"A rolling stone gathers no moss."

I love moss.  I guess it’s that I’m from western Pennsylvania and there was a lot of moss in the woods near my home and at campgrounds and state parks.

I learned to identify all the forms of moss we had in western PA when I was a kid.  I was a Boy Scout and I earned the Botany merit badge by learning to identify various types of plants and trees and moss.  As a Boy Scout, for instance, we were taught that sphagnum moss would make a nice mattress if pushed into a sack.  Sphagnum moss is unique in that it has a more elongated structure.

Sphagnum moss

But I like all forms of moss.  The air here in the Netherlands is very humid and it rains very, very frequently.  We aren’t having real winter these days: no snow, no real low temperatures, only frost on the car window and the rooves once and a while.

Moss is growing in our backyard.  Our backyard is paved in big concrete stones.  I’m sure the stones were laid when the house was built about 35 - 40 years ago. Our backyard is covered with decaying leaves (black to my eyes) and bright green moss (when it has rained recently).  I love the bright green moss.  I am not excited about flag stone backyards. 

Nothing else will really grow in our backyard.  The bicycle shed shelters it and that means there is little sunlight.  There is also a tall tree which we like for shade and beauty, but it does shade the yard and grass won’t grow.

We had a beautiful boxwood bush which nothing except a blight could kill, which it did two years ago.  We have a laurel bush now and a couple bridal wreath bushes.  There’s a lot of ivy and an overgrown pine.  There are also some rose bushes which Linda planted and one left from previous tenants.

But the part of our backyard I like the best is the moss and the dead leaves.  Our yard in the Netherlands is starting to look like the woods I love. 

Linda knew that I loved the woods, even if I never want to camp in a tent sleeping on the ground again.  She found me a lovely little campground with self-catering apartments beside the Ambleve river in southern Belgium in the Ardennes mountains near where the Battle of the Bulge took place.

I love the area around Domaine Long Pre where we go for vacation.  I love the little river and the pine covered hillsides.  I love the deciduous forest in the lower area and the pine stands further up. 

The view from the top of the hill above the camp is beautiful with other hill tops in the distance and farm houses and barns, cows and a ski slope.  I always enjoy seeing the same statues and monuments, the one of Jesus with outstretched hands receiving WWI fallen soldiers and the WWII monument from the 82nd US Airborne in Wannee.

I like being able to walk along the path which has recently been renewed along the Ambleve river from Domaine Long Pre to Stavelot, the larger town in that area. There was once a thriving monastery there which housed hundreds of monks. Now it is a war museum and government offices.  The quaint houses and shops of Stavelot are endearing. 

We almost always go to the same restaurants. I almost always order the same things, especially Ardennes trout with creme sauce, mushroom and bacon, Flemish beef stew cooked in beer sauce and rabbit butt cooked in plum sauce.  French fries are not French.  They were invented by the Belgians and no meal in Belgium is possible without “friets.”

I haven’t had it with potatoes, but the fish and sauce look right!

But I think I especially like seeing all the moss as I walk up the hill under the pine stand.  The plain, old moss and the sphagnum moss.

Now we have even had moss growing in front of our house on the pavement.  I like the moss and the wild violets which grow there. 

In the early part of our missionary career we moved constantly.  We never stayed even two calendar years in one place, until we moved to Leuven, to Belgium.  We were five school years there.

Now we have been in the Netherlands almost twenty years, twenty this August.  There is a lot of lovely moss.

Virtue not talent

There is a difference between a talent and a virtue.  We tend to stand amazed in hero worship of someone with a talent, be it singing or playing an instrument or performing a physical feat, a pole vault or gymnastic routine.  Talents are given by genetics.  Some have them and some don’t.  Talents can be used for good or they can be used for self-aggrandizement.

Virtues however are developed over time.  They may or may not be “natural.” Some people are born loyal.  Others are born liars.

We cannot choose whether we have talents. We just do or don’t.  We can choose how we will develop them and use them.  However, God is not so excited by our talents as by our virtues.

Mozart had great talent, but was profligate.  God wants us to grow in Christ’s likeness, to become truly virtuous people.

The fruit of the Spirit is not a talent to be developed.  It’s not even a Spirit given gift, say being able to speak or preach well.  The fruit of the Spirit is a list of virtues: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. Galatians 5:22

This next Spring semester 2020 at Tyndale I will teach The doctrine of the Holy Spirit again.  As always I am trying to help people who disagree (Cessationists- the charismatic gifts have ended - and the Continuatonists -the gifts are still for today) to learn to live together in peace and to work together for the advancement of Christ’s Kingdom.

The Bible does not vaunt spiritual gifts, though it allows for them and recognizes that the Spirit gives them to whom he will. The Bible focuses on character development, virtues.  “Above all these things put on love...”

We tend to be fascinated by talents and abilities. We should, rather, focus on character and Christ like behavior.  People can fake gifts and fool audiences with smooth words.  Character, however, is unmistakeable and unimitable.

