Eating Your Words
Snow fell again last night here in New Hampshire. Out of the window of my study in the tall-spired Bethany Covenant Church in Bedford, I witness a picture-card-perfect scene of winter in New England. The mounds of white flakes are beginning to melt again, but I hope not too fast.
I thought I would hate the winter here. When I was told the past winters were almost snowless, I relaxed. Yet, from December on we have had a near-record series of snowstorms and more are expected. And, would you know, I joined the brave, independent New Hampshirites and became a convert. From the first six inches of winter snow, I began to cultivate the high art of brushing it off the car: sweeping the top, stripping the hood, brushing the sides, windexing the windows, polishing the headlights, landscaping the trunk, and manicuring the mirrors.
The habit of eating my words is close to becoming an addiction. To paraphrase the Apostle Paul, “The things that I would not do [like], that I do [like].” I once heard a missionary speaker at a college chapel say that at the time of her early commitment she would go anywhere in the world — except to China. Yes, you guessed it! Of course, I believe that nothing is really safe with a living God around, not even our gallant decisions. But somewhere in us there is also an imp who knows us better than we know ourselves. Just when we think we are absolutely sure, a perversity in us upends us and makes us wrong, sometimes delightfully wrong.
But not always delightfully. Sometimes we have to blush. This week at a church staff meeting when we were in a quiet, reflective mood, my witty associate, Brad Bergfalk, read a passage from a journal that made good sense to me, and I blurted out, “Wow, that’s good!” Then, like a Blue Jay that swallowed a goldfish, he explained that it was written by Arthur Anderson. Amid the guffaws, I ate my words — hook, line, and sinker!