What is Your Gethsamane?

I don’t pose this question to be sacriligious by any means. Christians normally think of Gethsemane as the garden where Jesus agonized and prayed over the death He would soon be facing. However, our word “gethsemane” means olive press in Aramaic, the language Jesus would have used. This equipment was extremely important to those living in Palestine during Jesus’ day because olive oil was such an important commodity for their daily life: oil for lamps, oil for cooking, oil used in lotions and preservatives. The pictures and text below explains how the process unfolds.

The gethsamane is a large stone column (or several, as illustrated in the first picture) that is lowered onto the cracked olives. The enormous weight forces the oil from the olives and it oozes from the platform holding the fruit into basins which collect the oil.

Using this term as a symbol in our lives, a gethsemane is any heavy burden we find ourselves dealing with in life. A list of gethsemanes in the 21^st century could include  job stress, career loss, disintegration of family, dealing with a dreaded disease, or grief over death of a loved one, all of which merely scratch the surface of possibilities.

Keeping this analogy in mind, think of life moving along in an untroubled fashion corresponding to the olives laid out on the “pressing pan.” Then along comes an enormous burden, much too heavy to lift or manipulate by ourselves--our gethsemane. Now comes the question regarding the result. Will luscious olive oil ooze from under this gethsemane or will the result be a sack full of pits and dried up skins?  

For a child of God, the deciding factor is allowing Jesus Christ to come alongside us as we go through the squeezing process by our personal gethsemane. In fact, He tells us in Matthew 11:29 “Come to Me, you who are burdened, and I will give you rest.” We don’t need to go through any gethsemane alone.

The end result of this painful process is an actual prize. For an oil exporter, it is the delicious oil ready for sale. For we who belong to Christ, it is the spiritual growth we gain after having traveled through the difficulty. For Jesus, it was finishing the task He came to earth to accomplish—paying the sin-debt for mankind and making salvation available to all who reach out to Him. .

In all cases, looking at it from the “it is finished” side, the gain was well worth the pain.

Anniversaries

The word, anniversary, conjures up positive images to me, but that is not necessarily true for all anniversaries. On the positive side, one could cite wedding anniversaries with their celebrative party-like atmospheres. My church family just celebrated the 50^th anniversary of our church’s existence in Elko. Like many such celebrations, it was like a family reunion, which in essence, it was. A celebration of that many years as a presence in a community should also be a matter of praise to the Lord, as He is the one making such an event possible. That, actually, could also be true of a wedding anniversary of 50 years. For a couple to stay married for 50 years is definitely an act of God granting His grace for health and also His mercy in cementing a relationship for that amount of time.

There are other much less positive anniversaries—days to be marked, but not to be celebrated. Such days as Columbine and Sandy Hook, 9-11, and the Oklahoma City Federal Building, Pearl Harbor and the day JFK was assassinated. Those are days to be remembered because they are times we need to learn from, to somehow never allow to happen again.

And yet, all the people involved in the positive anniversary celebrations and all the people responsible for the heart-breaking anniversaries put their shoes on, one shoe at a time, put their slacks on, one leg at a time. Oh the misery we human beings can inflict on each other. And how deliriously happy we can bestow joy on another. It ultimately depends on choices made.

The wisest man, supposedly of all time, and I believe one of the most unhappy men of all time was Solomon. He very wisely asked God at the beginning of his reign to give him wisdom. He was granted that gift and amazed people of intelligence from all over the known world. But then he made some poor choices heedless of that wisdom and ended up writing the book of Ecclesiastes, declaring throughout most of it, “All is vanity—life is meaningless”  He discovered all the power and all the wealth in the world didn’t bring happiness—because he had already been granted those gifts. But at the end, God’s gift of wisdom led Solomon to the right choice: “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

That choice would make all our anniversaries a celebration and none a day to mark with dread. 

A One-horse, Open Sleigh

The picture of my daffodils blooming in early March set against the background of a poinsettia my friend, Patricia, gave me at the end of November points up the paradoxical winter we have seen here in Elko. In addition to that comparison I cannot forgo highlighting an item in last Saturday’s “Rewrite” column.  

There was no mention of jingle bells in the article about the gentleman who gave elementary children a ride home from school when the snow was so deep during early March 1890. Unless such experiences were usual, I would imagine a sleigh ride like that was an event remembered by those children forever and included in the familial memories handed down through at least one or two generations.

The lack of snow that Northeastern Nevada has seen this year almost makes it seem impossible that snow could have been so deep that children would have a problem braving the depths and drifts. But we all know from our past experiences with snow in Elko and the surrounding areas that there were times we wished we could hail a passing sleigh and hitch a ride to our destination.

I can remember my mother talking about riding her horse to school when the drifts reached the tops of the fence posts (obviously a country schoolhouse). I don’t remember ever asking my grandparents for verification on all that. I would guess the lane she had to travel would have already been dragged open by a horse-drawn grader, but I don’t know that to be true.

My school day snow tales consist of staying home from school because the school bus couldn’t get through the snowdrifts. As soon as the county grader would come through, the road would begin drifting shut again. Part of those years, my mother worked as the school secretary so she too was unable to get to work and she would decree such days “doughnut days.” She was a good bread maker and that extended to doughnuts too. The finished product was delicious especially when accompanied by home-made hot chocolate.

If the wind finally stopped, my dad would get out the sled and make a path for us down the lane to the county road and we would go sledding. As I recall, he seemed to enjoy the fun as much as my brother and I did.

Great memories—and I would love to hear my FB friends favorite “snow memories” if they are not too difficult to dredge up while enjoying warm Spring weather.

Roads

This past week’s Rewrite column in the Elko Daily Free Press included an item from 100 years ago (yes, I really like those centenary hark-backs). A rancher from Pleasant Valley apparently did most of his traveling in his beloved “gas-car.” It seems he made the news on February 25, 1915 in Elko because he had to hitch up his team to get to town due to the bad roads. Hard to tell whether that was a jibe at so-called gas-cars or merely an observation about the roads.

The majority of us take our infrastructure very much for granted. This includes a decent road system. We don’t have a clue as to the difficulties much of the world deals with as they travel.. I receive updates from various missionaries connected to different sending organizations, but almost all, at some time, mention the roads, or lack thereof, in the country where they are serving.

We Nevadans would consider traveling 50-70 miles by ambulance to get to a hospital as a real hardship (thank God for med-flights via helicopter). If any of my Midwestern/ East coast friends happen to read this post, a trip of more than 30-40 miles by ambulance is unthinkable for most of you.    

Yet I read a missionary update last week of a fellow in Thailand who traveled three days to get to a hospital closer to his home. (He had gone on vacation, was involved in a deadly car wreck and was, obviously, checked in to the nearest hospital).  What an uncomfortable ride he must have endured. I know from experience, an ambulance gurney is not a “bed” built for comfort! It would be interesting to know all the barriers the Thai ambulance driver encountered to make a three day trip like that.

Good  roads, roads with potholes, one-lane interstate during summer repairs, accessible jeep paths—whatever. I see myself taking so many every day conveniences for granted. I think we would be astounded if we took 30 minutes and thought about/listed all the things that make our lives easier here in the US. Obviously there is a flip side to the idea of “conveniences” but I don’t intend to explore that right now. At any rate, I’m grateful that I need never look at the prospect of a 3-day ambulance ride:)