word used of a man. 

So can we ever hope to become so good that term can be used of us, the same term that Jesus used of God?  Only if, like God, that goodness becomes an intrinsic part of us, a goodness that exists no matter what happens on the outside, no matter what anyone else says or does. 

Jesus seemed to expect it.  You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. Matthew 12:34-35.  There is the word, agathos.  A good person can only do good things if his heart is good, so if I am not doing them, something in my heart needs to be changed.

“But that’s just not who I am,” won’t cut it with the Lord.  He expects us to change who we are.  He expects us to turn that evil heart into a good one, one that is good the way God is good, simply by its nature.  But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Luke 6:35.  There it is again, that same word, or a compound of it in this case, a “do-gooder.”  If you want to be a child of God, that’s what you have to be.

Jesus makes it even plainer a little later.  Becoming “good” is not an option. It is not something we can do on the outside, while harboring a heart of evil or malice towards others.  It is not something we can do by rote without compassion.  It is the thing that will determine our destiny.  Well done, good and faithful servant.  Enter into the joy of your lord, Matt 25:21. 

“Good” is a very special word in the Bible.  It isn’t passed out profligately so we can keep our self-esteem intact.  It isn’t bandied about simply because of good deeds or loud hallelujahs.  It is a quality so deep that if one ceases to exist in this life, so does that much goodness in the world.  “Only one is Good,” Jesus said, in the absolute sense.  That doesn’t mean he doesn’t expect us to become good as much as is humanly, with a little help from God, possible.

And let us not grow weary of well doing, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Galatians 6:9-10

Dene Ward