Monday, February 16, 2026
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Green pastures
Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters,
when you encounter various trials,
for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
And let perseverance be perfect,
so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
But if any of you lacks wisdom,
he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly,
and he will be given it.
At our party to celebrate Uncle Merlie’s hundredth, and Aunt Vera’s 96th, and coincidentally at least a thousand years of Sandel Family spread wide, in a moment rather than eternity, I imagine my grandfathers, or my grandmothers, my Aunt Mary or my mom, or my dad praying for me. Our family and friends who have died, I think, have the power to intercede for us. Perhaps when they pray, they pray the same words they prayed on earth, and that I pray this morning.
The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want,
you make me lie down in green pastures, yo
u walk with me beside still water, you restore my soul.
I hesitate to ask these ones I love to talk to me about heaven. Are there really green pastures? Do you plant, care for and arrange beautiful flowers? Will we eat watermelon and fried chicken? I wonder why I don’t want to ask … should I try? There are so many of you these days, more and more all the time. Can I see some of you tomorrow, and some today? I hear Mom saying, not far away … take it slow, David, take your time. Relax. Rest. Wait. The tomorrow’s in eternity go on forever.
Oh, look! There’s Aunt Mary. Singing her song, the one she sang to us, her niece and nephews, holding us all so close. “Let me go, let me go …” and never meaning a word of it.
Aunt Mary, tell me what you do all day …
I hope around and skip, and feel like a lightweight kid again.
Aunt Mary was 6’3” and big boned, and later in her life she couldn’t pick herself up anymore.
There is lots to do, but we don’t count days anymore. You’ll get used to eternity, after you decide to get used to it.
Hmmm. I read a kids’ book the other day, Cubbie Blue and His Dog Dot.
In the mists of Cylon, the oldest Antarctic iceberg, was the enchanted land of Baltar, with diamond-faceted ice stalactites and stalagmites that twinkled in any light. The sky-blue–skinned Baltarians were always happy, doing cartwheels as they walked and giggling when they talked. They were only a few inches tall but big in knowledge. Their knowledge came mostly from supernatural powers inside them that were so strong they never had to say what they felt since others could sense their feelings intuitively. Nor did they need cars, since their minds moved them wherever they wanted to go. They didn’t need telephones either, because they stayed in touch telepathically.
Is this what heaven is like? But no, the Baltarians had to protect themselves from their neighbors, who sound disturbingly like us earthlings.
The inhabitants of nearby Aryon were very different. Almost always unhappy, they waited for Baltarians to leave so they could capture them. They wanted to get rid of Baltarian laughter, although secretly they wanted to know what caused it so they, too, could be happy. The Baltarians, who knew what the Aryons were up to, had built a special shield  around their land. Anyone or anything that came within miles of Baltar’s protective shield was engulfed in light twisters and spun around.
Grandpa Brummer, you’ve been up there since 1963. We had a good time when I was little, you pushed me around in a cool little stroller, and we slurped tea Grandma made from saucers at three in the afternoon. Do you pray for me sometimes?
Yes, I pray for you, but I don’t think of you as a little boy. I think of you the way the Holy Spirit lights you up from the inside. What did you quote from T. S. Eliot? “The fire and the rose are one.” That makes me happy. You light up my life, David. And I fire yours up too with prayers and affections so together we can skip the light fantastic.
Grandpa loved words, like I do. He read Tales from Shakespeare by Charles Lamb to his daughters Angie and Mary Lou when he came in from doing his farm chores. He wore his bib overalls most of the time, except to church. When they moved to town he didn’t have a job, but Grandma worked at the garment factory. He had two strokes and then spent three years in bed before he died the same year that Marilyn Monroe died. Grandma took care of him. I don’t remember him, except in that bed, but I know how much I love him. How much he loves me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil,
and my cup runs over.
And his wife, Tasie Conrady Brummer? Grandma didn’t die till twenty years later.  She’s like Mom, who lived 20 years longer than our dad. Do you still have a green thumb, Grandma? Do you spend a lot of time outside?
This new world takes a little getting used to. We all say that. The cycle of birth and growth and maturity and death happens here too, but it’s outside time. Can all that eternal life be happening all at once, not just in me but in the rhododendrons? I wouldn’t have thought so, but it does.
Surely goodness and mercy
will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Dad farmed his heart out and milked cows every morning and evening for twenty of those farming years. He changed shirts in the evening and read to us from Little Visits with God. He  and Mom played pinochle on Friday night with a few old friends. After he sold the holsteins, he and Mom square danced on Wednesday nights except during Lent and Advent, when they went to church.
Dad woke up early, like 4 am even on vacations, which we took in August every year to the Ozarks or Michigan or the East Coast, after his brother Merlie moved out there. For ten years before he died Dad and I took a short trip somewhere in the fall, just to have some alone-time together.
I don’t know what to ask you, Dad. Thanks for leading our family and discovering how to really love Jesus when you got older. And how Jesus loves you.
I never said much, don’t say much now. But it’s easier than ever for me to smile, and laugh, and even skip up and down the road, like Mary said. I watch you from up here, and pray for you just like we all pray here, without desperation. You are safe in the arms of Jesus. You and all the souls on earth are always safe in the arms of Jesus. We put ourselves in the hands of God, and there we stay. He isn’t going anywhere.
Ask in faith, not doubting,
For the on one who doubts
Is like a wave of the sea
Drive and tossed about by the wind.
Do not be of two minds.
For the sun comes up with its scorching heat
 and dries up the grass.
The flower droops and the beauty of its appearance
Vanishes.
Mom, you’ve been up there for just a little while. I imagine you’ve been exploring every corner, though, and are discovering plenty. What’s it like to be a wife and sister and daughter, and know your family is just around the corner, day after day forever?
There’s no hurry, David. I’m happy to watch you down there, and your sister, and your brother, and love you from here. Don’t rush to find me now. Wait your turn. And be sure you look your family in the eyes, and ask questions, and get to know them again and again. They are precious in God’s sight, and in yours. Let your love shine.
Oh, Mom, thanks. I’ll do my best. Live here now. Love you forever. I’ll love you for always …
My mommy you’ll be.
(James 1, Psalm 119, John 14, Mark 8)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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