Dave Hrach - the man who led me to Christ

“He went walking and leaping and praising God!”

Acts 3:1 Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.

² And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple;
³ Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms.
⁴ And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.
⁵ And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.
⁶ Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.
⁷ And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.
⁸ And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.

When I was a teen the Charismatic Renewal was affecting Pittsburgh. This first line was a song we sang at the time.  I was notified today that Dave Hrach, the man who led me to Christ, died last night.

Dave had had spina bifida as an infant and was not expected to live.  A doctor advised his mother to have an abortion when the disease was discovered in utero.  She refused.

Dave was not to have lived beyond ten years of age.  He lived past eighty.

Dave was a strong man.  He could crush your hand with a grip.  Years of getting around in a wheel chair meant his arms were extremely strong.

Dave had a life no one ever expected.  Rather than die he lived on and completed high school.  He was a Sunday School teacher and Luther League (Youth Group) sponsor at St. Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church in West View, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh.

St. Luke was a very ethnic church of mostly people of German descent. So, family names like: Hrach, Gottschalk, Seelhorst, Stuckrath, Hammerschmidt, et alia.  Though it was an ethnic church Linda and I as children and teens heard biblical sermons and had the blessing of growing up in a church where Bible readings (Psalm, Old Testament, New Testament, and Gospel) took more time than a sermon.

After Linda and I attended catechetical classes we began to have Dave as a Sunday School teacher.  We were fourteen.

Dave patiently listened to my harangues against the Vietnam War.  Whatever he thought of my rants he was never demeaning.  He also gave us very sound Christian teaching.

When I was about that age the Charismatic Renewal affected my mother and the church.  Later everyone in our family, except my younger brother, were affected by God’s grace as experienced through the Charismatic Renewal.

During this time, we, the Luther League, founded a group of singers, which we called the Youth Singers. (Really inspired name, right?)  The Youth Singers were considered radical.  We wore bell bottom trousers and bell cuffs on our shirts with ruffles.  We sand using... OH... guitars!  We sang contemporary Christian songs. Dave joined right in with us.  I’m sure he defended our innovation to those who thought organ music and standard hymns were the only music which should be allowed in the church.  However, it’s hard to watch the youth of your church singing joyfully and remain opposed.

Dave was also a member of the Gospelaires (spelling?). He had a lovely tenor / baritone voice.  We all remember how he sang the Gaither song, Because he lives, “Because he lives, I can face tomorrow!  Because he lives, all fear is gone.  Because I know, I know, who holds the future.  And life is worth the living just because he lives.”

Due to having had spina bifida Dave’s legs never grew correctly.  He was confined to a wheel chair, but he never complained about it.  He got around in it and he mastered all he set out to do.

One Sunday afternoon in July of 1976 Dave listened to me perorate about whether God existed or not.  I had been required to read Albert Camus’ novel, the Plague.  In the Plague the main character, a French doctor, rejects God since God was punishing Muslims for not believing in Christ (according to the French Roman Catholic priest in the town).  The French doctor decided to stay and fight the plague in a town in northern Algeria, despite the danger to himself.  It was a typical work of French Existentialist altruism.

I could not find a reason to try to make meaning in a world where there was no God.  I could not find a reason to fight for others at my own risk.  I could not find a reason to live without there being a God who guaranteed the future.

Dave listened and didn’t say much, though I recall he said, “I hope you decide God exists.”  After a Bible study that evening in the church sanctuary, I prayed and cried out to God, “I believe you exist, but I can’t live this Christian life you ask of me.  If you are the God who can heal the lame, the blind, the deaf and raise the dead, then take my life and make me what you want me to be.”  I heard God say to me, “I have heard you.  I have you.” I also felt a peace like I had never felt before.

Dave’s patience to listen to me allowed me to work through my questions and doubts.  His kindness was a sure basis for the discussion. He was a wise man.

Many times, during the Charismatic Renewal Dave was wheeled down to the front for prayers for healing.  After a half dozen such attempts, Dave said, “I think God has answered us and his answer is ‘No.’  God has given me a lot of gifts.  I can sing.  I can even use my disability to reach others.  I can go to the Veterans’ Administration Hospital and witness to paraplegics and quadriplegics and they say, ‘You know how I feel.’ I tell them, ‘No, I still have my arms.’ But I can witness to them.”

It seemed to me that Dave never let his handicap limit him.  He drove me up to Penn State when I first went up to State College for my freshman year.  He bought me an RSV Study Bible as a gift in the Christian bookstore there in State College.

After I was away at college, Dave started taking classes at LaRoche College in the North Hills of Pittsburgh.  He finished his Bachelor’s degree and went on to run an apartment complex for handicapped people.  Somewhere along the way he met and married Ellen, his wife.

Dave Hrach, who was supposed to be dead by ten, lived past eighty. He touched many, many lives.  We will know someday how many people can claim him as a spiritual father.  I’m guessing there will be many.

So, I imagine Dave now in heaven rejoicing in the presence of his Lord, “walking, and leaping, and praising God.”