The Mysterious Seb’n (4)

 

 

Harvard once had an American dialect assessment you could take online, it was by far the most accurate tool of its type I’ve encountered; it nailed where I grew up as well as other regional ways of speaking that have influenced me. 

My Dad, with his “seb’m”, was from Nelson County, VA, but lived in the Washington D.C. area and in rural Northern Virginia after his father died. My grandmother Withers moved to be closer to her family in Northern Virginia, and as my Dad grew into his teenage years he lived with an older sister and her husband in D.C. When he was 17 years old Daddy joined the Navy during WWII. The childhood memories my Dad shared with me were of the Andersons, his mother’s family in Northern Virginia, not of the Withers family in Nelson County.

 

The population of the post-WWII D.C. area, in which I grew up, reflected the War years in that we had neighbors from many parts of the country whose families had moved to the area during the War to work for the Federal government, in associated organizations, or in the local expanding economy – the influx of people needed to be housed, fed, clothed, educated and entertained. My Dad may have been one of the few adults in our suburban Maryland neighborhood who had attended D.C. area public schools.

 

As a result of the foregoing, I heard many ways of speaking as a child, many accents, and various terms for the same thing. I recall having an argument with a neighbor friend over what meal was “dinner” and what meal was “supper.” Words mattered to me even as a kid. (As I recall, the Harvard dialect assessment dealt with the regional distinction between dinner and supper.)

 

A question on the Harvard assessment had to do with how you pronounce “Washington.” Some of us may be unaware that there is more than one pronunciation of the first syllable. This distinction extends to words like “water” and “washing.” How is “wa” pronounced?

 

Keeping in mind that I grew up in the D.C. area…drum roll please…I was raised with the pronunciation “Warshington.” This means that water was warter, and washing was warshing. I am not suggesting that all Washingtonians did this, but many Warshingtonians did it – it was natural. I’ve not taken the time to track down where this “r” came from, that is, whether it was imported from another region, but it was notable enough to be included in the Harvard dialect assessment – so I am not alone.

 

Which is to say that while my Dad had his “seb’m” that I had my Warshington.

 

Vickie, being from Iowa, was quick to point out what was, for her, my unusual way of pronouncing Washington. As I thought about it, and about the way most of the world says “Washington,” I did something I suppose I might be ashamed of and which I will confess to you, I changed my way of saying Washington, water, and washing.

 

I admit that even though it has been many years since I made the change, I still do not say “Wa-shington” naturally, for I was raised a “War-shington” boy and I’ll always be a Warshington boy; you can take the boy out of Warshington but you can’t take the Warshington out of the boy. People may hear me say “Washington” but I’m thinking “Warshington.”

 

Do you call Pepsi or Coke a soft drink, pop, soda pop, soda, or tonic? Is dinner the midday meal, or is the midday meal lunch? Is dinner the evening meal, or is that supper? Is the paper thing they put your groceries in a bag or a sack or something else? Do you go for a walk in the woods or in the timber?

 

 

 

 

War-sington

Reading the Bible, Knowing Jesus (4)

 

 

“Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He becomes a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him out” (Hebrews 11:6).

 

When we open the Bible, we can open it in the expectation that we will meet God. When we ponder the Scriptures, we can anticipate the appearing of Jesus Christ; we can look for Him, listen for Him, expect to sense Him; we can be assured that we can touch Him and that He will touch us. Now for sure, all of this will be on His terms, at the pace He sets. While we may have questions for Him, we may find that He has many more questions for us, questions that may take us a lifetime to answer.

 

Just what does He want from us? Actually He wants nothing from us, other than ourselves – this is where it must begin, where it always begins and always concludes – Jesus wants us – heart, soul, mind, and strength. Jesus does not want us to simply love Him, He wants us to love Him will all that we are – “all” means “all,” fancy that (Mark 12:29 – 31).

 

O dear friends, like Martha we can be troubled about many things, our minds may rush about with questions, with tasks to be done, with things we think we need to do for the Lord – we can be sitting in a chair, our bodies still, yet our minds may be zooming through life. There may be many things we wish to know about Jesus, but Jesus says, “I am not interested in you knowing about Me, I want you to know Me. You will not know Me unless you stop and pay attention to me. You cannot fool me, I see your mind racing about, I see the things you have set your heart upon. Quiet child, Be quiet. Let us spend time together.” (Luke 10:38 – 42).

