Meet my dad…

The Rev. William Richard Denton

July 17, 1929 – July 30, 1986

Father, Minister, Librarian, Bell Collector

This was my dad about 50 years ago!

On the occasion of graduation…
from Whitworth College or San Francisco Theological Seminary.

I put this picture up for my Facebook profile this weekend in honor of Father’s Day.

This is Mom. Dad met her at seminary, where he was studying Christian Education. She was studying Music.

They married on May 17, 1953.

My father gave up being a minister to become a librarian, and he liked that a lot better. Though, he kept his license current so he could continue to perform weddings and funerals.

He acquired a Masters Degree in Library Science from USC, while he worked as a librarian at Southern California School of Theology Library at Claremont.

So what was my dad like?

He loved books and bells!

He collected books, bells and books about bells.

He put a hundred or so bells out on a table in our front yard on the 4th of July every year. And at 10 AM, the whole neighborhood, and the local news reporters, would all come over and ring bells for five minutes.

It was a big thing.

My dad had a broken piece (about 2/3) of the headpiece from a Russian sleigh team. I always rang those sleigh bells on the 4th of July. That was my favorite bell!

Dad always rang the big school bell. It was the same one Mom rang to call us kids home when we were out playing.

Dad gave talks about bells in schools and churches. His favorite bell was the Liberty Bell.

He had a pair of table lamps with Liberty Bells as bases. We hadn’t had them very long when one of them fell on my head and broke into a dozen pieces. My mom glued it back together, and he went right on taking it to his bell talks.

The liberty bell is supposed to be cracked anyway, right?

For many years he was corresponding secretary of the American Bell Association. We spent many, many nights talking about what they served at their meetings. Dad loved sweets, and told me every gooey detail about the food they had at the bell club.

I sometimes even got to go!

I forgot my dad was a biker!

In the last decade of his life, he took up motorcycling, but never got to own his own bike. He satisfied himself with riding along on others’ wheels, participating in many bike runs. When I took up motorcycling in 2008, and bought my first bike, I had completely forgotton that he was a biker.

He also had a nice local gig going as Santa Claus! He liked being Santa Claus for local schools and churches. And he really liked being the Santa Claus in the side car in the Annual Christmas Toy Run of the Modified Motorcycle Association of America in Los Angeles.

So, maybe motorcycles are just in my blood…

After my Biker-Santa-Dad grew a beard, he was sometimes mistaken for Willie Nelson. I bet you didn’t see THAT coming from looking at that wholesome looking seminary student at the top of this post… He even wore a bandana-wrapped braid in his beard!

Here’s a picture of Willie Nelson that actually looks quite a bit like my dad…

Take away the guitar and the gap between Willie’s front teeth (which you can’t see anyway). And make the beard longer and more wirey, and that’s my dad.

I wish I could put my hands on a picture of Willie-Nelson-lookalike Dad…

I won tickets for a MEN AT WORK concert, when my father happened to be in Olympia for his father’s funeral. As luck would have it, he was arriving home on the train just a few hours before my concert, and I was supposed to pick him up at the train station downtown.

When I told him I won the tickets, he asked if I would take him to the concert, and if we could dress alike (like bikers) in jeans and black t-shirts and leather jackets…

I’ll always remember the night I picked my dad up at the train station and took him to the Men at Work concert, in our biker gear!

We had a blast!

My dad liked to help people

He had an amazing capacity for unconditional love and selfless generosity.

He was a chaplain at a halfway house associated with Atascadero State Mental Hospital for Sex Offenders. Occasionally he would bring home one of his charges to help him relocate in Southern California.

After he died, we got a small taste of the kinds of things he did for others. For an entire year, we answered more than a dozen phone calls every month, from people who hadn’t heard from him, or had missed their annual birthday letter.

He must have written hundreds of these letters on an annual basis!

I knew he wrote them, he had shown them to me more than once. I just didn’t realize that the two or three I thought he had going all the time were really a dozen or more.

As we informed these dear people that he had died, they told us how they had met him and what he had done for them.

