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WUMFSA Devotionals for Advent to Epiphany, 2003 - 2004 Thursday, December 4 Now when those things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all the things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man. Luke 21: 28, 36 Is that all? Just stand up and raise your head and of course, pray? Many theater companies and directors use the Alexander Method. At the beginning of each rehearsal you lie flat on your back and relax your body, part by part, as you rid yourself of daily stress. Gradually you rise up and eventually you are standing tall, on the balls of your feet with your head held high and eyes focused. This is your position of strength. You are ready. It's a matter of attitude. Paul Robeson had the deepest and most beautiful bass voice in America. In the 1920s he gained fame as Joe in "Show Boat," singing "Old Man River." From then on audiences at his concerts called out for that song. Paul Robeson also loved the music, but the words were not what a proud and sensitive African American wanted to sing. So he made changes. In the original text the singer likened himself to the Mississippi River, not knowing if the world had troubles, not caring if the land weren't free. However, Mr. Robeson sang, "That's the Old Man I don't want to be." He changed the phrase "Get a little drunk" to "Show a little grit and you land in jail." And Paul Robeson was not going to sing "I gets weary and sick of tryin'. I'm tired of living and skeered of dyin'." So he ended the song with, "So I'll keep laughin' instead of cryin'. I'll keep on fightin' until I'm dyin', while Old Man River just keeps rollin' along." Mr. Robeson turned the weighed-down stevedore named Joe into a fighter for civil rights named Paul. He had to stand up to a land that wasn't all that free. It's a matter of attitude and words! Stand up and raise your head! That's the opposite of being weighed down with the worries of life. Be alert at all times! It's a call for awareness of the world around you, that you might respond. Pray for strength. It's an alignment with God's will, enabling positive response. It is putting yourself in a position of strength to withstand evil and to shape the good. It's a matter of attitude, from which words and deeds emerge. This passage does not give us a program to meet the events of the Last Days. Who knows when or what that would be? We are, though, to be ready to "stand before the Son of Man." Jesus told a parable about the Son of Man coming at the end of time. In that parable those who were ready were those who had already met him in the least of their brothers and sisters, whom they fed and welcomed and clothed and visited and healed. (Matthew 25: 31-46) It's a matter of attitude and words
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