There was an altar call

There was an altar call. Not every Sunday, but most weeks. During the special services that were held once a year, there was an altar call every night.

Sometimes no one came, sometimes one or two, sometimes the pews emptied and the kneelers stacked up, rows deep, in front of the altar. The altar was always open -- Pastor Mark made a point of reminding us of that.

I grew up in churches with altars, and they didn't seem like a show for fellow worshippers or a manipulation tool in the hands of power hungry pastors. They seemed like an opportunity to physically engage with what was going on in your heart.

I don't remember the first time I went to the altar, but I know what it felt like in those early years when I received my own altar call: my heart would pound, heat would flood into my face, and I would cling to the safety of my seat until the urge to rise became unbearable. Then I would slip past the knees of my family, lining the pew between me and the aisle, walk to the front of the church between banks of other worshipers, and at last arrive at my destination. The discomfort and embarrassment dissolved as soon as I knelt on the rough carpet, leaned my forearms on the cool, smooth polish of the wood. The humble position magnified my rightful place before Almighty God. The act of obedience reinforced my submission to Him. Maybe I was responding to hearing the Word preached; maybe I was lifting up a burden of my heart to God; maybe I was repenting. There were usually tears, and always relief and joy at being fully and consciously in the presence, in the very arms, of God. Sometimes an arm would land across my shoulders -- someone from my family, or my larger church family coming alongside me.

From the time I was ten until the summer I turned twenty-five, I attended Pastor Mark's church, my growing spiritual consciousness shaped by the altars Jim Parker built. Each Sunday morning we hauled them out of the trailer into the school cafeteria where we met. I've been away almost six years now, and last Sunday I attended a farewell for Pastor Mark as he, too, moves on from that church. "The altar is like God's lap," Pastor Mark used to say. A paradoxical place where the reality of an incredibly intimate relationship with the absolute God of the universe came to light. I'm grateful for that altar that provided a framework for my newly developing relationship with God, and for the altar before the throne of grace, always open to a humble, obedient heart.

Why Three Year Olds Make the Best Language Teachers

My German comprehension is okay. Certainly not complete, but with context and body language and a bit of work, I can usually make out the topic of conversation and if it is simple and familiar, follow along pretty well. My speaking, however, lags behind my comprehension, waiting for some world where I won't mind loosing my personality and polish behind a cobbled together string of badly pronounced words in a time and gender crunching mix. So on my latest trip to Germany, as usual I smiled and nodded, getting by with a "Danke" or a softly spoken sentence here and there. When people realize I don't speak German, they smile an apology and avoid future attempts at conversation, or switch to English.

Until Joshua. He is the three-and-a-half-year-old son of my German friends Melanie and Bernhard, and he had been looking forward to the arrival of "Julie" without any thought of what language he would use to converse with me. He spoke in German, looking me in the eye and expecting a response. Even when my response was a confused look, or a grammatically garbled sentence blending German and English, he did not bat an eye or back off. He did not curtail our conversations or switch to English; he just plowed ahead, as three-year-olds do, his vocabulary simple and to the point.

Some mornings he came to my room to visit; alone together we would piece together communication out of body language and our growing understanding of the German language. I showed him pictures of my dad and brother's bees; he responded eagerly, "Bienen!" and followed with a whole slew of questions I was sure I wouldn't be able to answer even in English. He saw my journal and wanted to color, so he ran up stairs (after telling me, "Bleib da" -- stay there!) to get paper and colored pencils and then scribbled away, drawing ... Kuchen! (Cakes) He slid them into an imaginary oven and when they were done, we ate them.

One night he even wanted me to put him to bed. I read him a story in German (I'm sure it must have sounded awkward, but he listened attentively and made no comment), prayed for him in German, understood when he was asking for a last tuck-in from Mama. 

Since Joshua is not the first three-year-old I have spent time with, I recognized some of his habits as those common to little boys everywhere. His constant, "Warum?" after every instruction or explanation his mother gave was not hard to translate; he is in the "why?" phase. When we took a trip into the Black Forest that required an hour in the car, he peppered the way with familiar road trip questions: "Sind wir da? Sind wir da?" (Are we there?) "Wo ist die Schwarzwald? Wo? Da?" (Where is the Black Forest? Where? Here?)

Repetition was also in my favor. One afternoon when we were working in the garden, he went back and forth between the beds where Melanie and I were working. "Findest du eine Nacktschnecke?" he would ask first one, then the other, over and over again. It was easy to understand that he wanted any slugs we might find. (Why he wanted them was not so clear to me.)

I also gave him a few English lessons. Sometimes he would point to objects and I would give him the English name; when he was busy counting everything in German I would follow his lead in English. Occasionally he would try to repeat me. "Pig" was one word that stuck; "pinkg, pinkg, pinkg" he would say, pointing to pictures of pigs. But when I told him the word "peacock," he told me in no uncertain terms, "You may not say 'peacock.' You can say 'pig,' but you cannot say 'peacock.'" 

We laughed together, too, and made up imaginary games, and shared piggy back rides. And when I would make a foray into the unknown world of German, and he would respond with an action or a laugh or an appropriate answer or a knowing look, he gave me the gift of being understood.

He asked several times where my car was, wondering how a visitor could arrive at their home sans auto.  A Flugzeug was a cool way to have traveled, but he couldn't see the airplane in their driveway, either. Maybe sometime he can travel ganz ganz weit across the ocean in a big airplane and come to give me my next German lesson!