My dad was the kind of guy who would give his last meal to a stranger. He would forgive any injury or humiliation. And keep loving. And keep giving.

When I was away at college, he sent me a care package every Thursday, which I received every Monday. And every one of those care packages contained a Garfield comic strip (and a variety of other comics and clippings), something from Mom, a book, and some food.

He was the kind of person who would drive back to the store to get the penny that was missing from his change, or to give back the $10 dollar bill that was mixed in with his ones by mistake.

He was hardworking and frugal.

And sometimes a little bit contrary. On “green goody day” at work he would take something orange, because his ancestors were followers of William of Orange, not St. Patrick! Eveyone has their limits, I guess.

I never cared about William or Patrick, I just wore green so I wouldn’t get pinched!

Here’s how I like to remember my father…

Dad was the Aquisitions Librarian of Periodicals at the Southern California School of Theology Library at Claremont for over 25 years. For his 25th anniversary, he was awared a silver platter. They invited my mom to be there, and I joined them too. For Dad, it was a surprise.

In those days, Saturday mornings were our special times, when Dad and I would sit and talk, usually eating coffee cake. Dad loved to bake coffee cake (and banana bread). It was our favorite! And he baked it nearly every Saturday morning.

On the Saturday morning after his anniversary party, he brought me my coffee cake in bed, beaming, and said to me: I have never been able to give you silver spoons, but today I brought you breakfast in bed on a sliver platter.

Within a year or so, he went on a nationwide tour with his bells, starting around mid June, 1986. He came home with pneumonia on July 16, drove himself straight to the ER, and died two weeks later.

I hope you enjoyed my tribute, as much as I enjoyed remembering it all…

Have a wonderful Father’s Day!!

May God grant you a heart of wisdom!

Worship by Numbers
Ramona Denton

My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.
~Jim Valvano

1 Corinthians 12:4-7

Now there are varieties of gifts,
but the same Spirit.

But to each one is given the manifestation
of the Spirit for the common good.

I am a member of a worship team in my local church. We have a pianist, named Steve.

Steve is very talented, and his music is both beautiful and deeply worshipful. And after making music with Steve for many years, I have heard a lot of people talk about his piano playing.

Wanting to be able to play like Steve has been a common theme.

I have heard people say things about how well they could serve the Lord if they could play like Steve.

But God did not give us all the same gifting.

God did not give us Steve’s gifts.

He gave us Steve!

God does not give gifts in a vacuum. He gives them in persons. His greatest gift of all was His Son.

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.
~Hebrews 1:1-2

To those of who know Steve, God did not simply give us the talent or the gift of playing the piano. God gave us a man, a friend, a fellow child of God, who plays the piano with us and for us. We have somebody to love and serve and walk with as we worship our heavenly Father.

This goes both ways!

God gave each one of us to the others, that we might serve one another in love.

God gave you to Steve.

So, thank God for your “Steve” today! Pray for him! Serve him in love, with whatever special talent or gift God has given you.

Are you a chef? Make an exquisite dinner…

Are you an encourager? Share some encouraging words…

Are you an intercessor? Pray…

Maybe he just needs a cold drink and a hug today.

Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all for the glory of God!

As each one has received a special gift,
employ it in serving one another,
as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
~1 Peter 4:10

May God grant you a heart of wisdom!

Worship by Numbers
Ramona Denton

If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.
~George MacDonald

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Genesis 15:5

Look toward the heavens, and count the stars,
if you are able to count them…

So shall your descendants be.

Abram could not count the stars. But God can.

He counts the number of the stars;
He gives names to all of them.
~Psalm 147:4

I have a astronomer friend who says that they have telescopes now that are powerful enough that we could literally count the stars.

Isn’t that just amazing?

It would certainly take a long time to count them all. Perhaps many lifetimes. Perhaps more lifetimes than mankind will live on earth. But the universe is finite. And there are a finite number of stars in it at any given moment.

I don’t understand, I mean really understand, a lot of what my friend says about the universe. But I think he sees a greater glory in the universe than I do.

For me, the glory and awe I feel about the universe has to do with what I don’t know. It all seems so glorious and wondrous and vast. And I am just awestruck by it. I cannot get my head around it.

