We often use praise as a substitute for prayer.

When you remove God from His throne, you don't worship nothing--you worship anything.

I danced in the morning When the world was begun, And I danced in the moon And the stars and the sun, And I came down from heaven And I danced on the earth, At Bethlehem I had my birth. Dance, then, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he I danced for the scribe And the pharisee, But they would not dance And they wouldn't follow me. I danced for the fishermen, For James and John - They came with me And the dance went on. Dance, then, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he I danced on the Sabbath And I cured the lame; The holy people Said it was a shame. They whipped and they stripped And they hung me on high, And they left me there On a Cross to die. Dance, then, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he I danced on a Friday When the sky turned black - It's hard to dance With the devil on your back. They buried my body And they thought I'd gone, But I am the dance, And I still go on. Dance, then, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he They cut me down And I leapt up high; I am the life That'll never, never die; I'll live in you If you'll live in me - I am the Lord Of the Dance, said he. Dance, then, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he

The nominal Christian, then, will see Jesus as a name, a representative, a symbol, a personification, a prototype, a figure, a model, an exemplar for something else. The nominal Christian pays homage to something about Jesus, rather than worshipping the man himself. For this reason, nominal Christians will extol the moral teachings of Jesus, the faith of Jesus, the personality of Jesus, the compassion of Jesus, the world view of Jesus, the self-understanding of Jesus, etc. None of these worships Jesus as the Christ, but only something about him, something peripheral to the actual flesh-and-blood man. This is why when the almighty God came into the world in Jesus, he came as the lowest of the low, as weakness itself, as a complete and utter nothing, in order that men would be forced into the crucial decision about him alone and would not be able to worship anything about him.

Several years ago, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks did a comedy skit called the "2013 Year Old Man". In the skit, Reiner interviews Brooks, who is the old gentleman. At one point, Reiner asks the old man, "Did you always believe in the Lord?" Brooks replied: "No. We had a guy in our village named Phil, and for a time we worshiped him." Reiner: You worshiped a guy named Phil? Why? Brooks: Because he was big, and mean, and he could break you in two with his bare hands! Reiner: Did you have prayers? Brooks: Yes, would you like to hear one? O Phil, please don't be mean, and hurt us, or break us in two with your bare hands. Reiner: So when did you start worshiping the Lord? Brooks: Well, one day a big thunderstorm came up, and a lightning bolt hit Phil. We gathered around and saw that he was dead. Then we said to one another, "There's somthin' bigger than Phil!"

In public worship our habit is to slouch or squat; we do not kneel nowadays, let alone prostrate ourselves in humility before God. It is more characteristic of us to clap our hands with joy than to blush with shame or tears. We saunter up to God to claim his patronage and friendship; it does not occur to us that he might send us away. We need to hear again the apostle Peter's sobering words: "Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives in reverent fear." In other words, if we dare to call our Judge our Father, we must beware of presuming on him. It must even be said that our evangelical emphasis on the atonement is dangerous if we come to it too quickly. We learn to appreciate the access to God which Christ has won for us only after we have first seen God's inaccessibility to sinners. We can cry "Hallelujah" with authenticity only after we have first cried "Woe is me, for I am lost." In Dale's words [R. W. Dale in his book ATONEMENT], "it is partly because sin does not provoke our own wrath, that we do not believe that sin provokes the wrath of God."

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

YET I WILL PRAISE Margaret Sangster Phippen wrote that in the mid 1950s her father, British minister W. E. Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness in his throat and a dragging in his leg. When he went to the doctor, he found that he had an incurable disease that caused progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would fail, his throat would soon become unable to swallow. Sangster threw himself into his work in British home missions, figuring he could still write and he would have even more time for prayer. "Let me stay in the struggle Lord," he pleaded. "I don't mind if I can no longer be a general, but give me just a regiment to lead." He wrote articles and books, and helped organize prayer cells throughout England. "I'm only in the kindergarten of suffering," he told people who pitied him. Gradually Sangster's legs became useless. His voice went completely. But he could still hold a pen, shakily. On Easter morning, just a few weeks before he died, he wrote a letter to his daughter. In it, he said, "It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice to shout, 'He is risen!'--but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout." CITATION: Vernon Grounds, Denver, Colorado. Leadership, Vol. 8, no. KEYWORDS: Afflictions; Adversity; Perception and reality; Optimism; Easter; Resurrection; Ministry; Health; Perseverance; Praise; Tenacity; Zeal; Eternal Perspective; Perspective SCRIPTURE: Psalms 63:4; Habakkuk 3:17-18; 2 Corinthians 4:16; 1 Peter 1:6-7