 

What would the world be like if the professing church actually knew Jesus Christ? Why if we knew Jesus we would share Him with others. If we knew Jesus we would be Jesus to others. If we knew Jesus then Jesus would speak for Himself through us, as individuals and as His People. Wouldn’t that be refreshing? Rather novel…yes, I think so. Is not a body to express the head? Ought not the Body of Christ express the Head?

 

Jesus was once asked, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” That is a fair question. Give us something to do, just tell us what to do. Is this not our way in congregations? Let us find our skill sets, our “gifts,” our aptitudes – let us put everyone to work. Let us be a people in motion, always in motion.

 

Jesus did not respond by handing out a gift assessment. He did not have the apostles do a needs analysis. Jesus did not perform a demographic study. Jesus did not give everyone a job to do.

 

“This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:28 – 29).

 

Later He will say to His disciples in the Upper Room, “I am the Vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

 

“Nothing?” we ask.

 

This is hard for us to swallow, hard for us to practice. It is so hard to sit still. So hard not to push our agendas! So impossible not to be in control.

 

Well, let us sit in expectation of His appearing as we open the Word, the Bible, the sacred Scriptures. Let us allow the words within the Word to soak our minds and hearts and be planted within our souls (James 1:21). As the words are sown, the Word comes forth, as the Word comes forth, we see Jesus.

 

How do we please God? We are told by faith; we are informed that without faith it is impossible to please Him. What does this faith look like?

 

It is, my friend, pretty simple, basic, and to the point.

 

“He who comes to God must believe that He is.”

 

I knock anticipating that someone on the other side will open the door. I ask, expecting a reply. I seek, in the hope of finding (Matthew 7:7 – 11).

 

How foolish to knock at a house you know is vacant!

 

How delusional to email a defunct address or call a number no longer in service.

 

Why,  O why, seek for something that isn’t there, that doesn’t exist?

 

As I said, this is basic, very basic.

 

We must come to Him believing that He is. Notice that we “come.” In the Bible we have passages in which He comes first and we respond; then we have passages in which we come first and He responds. Perhaps this is like chess, the white side moves first, then the black.

 

My brother Jim and I played chess for many years, first via snail mail and then via the internet. We always played two games at once. I played white in one game, and he played white in the other game. Therefore, when we began two new games they began with me making a white move in the first game, and with Jim making the white move in the second game.

 

Perhaps our Father and Lord Jesus have us playing two games at once; God moves first in one game, and He waits to see if we will move first in the second game. I am too old to worry much about all of this, other than  knowing that we can trust our dear heavenly Father in all things and He is well able to nurture us as His daughters and sons – He is our wise and kind Father and we are the lambs of our Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus.

 

In our passage “we come to God, believing that He is.”

 

Now, in case you’re wondering, this does not mean that some cannot say, “God, I don’t know about You. I don’t even know if You are real. If You are, please show Yourself to me.”

 

I think our dear God honors honesty and a seeking sincere heart. But our passage is not about this, it is about coming to God believing that He is – our passage is about faith, it is not about where we might be prior to faith. It is wise to engage the passage in front of us.

 

But when we come to God there is more than simply believing that He exists, we come because we also believe that “He becomes a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

 

In other words, we come to God believing that God will respond. We believe that God will meet us, that as we come to Him that He will come to us. We do not come to Him to figure Him out, we do not read the Bible to figure the Bible out – we come to Him to meet Him, we enter the Bible and open ourselves to God’s Word so that the Bible will enter into us…so that we will meet God, encounter Him, know Him – so that we can experience friendship and sonship (and daughterhood) with God, that we might live in the koinonia (fellowship!) of the Trinity (John Chapter 17).

 

As we partake of the Scriptures we partake of the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4).  

 

What is it to diligently seek Him?

 

Well, among other things, it means that we open the Book. It means that the Book is our primary source for communion, along with prayer (which entails both listening and speaking). As He sees us open the Book today, tomorrow, and the next day…He watches us…He watches to see if we are looking for Him or are seeking something else – perhaps religious knowledge, perhaps to improve ourselves, maybe to be smarter than we were the day before. He waits to see if we will wait for Him, if we will look for Him out of the window of our soul the way we wait for a dear loved one to return home after a long journey.