My friend understands the universe on a much larger scale than I do. Because he sees the limits of the universe through his telescopes, I imagine it looks smaller to him than it does to me. But I imagine the awe and wonder of the Almighty is all the greater for him.

Though the Creator remains unseen, my friend sees the creation more clearly than most of us. He sees the fingerprint of the Almighty.

Lift up your eyes on high
And see who has created these stars,
The One who leads forth their host by number,
He calls them all by name;
Because of the greatness of His might
and the strength of His power
Not one of them is missing.
~Isaiah 40:26

May God grant you a heart of wisdom!

Worship by Numbers
Ramona Denton

All the universe’s matter and energy remain confined to the universe’s space-time dimensions.
Thus we humans are confined in our measuring and detecting abilities to our universe’s space-time “envelope.”
~Hugh Ross

quoted from Beyond the Cosmos: What Recent Discoveries in Astrophysics Reveal About the Glory and Love of God (disclosure)

for further information: www.reasons.org

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

I entitled this blog worship by numbers because I like to consider various earthly numbers and counts as they compare to the Infinite Creator of our universe. I find it inspiring. It gives me a perspective on life where God is always big in the foreground, and problems can fade into the background, under the shadow of the Almighty.

In one of my early posts, I said that I spent the first 8,078 days of my life oblivious to God. I had heard of Him, but I had no knowledge of the Holy One. I had no understanding.

So, how do we gain understanding?

Make your ear attentive to wisdom,
Incline your heart to understanding;
For if you cry for discernment,
Lift your voice for understanding;
If you seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hidden treasures;

Then you will discern the fear of the LORD,
And discover the knowledge of God.
For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

Proverbs 2:2-6

I have been worshipping God for 9,335 days now. How ever much wisdom and understanding I have, whether it is much or little, it came from the Lord. And I can’t count it.

Wisdom falls into the other camp. The one that is infinite. Uncountable. Knowledge and understanding of the Holy One.

It’s like love. It can’t be counted, but people will try. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

Worship by numbers is a love poem to God. Numbering our finite days and waxing poetic about our infinite Lord…

Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Thy book they were all written,
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.

How precious also are Thy thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I should count them,
they would outnumber the sand.

Psalm 139:16-18

May God grant you a heart of wisdom!

Worship by Numbers
Ramona Denton

Wisdom begins in wonder.
~Socrates

There are three things which are stately in their march,
Even four which are stately when they walk:
The lion which is mighty among beasts
And does not retreat before any,
The strutting rooster, the male goat also,
And a king when his army is with him.

This verse always makes me smile. The lion, the rooster and the goat have no problem strutting their stuff! Nobody makes the lion retreat… But the human, even a king, needs his army behind him.

Maybe the king knows the old proverb that says “There is safety in numbers.” And he feels safe when he is surrounded by men who are under his command.

What makes you feel safe?

Safe enough to strut your stuff like a lion…

Before you answer, consider your frame of reference.

If you are limiting yourself to the finite universe, you might consider that intentional harm may be done to you by the very people you feel safe with. Or from an enemy that is stronger or sneakier than those that are with you. And even if all of that is under control, you could still be harmed by accident. Life is fragile.

The name of the LORD is a strong tower;
The righteous runs into it and is safe.
~Proverbs 18:10

If you open your mind beyond the cosmos, to include the existence of Almighty God, if you open your heart to His unseen presence, you will find no safety in numbers any more. Your only assurance of safety is in Him.

God doesn’t make mistakes. He does not have accidents. His word is true, even if it makes every man a liar. He is 100% sovereign. And He needs no army with Him to be stately.

The majesty and glory of His name will be proclaimed throughout endless ages. And the evil one cannot snatch you out of His hand.

So, is there safety in numbers?

Only if God is counted among your number. He is all you need.

In peace I will both lie down and sleep,
For Thou alone, O LORD,
dost make me to dwell in safety.
~Psalm 4:8

May God grant you a heart of wisdom!