------------------------------------------------------- "BYLINE with Dan Betzer" Program #1987 Release Tuesday, May 15, 2001 "Sheep Gone Astray" by Dan Betzer ------------------------------------------------------- Hello again, this is Dan Betzer. The strangest thing happened the other day in Alexandria, Egypt. It happened to a Muslim who was preparing a sacrifice for Eid al-Adha, the Muslim feast of sacrifice. If you've been to Egypt, you know that over-crowding is just about everywhere. Many city-dwellers keep livestock on their rooftops, balconies or basements. Especially in the run up to the day of sacrifice. 56-year-old Waheeb Hamoudah had been feeding his sheep which he had tethered on the rooftop. Suddenly, the sheep broke loose from its moorings and butted its owner, and in the process knocked him off the third story roof. Hamoudah fell to his death. Killed by his own sacrifice. Several things are sad about that story. One is that the man was killed. And the other was that the sacrifice was completely unnecessary. The New Testament book of Hebrews teaches that it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Christ died to set us free from the penalty of the sins we committed. Christ died only once as a sacrifice to take away the sins of all the people. He will come again but not to deal with our sins again. What a wonderful passage! The debt for my sin and yours had already been paid in full at Calvary. When Jesus cried out with his last breath, "It is finished," He meant not only His earthly life, but also the price of our redemption. No more sacrifices, no more bloodshed. What Christ did was full and complete. Now comes only the matter of the sinner accepting what Jesus purchased. So that poor guy in Egypt was butted off the third story by the very sacrifice he believed would redeem him. He had his trust in the wrong place. Where do you have your trust today, good friend? Dan Betzer here and that's BYLINE.

The Ten Commandments of Worship, apparently found in an old English church. 1. Thou shalt not come to service late, nor for the Amen refuse to wait. 2. When speaks the organ's sweet refrain, the noisy tongue thou shalt restrain. 3. But when the Hymns are sounded out, thou shalt lift thy voice and shout. 4. And when the Anthem thou shalt hear, thy sticky voice thou shalt not clear. 5. The endmost seat thou shalt leave free, for more must share the pew with thee. 6. The offering plate thou shalt not fear, but give thine uttermost with cheer. 7. Thou shalt the minister give heed, nor blame him when thou art disagreed. 8. Unto thy neighbor thou shalt bend, and, if a stranger, make a friend. 9. Thou shalt in every way be kind, compassionate and of tender mind. 10. And so, by all the Spirit's grace, thou shalt find God within this place.

Urban legend has it that in 1990 a woman entered a Haagen-Dazs in the Kansas City Plaza for an ice-cream cone. While she was ordering another customer entered the store. She placed her order, turned and found herself staring face to face with Paul Newman. He was in town filming Mr. and Mrs. Bridge. His blue eyes made her knees buckle. She finished paying and quickly walked out of the store with her heart still pounding. Gaining her composure she suddenly realized she didn't have her cone; she turned to go back in. At the door she met Paul Newman who was coming out. He said to her, "Are you looking for your ice-cream cone?" Unable to utter a word she nodded yes. "You put it in your purse with your change." When was the last time the presence of God made you forget what was going on around you? Made you forget the dishes? Made you forget the ball game? Made you forget the bank account? Made you forget where...you put your ice cream cone?

What exactly has Christ done for you? What is there in your life that needs Christ to explain it, and that, apart from Him, simply could not have been there at all? If there is nothing, then your religion is a sheer futility. But then that is your fault, not Jesus Christ's. For, when we open the New Testament, it is to come upon whole companies of excited people, their faces all aglow, their hearts dazed and bewildered by the immensity of their own good fortune. Apparently they find it difficult to think of anything but this amazing happening that has befallen them; quite certainly they cannot keep from laying almost violent hands on every chance passer-by, and pouring out yet once again the whole astounding story. And always, as we listen, they keep throwing up their hands as if in sheer despair, telling us it is hopeless, that it breaks through language, that it won't describe, that until a man has known Christ for himself he can have no idea of the enormous difference He makes. It is as when a woman gives a man her heart; or when a little one is born to very you; or when, after long lean years of pain and greyness, health comes back. You cannot really describe that; you cannot put it into words, not adequately. Only, the whole world is different, and life gloriously new. Well, it is like that, they say.

When he was still an atheist, Lewis had an awful time accepting the central nature of God in the Bible. He called God's demands for praise the soundings of an old woman seeking compliments for herself. That's how the Psalms sounded to him, when he read repeatedly, "Praise the Lord." Such continual repetition for praise seemed remarkably vain. Yet, as Lewis had a change in heart toward God, he realized that he had made a simple but profound error on the nature of praise. Said Lewis: The most obvious fact about praise--whether of God or anything--strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. . . The world rings with praise--lovers praising their [loved one], readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside. . .My whole, more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my. . . denying. . . what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing, about everything else we value. . . .I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; [praise] is [enjoyment�s] appointed consummation. . . . The delight is incomplete till it is expressed.

