Little Girl Lost (a Steve Orr Bible reflection)

"The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted."

 

The quote is from The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, one of my favorite novels. I highly recommend it to anyone who has children or who loves baseball, or anyone who loves Stand by Me or Shawshank Redemption (by the same author), or who loves an excellently written suspense tale.

 

Or who loves God.

 

Early in the novel, 9-year-old Trisha becomes lost. A wrong turn takes her into the wilderness along the Appalachian Trail near the Maine-New Hampshire border. Disoriented, she wanders farther and farther away from civilization—and into danger. Despite her best efforts, she is just not capable of making it on her own.

 

And that's where Tom Gordon enters the tale. A “closer” for the Boston Red Sox, Gordon was often brought to the pitcher’s mound near the end of a tight ballgame to ensure victory. Trisha loves Tom Gordon and the Red Sox. Faced with mosquitos, wasps, hunger, loneliness, fear, illness, hallucinations—and even grislier threats—Trisha depends on her love of Gordon to lift her spirits. Imagining what he would do is all that keeps her going.

 

Trisha is lost. But even though there seems no possibility of rescue, she is not abandoned. Someone is looking for her. 

Similarly, the people in this week's Isaiah and Matthew selections live in deepening darkness, the very shadow of death. Everything is bad. There seems no possibility of rescue. 

 

But then, they see a great light.  

 

Sometimes, we also get lost. We find ourselves in deep darkness. It could be darkness from the culture that surrounds us, or it could be a darkness we carry with us. But we don’t have to stay lost in that darkness. Instead, like the people in this week’s scriptures, we need to be looking for a light to lead us. 

 

We can rise from our deep darkness. We just need to follow that dawning light, the DaySpring—Jesus.

We are not abandoned. 

 

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PHOTO: Trisha getting lost (from the pop-up book version of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon)

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy:

https://appalachiantrail.org/news-events/share-your-experience/follow-us/atc-newsletters/

 

Goodreads page for The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11564.The_Girl_Who_Loved_Tom_Gordon?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=4driZkZDdK&rank=1

 

 

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We will have a little rain Friday morning, but mid-50s temp! Join us at 8:00 for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We meet on Zoom* and in person at Our Breakfast Place for some great food, scriptures, illumination, and the joy of each other’s company.

 

Blessings,

Steve

 

*Zoom link (Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.)

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?y=17134&z=e&d=15

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Ax_ThirdSundayafterEpiphany.pdf

 

Isaiah 9:1-4

Psalm 27:1, 4-9

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Matthew 4:12-23

Third Sunday after the Epiphany (January 25, 2026)

Gifts for the Magi (a Steve Orr Bible reflection)

Santa Claus is not the star of traditional Christmas—in Spain.

 

Instead, children look forward to the visitation of The Three Kings (the Magi, the Three Wise Men). Children try to keep awake to catch a glimpse of these Three Royal Visitors. They listen for the cadence of their song in the distance, the sound of camels’ hooves crushing the frozen snow, and the tinkling of silver bridles. Children send toy requests to them, and, anticipating their arrival, leave water and snacks for them and their camels to help sustain them on their long journey.

 

Apparently, there is a certain universality to what happens in the Christmas season, regardless of where people live. Even if Santa Claus is not the star.

 

That universality is our connection to this week's scriptures. The Gospels tell us Jesus came for us all. This is so clear in the selection from the Gospel of John where, upon seeing Jesus again, John the Baptist declares to his own disciples "Behold the lamb of God" who was, even as John spoke, "taking away the sin of the world."

 

Did you catch that? The sin of the world, not just of the Jews. Many of God’s people couldn't quite wrap their heads around it—that their Messiah would somehow also belong to non-Jews. Their thinking was a bit Israel-centric, much like ours is in our own countries. That was never the way God saw it. 

God always pictured an entire world rejoined in harmony, a planet of people who chose God just as God had chosen them.

 

This week's Isaiah passage tells of how the restoration of Israel to God is, by itself, too easy a thing for the Savior. He would also be a light to the nations so that salvation would reach to the very ends of the earth. That universality is there in this week's Psalm, where the writer declares he has proclaimed God's faithfulness and salvation to the “great congregation.” We see it in 1 Corinthians, where Paul greets them “along with everyone else, in every place” who claims the name of Jesus. 