 

He waits to see if we will wait.

 

He speaks to see if we are listening.

 

He asks a question to see if we will respond.

 

Unlike us, Jesus is in no hurry, time does not matter to Him – you matter, I matter, we matter.

 

He becomes a Rewarder…and as the Holy Spirit opens the Scriptures to us (John 16:12 – 15) we realize something that can hardly be put into words…we realize that the Rewarder is greater than the reward – that He is our Reward…that He is our heart’s desire, the filling up of life, overflowing with joy and peace…and we cry with the psalmist:

 

“Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth” (Psalm 73:25).

 

Let us open the Bible and meet God – He is waiting.

 

A concluding thought:

 

When we lived in Richmond I met friends for coffee in coffee shops throughout the metropolitan area. I came to have my regular places for meeting others; it was like a chain of remote offices. With the Bible, you and I have 66 different coffee shops where we can meet Jesus – it is good to get to know all the shops, you may spend more time in some than in others, and there are some that you may take a particular liking to, but Jesus is there in each one to spend time with you…you may be surprised at what He shows you on the menus.

 

Occasionally I’d show up to a coffee shop to meet a friend and the person failed to make it – it is a sad feeling to look for someone, and look, and look again, and then realize that you’ll be having coffee by yourself, that you won’t have the pleasure of your friend’s company. Rest assured, Jesus will always be there – He will always be there ahead of you, waiting for you. The question is, will you keep Him waiting?

 

 

 

The Mysterious Seb'n (3)

 The Mysterious Seb’n (3)

 

My Daddy had an older (by 10 years) first cousin named Thomas Austin Withers, Jr. Thomas left the University of Virginia in 1941, where he was three years into his degree program, to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force. As you know – or as you should know – America didn’t enter the war until it was attacked on December 7, 1941. Until that time most of us, including many of our “leaders”, were content to watch Britain suffer what we thought was a sure process of annihilation. After all, why back a loser? (We also watched Japan destroy China, though destroy is too light a word).

 

Antisemitism was high in the United States, we had Nazi youth groups, Madison Square Garden was the venue for a Nazi rally that began with the American Pledge of Allegiance, our State Department would not (with heroic exceptions) issue visas to Jews facing extermination, and in 1939 we, the Home of the Free and the Land of the Brave, turned away 900 European Jews on the liner St. Louis and sent them back to Europe. You do, of course, remember learning this in your history classes? Of course you do.   

 

In the 1930s our population was about 120 million. It is estimated that about 30 million of us tuned our radios in weekly to hear Father Charles Coughlin spew his antisemitic venom through the airwaves – we haven’t changed, have we? We still love venom. Thank God for Pope Leo, he shows us a better way.

 

When newsreels showed video of Poland being bombed in movie theatres (yes, you could get your news before your movies in those days) some people clapped.

 

Why did this young man from dirt poor Nelson County, VA leave the safety of the University of Virginia to fight for what was surely a losing cause?

 

Not long before his death, in a letter to his parents, he wrote, “If we do not return we will have no regrets.”

 

I wonder what his Nelson County accent sounded like to his Canadian and British mates? I wonder if he pronounced “seven” as “seb’n” or “sem’n”? Or perhaps his UVA environment corrected that for him? I recall reading somewhere that he excelled in English and was considering law school.

 

Why, O why, leave UVA to fight for another people? Why leave the safety of the hills and hollows of Nelson County? Why put aside the aspirations of a degree, the promise of a career, the prospect of home and family, for certain danger and possible death? (Roughly 44% of crew members in Britain’s Bomber Command were killed.) Why not wait and see if America entered the war?

 

What was my second cousin feeling and thinking? How did he arrive at his decision?

 

What do you think?

 

 

The following is from a war memorial:

 

Thomas Austin Withers, Jr. was born on January 5, 1915, in Nelson County, Virginia. He was the son of Thomas Austin Withers Sr and Margaret Scruggs Withers.

 

Thomas served in the 405 Squadron as a Flight Sergeant during World War II. After training in Canada, he was sent to England where he was a tail gunner on a Wellington bomber. On one of the bombing runs over Germany, he was wounded and hospitalized. Upon return to duty, his bombing runs continued until July 27, 1942, when his plane, Halifax W1230, was downed over Germany and crashed into the Elbe River. Withers and two other crewmen were killed.