Worship by Numbers
Ramona Denton

There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
~James Thurber

After Peter’s mini sermon about healing in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:8-14), these elders and rulers were conferring with eachother about what to do, saying…

“What shall we do with these men?
For the fact that a noteworthy miracle has taken place
through them is apparent to all who live in Jerusalem,
and we cannot deny it.”
~Acts 4:16

Describing a miracle as “noteworthy” just cracks me up. What miracle is not noteworthy? Feeding five thousand? Turning water into wine? Raising the dead?

We explain away miracles all the time today. We say that the chemotherapy must have finally kicked in. And we give the glory to modern medicine, positive thinking or “spontaneous” remission.

These guys were really stuck. They did not believe in spontaneous remission of congenital lameness. And a 40+ year-old man who was born lame had gotten up and walked!

They knew that Almighty God Himself had healed this man, and yet they wanted to deny it.

So, the jewish leaders chastised Peter and John, and told them not to do any more healing or any more speaking in the name of this Jesus. If you’re reading this, you probably already know how well that worked out for them…

But Peter and John answered and said to them,
“Whether it is right in the sight of God
to give heed to you rather than to God,
you be the judge;

for we cannot stop speaking
what we have seen and heard.”

~Acts 4:19

Peter and John could not stop proclaiming Jesus. In fact, Peter ended up being crucified, and John exiled, because of it.

To overflow with abundant joy and exultant praise for the noteworthy things God has done for us, that is the heart of worship.

May God grant you a heart of worship!

Worship by Numbers
Ramona Denton

There are two ways to live:
you can live as if nothing is a miracle;
you can live as if everything is a miracle.
~Albert Einstein

And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered.

Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them… so shall your descendants be.

Genesis 13:16, 15:5

Now obviously, Abraham could not count the sand or the stars. God was simply using sand and stars as comparisons, to show Abraham that the number of his descendants would be big, too many to count.

God, on the other hand, actually CAN count things like stars.

He counts the number of the stars;
He gives names to all of them.
Psalm 147:4

The way we read the Bible in post-modern times, we might expect to see God give Abraham a supernatural ability to count the sand or the stars.

God’s promises are not always numerically impressive, but He often promises us more than we can count or imagine.

The real beauty of Abraham’s story is not that he could have been an ancient bean counter… but that his response to God was faith.

Then he believed in the LORD;
and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
Genesis 15:6

Abraham believed God. And what God did for him is way beyond a paradigm shift. He counted him as righteous.

May God grant you a heart of worship!

Worship by Numbers
Ramona Denton

It is a sign of strength, not of weakness, to admit that you don’t know all the answers.
~John P. Loughrane

Psalm 150

Praise the LORD!
Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty expanse.
Praise Him for His mighty deeds;
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.
Praise Him with trumpet sound;
Praise Him with harp and lyre.
Praise Him with timbrel and dancing;
Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe.
Praise Him with loud cymbals;
Praise Him with resounding cymbals.
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD!

I love it when psalms and songs talk about using our breath to honor God. Especially about letting our every breath be offered to Him in worship and prayer.

This thought first resonated in my soul while I was having my very first asthma attack. I was 29 years old. Earlier that day my mother was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer.

That evening my chest felt tight, and I woke up I in the very early morning to find that my breathing had became quite difficult and somewhat painful, though not at all life-threatening. So, I decided not to wake up my roommates or call 911. I got in the most comfortable position I could, and found myself praying for each breath. “Thank you, Lord. Could I have one more?”

As the morning dawned and my roommates found out I had been praying for every breath, they told me to wake them up next time, and let them take me to the ER.

Every day since, it has been the cry of my heart to use every breath that I am given to honor God. That day was April 12, 1991.

Almost 10 million minutes have passed since April 12, 1991. If I breathe an average of 20 times per minute, that means I have had almost 200 million chances to use a breath to honor God in some way. I know that is a big number, but it is finite. And it is not even as big as our $12.7 Trillion national debt. We talk about numbers in the billions and trillions all the time.

Here is an interesting comparison, just to help us get our minds around the numbers.