 

Jesus comes not just to one town, but to every village, town, city, and metropolis. Jesus comes to every farm, every vessel on the waters, every mountaintop, every valley, and every crevice. Jesus comes not just to our country, but to every country; to every person in China, in Europe, in Russia, in Australia, in Israel, in the Middle East, even to each of the very few people in the Antarctic. Jesus is universal. He comes not just to one person, but to all persons. 

 

Every one. 

In every place. 

 

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PHOTO: Adobe Express filtered through Photoshop Express 

JUST FOR FUN

A free read of O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi story from the Gutenberg Project:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7256/7256-h/7256-h.htm

 

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Epiphany continues. We're in this season until Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday falls on February 17th this year). Gather with us Friday morning at DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast as we continue to marvel at how God planned for our salvation. Find us on Zoom* and at Our Breakfast Place. Join us at 8:00 to peruse the menu, eat, pray, read the Bible, and kick around what we discover there.

 

Blessings,

Steve

 

*Zoom link (Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.)

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?y=17134&z=e&d=14

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Ax_SecondSundayafterEpiphany.pdf

 

Isaiah 49:1-7

Psalm 40:1-11

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

John 1:29-42

Second Sunday After the Epiphany (January 18, 2026)

Making the Lightning Flash (a Steve Orr Bible reflection)

Have you gone to the well and found it empty? The well of thoughts, that is. For some of us, reaching into our thoughts for small talk at social gatherings produces … exactly nothing. Speakers, poets, songwriters—lots of us—go to that well and come away empty. 

 

An empty well is one of the reasons I fell in love with the rock/jazz fusion band Chicago.* The first time I heard the group, they were performing “25 or 6 to 4.” I was blown away. Perhaps the most interesting thing about that song is that its lyrics are a product of an empty well.

 

Waiting for the break of day

Searching for something to say

Flashing lights against the sky

Giving up I close my eyes

Sitting cross-legged on the floor

25 or 6 to 4

 

Robert Lamm, keyboard player, singer, and founding member of Chicago, wrote “25 or 6 to 4” early one morning while looking down on Los Angeles from the Hollywood Hills. He was trying to write a song—and he was struggling. His well of thoughts gave him nothing useful. Eventually he decided to write a song about the process of writing the song he was writing. (Did you follow that? No? Well … it was the '60s.)

 

He had been sitting up all night, trying to come up with something, anything. The title reflects the time of day—3:35 or 3:34 a.m. Because more traditional lyrics wouldn’t come, he wrote down what he was experiencing. 

 

I think David, the author of this week’s Psalm 29, would understand. He wrote a song encouraging the people to honor their powerful God. But David was not satisfied with simple encouragement. He needed the song to say more. Did David go to that well and come up empty? Maybe. Writing songs can be hard. What I do know is that, like Robert Lamm, David turned to descriptions to complete his lyrics. He included floods, storms, earthquakes, mighty winds, thunder, and … flashing lights against the sky. 

 

Like all songwriters, David had the option to simply list those mighty events—or not. The difference for the Psalmist was this: When he focused on the Lord, his “well” was never truly empty. What he saw and heard was the presence of God all about him. David saw God in the storm. He saw God commanding the mighty waters. David wanted those who read and sang his songs to make that transition, to go from simply seeing the world to experiencing God in every moment. 

 

The lesson for us: Robert Lamm wasn’t the only psalmist who saw flashing lights against the sky. But it was David who wrote: “The Lord’s voice makes the lightning flash!”

 

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PHOTO and real flashing lights in the sky from The Almanac:

https://www.almanac.com/flash-light-night-sky

* Hear Chicago perform “25 or 6 to 4” with lyrics: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb13I34J8K4

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Join us Friday morning as we gather for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We meet on Zoom* and in person at Our Breakfast Place at 8:00. Lots of laughter mixed with good food, scripture, and good discussions. 

 

Blessings,

Steve

 

*Zoom link (Zoom allows you to mute the camera and the microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.)

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89947678414

 

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEKS

 

Read them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?y=17134&z=e&d=13

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Ax_BaptismoftheLord.pdf

 

Isaiah 42:1-9

Psalm 29

Acts 10:34-43

Matthew 3:13-17

Baptism of the Lord (January 11, 2026)

 

 

Chart of readings for Epiphany through Transfiguration Sunday (01/06/2026 through 02/15/2026):

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/calendar/2025-26/?season=epiphany