According to Forbes, Oprah Winfrey’s net worth is $2.5 billion. If somebody gave me a dollar for every breath I have breathed since my first asthma attack, Oprah would have about 10 times more money that I would have.

In March 2009, Oprah donated $40 million to the Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. That donation would amount to one dollar for every 5 breaths I have taken since that asthma attack. Interestingly enough, Oprah Winfrey’s main claim to fame is being a talk show hostess. She earned all that money by using her breath!

God has given us an average lifespan of 70 years, which is about 36 million minutes. At 20 breaths per minute, that is only 735 million breaths. In my case, I wasted the first 232 million breaths speaking curses, blasphemies and selfish nonsense. I have spent the second 232 million breaths worshipping the Almighty God of heaven and earth.

If we are going to cultivate hearts of worship while we are trapped in this mortal timeline, we might choose to spend our finite number of breaths to speak words about Him that are true and good. Thank Him. Praise Him. Pray to Him. Worship Him. To speak the truth about Him.

That is what He gave us breath for.

The Spirit of God has made me,
And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
-Job 33:4

May God grant you a heart of wisdom!

Worship by Numbers
Ramona Denton

It is possible to experience an awakening in this life through realising just how precious each moment, each mental process, and each breath truly is.
~Christy Turlington

Job 1:20-21

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head,
and he fell to the ground and worshiped.

And he said,
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
And naked I shall return there.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the LORD.”

Job had lost almost everything dear to him.

Practically within the same breath, literally “while he was still speaking…,” three servants ran up to Job to inform him of great losses, saying “And I alone have escaped to tell you.”

And Job’s response was worship. He fell to the ground and worshipped.

Not much later in the story, Job’s suffering increased further when his health was attacked.

Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9)

I’m not sure I have ever heard anybody curse God. I mean literally curse God. In our culture, we hear a lot of cursing. Though we are usually cursing other humans. Like the guy who cut us off on the freeway, or the lady in the grocery line who delays the line with a coupon that won’t scan.

But not Job. His response to great loss and great suffering was worship.

But he [Job] said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10)

Job continued to worship God, even when suffering great loss and deep pain.

To worship, to boldly admit that God is still God, even when your own life circumstances no longer feel like they are “blessed”. This is the heart of a worshipper.

Even when trouble looms large, God is greater! Nothing that happens on this earth can remove our God from His throne. In that we can take comfort.

God is not pacing back and forth in front of His throne worried that the situation actually threatens His glory or His sovereignty. God is not consulting a panel of experts to learn what, if anything, He can do for us. His eternal position and identity as God — with a big G — is completely secure! His power to work on our behalf is unlimited.

Our pain does not derail God’s grace. His mercy is still new every morning! He is a stronghold to all who take refuge in Him.

His love is deeper than the ocean. His glory higher than the earth.

No matter what your trouble is today, the Lord longs to hear your voice worshipping Him. He searches over all the earth to find true worshippers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Do not let your pain, or the person who caused it, separate you from God. When pain and loss strike, press in closer. Cry out to Him.

Fall to the ground and worship.

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast;
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises!
Awake, my glory;
Awake, harp and lyre, I will awaken the dawn!

Psalm 57:7-11

May God grant you a heart of worship in your day of trouble!

Worship by Numbers
Ramona Denton

If you suffer, thank God! It is a sure sign that you are alive.
~Elbert Hubbard

Image: Gregory Szarkiewicz / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Isaiah 7:14

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign:
Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son…

How Well Do You Read Signs?

Many years ago, I was driving with a few friends in my car. We had just eaten dinner in a restaurant in an unfamiliar town, and were headed home. But none of us knew exactly how to find the freeway onramp. So we drove in the general direction of the freeway, and looked around hoping for a road sign to tell us how to get on the freeway.

We got to the freeway, turned in the general direction of home, and came upon just such a sign. As I followed the signs to the freeway onramp, a disagreement started among the passengers in my car. At almost every sign, every intersection and every turn, they thought I went the wrong way, because they did not immediately see the onramp.

I was confident that I was reading the signs correctly, so I just kept telling them that I was going where they signs said to go. After about 4 or 5 signs, going straight, making turns, we made a final left turn into a dark coul-de-sac that looked like a very wrong turn into a short dead end street. But guess what?

The onramp was actually right there at the end of this “dead end” street.

I followed the signs to the onramp without one wrong turn. But from the first sign, everybody was in disagreement about what the signs really meant.

I find it very interesting that four intelligent adults, all licensed drivers, can see four different meanings in a set of directional road signs that were specifically designed to mean only one thing. If it had not been pitch black dark that night, we might have imagined that we could “find our way” to the freeway onramp without much help from the signs. This would have been wrong.

This was a very confusing route! We only found the onramp so quickly because we followed the signs exactly. We never would have found such an out-of-the-way onramp by ourselves. Never.

So, how shall we interpret this sign, that the Lord Himself has given us?

What does it mean that the Lord Himself has given us a sign?

What does it mean that a virgin will bear a son?

God sent His Son, Jesus, to show us Himself. To show us the Way to God. To glorify God. That is what Jesus Himself says over and over again throughout His life and ministry.

He who has seen Me has seen the Father. I and the Father are one.
~John 14:9, 10:30

As we argue about the theology of eternal life, and bicker about the doctrine of divine election and free will, let’s not miss the one, plain, simple message in the sign.

And It’s so easy to miss…

The sign is not there primarily to give us more fuel for our theological debates. The sign is there to show us Jesus. To tell us which way to go to find Him.

If you are looking for the way to the freeway onramp, you can get there by following the signs. Likewise, if you want to find eternal life in God, you might consider looking for signs that tell you how or where to find Jesus, or which way to go.

If that describes you, then look no further. The way to Life through Jesus is signified in every manger scene, every advent wreath, every gift given, and even in every Christmas decoration. The signs are all around us.

The funny thing about signs in general, and this sign in particular, is that people who are not looking for the sign, don’t see the significance of it. They only see the thing of which the sign is made. They only see the baby in the manger. They don’t see Him as the One who was born King of all creation.

The wise men were following the star… that led them to Jesus. The shepherds followed the angels’ advice, looked for the the baby in the manger… and found Jesus. The baby in the manger was a sign for them. A sign that signified something about the infinite God being born into a finite human body, in order to unite His infinite being with our finite beings. Call it salvation. Redemption. Eternal Life. The Kingdom of God. Heaven.

The baby in the manger is still a sign by which we can find Him. He shows us the way to eternal life. It is not a dead end street. It is the onramp. He is the way, the entry point, to the kingdom of life.

My friends were fooled because the way we were going looked wrong to them. They believed circumstances rather than the signs. But we cannot find our way by circumstances; they aren’t always accurate. That is what the sign is for. The sign accurately tells us the path’s ultimate destination. It tells me where I will end up if I follow the signs.

The Isrealites followed the signs to their messiah for thousands of years. Those signs led some of them to Jesus. He is the way to eternal life.

A good theological argument can be fun, or terribly boring, depending on your tastes. And I’m not saying that we should not discuss, and even haggle over, our beliefs. The ability to define and share our mostly dearly-held beliefs is probably a good thing. And for those inclined toward healthy debate, I say go for it.

But don’t miss the main point of the sign just because you are still arguing about how or when the host becomes Christ’s body after you eat it. I’m just saying: Follow the signs. They lead to Him.

If these theological issues are still relevant when we “get there,” I’m sure He’ll explain them to us. But until then, …

Let us celebrate His birth with the angels on high.

He has given us great reason to rejoice!!!

And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them,
and the glory of the Lord shone around them;
and they were terribly frightened.

~Luke 2: 9-14

Glory to God in the highest!
May God grant you a heart of worship!

Worship by Numbers
Ramona Denton

Joy is the most infallible sign of the Presence of God.
~Teilhard de Chardin

All children wear the sign: ‘I want to be important NOW.’ Many of our juvenile delinquency problems arise because nobody reads the sign.
~Dan Pursuit

There are many excuses for the person who made the mistake of confounding money and wealth. Like many others they mistook the sign for the thing signified.
~Millicent Garrett Fawcett