David Wilcox, one such thinker, has released 10 critically acclaimed folk albums and sustained a successful music career for over a decade. In his songwriting he unapologetically discusses aspects of his Christian faith, though he has never done so with the help of a Christian label... “The lyrics of Christian music are about as deep as top 40 love songs, which are just about the initial crush, not sustaining a relationship,” said Wilcox. “It’s ‘Jesus is my boyfriend.’ There is no talk about what happens when that love is threatened by reality.” ... “When I scan through those stations, I usually listen until somebody lies to me,” he said. “I make it through a whole song sometimes. It makes me so sad, because I hear them saying things that I know they know aren’t true. It breaks the sacred trust between writer and listener.”

My young son asked what the highest number I had ever counted to was. I didn't know, but I asked about his highest number. It was 5,372. "Oh," I said. "Why did you stop there?" "Church was over."

Pastor Mike Pilavachi, from London, tells the following story of a season in which his church wrestled with this very issue: "Since it began, Soul Survivor has always given plenty of time over to worshiping through music. Over the years, people have poured out their hearts to God through it, and there have been plenty of examples of great things happening as a result. However, there was a season when we realized that something was 'up' with our worship. At first, it was difficult to put our finger on the problem. On the surface, everything was just fine: the musicians were tuning their instruments and the soundmen were getting out of bed on time. Each service contained a block of songs that focused on the cross and gave people the chance to get down to business with God. To make this easier, the music was (nearly) up-to-date, the chairs had disappeared and the lights were low - What better atmosphere for young people to worship God? "Yet, we seemed to have lost the spark. We seemed to be going through the motions, but I noticed that although we were singing the songs, our hearts, were far from Him. Was it Matt Redman's fault? I listened. He wasn't singing any more off notes than usual. Then one day it clicked; we had become connoisseurs of worship instead of participants of it. In our hearts, we were giving the worship team grades on a scale from one to ten: 'Not that song again,' 'I can't hear the bass,' 'I like the way she sings better.' We had made the band the performers of worship and ourselves the audience. We had forgotten that we are ALL the performers of worship and that God is the audience. We had forgotten that sacrifice is central to biblical worship. We are called to offer our bodies as living sacrifices - this is OUR spiritual act of worship (Romans 12:1). We are called to offer our sacrifice of praise (Heb. 13:15). We were challenged to ask ourselves individually, 'When I come through the door of the church, what am I bringing as my contribution to worship?' The truth came to us: worship is not a spectator sport, it is not a product molded by the taste of the consumers. It is not about what we can get out of it; it is all about God. We needed to take drastic action. For a while, in order to truly learn this lesson, we banned the band. We fired Redman! Then we sat around in circles and said that if no one brought a sacrifice of praise, we would spend the meeting in silence. At the beginning we virtually did! It was a very painful process. We were learning again not to rely on the music. After a while, we began to have some very sweet times of worship. We all began to bring our prayers, our readings, our prophecies, our thanksgiving, our praises and our songs. Someone would start a song a cappella and we would all join in. Then someone else would take it on to another song. The excitement came back. We were not having Church; we were once again meeting with God. With all the comforts stripped away, we worshiped from the heart. When we had learned our lesson, we brought the band back. It was at this point that Matt began to sing the song he had written out of this experience. I wept as we sang it for the first time. The words expressed exactly what was going on." When the music fades, All is stripped away, and I simply come Longing just to bring Something that's of worth That will bless your heart I'll bring you more than a song For a song in itself is not what you have required. You search much deeper within Through the way things appear; You're looking into my heart. I'm coming back to the heart of worship And it's all about you All about you Jesus. I'm sorry Lord for the thing I've made it When it's all about you, All about you Jesus. King of endless worth No one could express How much you deserve. Though I'm weak and poor All I have is yours, every single breath.

In particular, I had learned that that intensity is crucial for any progress in spiritual perception and understanding. To dribble a few verses or chapters of Scripture on oneself through the week, in church or out, will not reorder one's mind and spirit--just as one drop of water every five minutes will not get you a shower, no matter how long you keep it up. You need a lot of water at once, and for a sufficiently long time. Similarly for the written Word. (I use this as an illustration of worship in the church as well)

Not long ago [in 1988], the world watched as three gray whales, icebound off Point Barrow, Alaska, floated battered and bloody, gasping for breath at a hole in the ice. Their only hope: somehow to be transported five miles past the ice pack to open sea. Rescuers began cutting a string of breathing holes about twenty yards apart in the six-inch-thick ice. For eight days they coaxed the whales from one hole to the next, mile after mile. Along the way, one of the trio vanished and was presumed dead. But finally, with the help of Russian icebreakers, the whales Putu and Siku swam to freedom. In a way, worship is a string of breathing holes the Lord provides his people. Battered and bruised in a world frozen over with greed, selfishness, and hatred, we rise for air in church, a place to breathe again, to be loved and encouraged, until that day when the Lord forever shatters the ice cap.

Jimmy Valvano was a New Yorker who went south and found success as basketball coach of North Carolina State University, which he led to a national championship. In one game, after his team blew the lead and lost to arch-rival North Carolina, Valvano insisted that a fan wrote to tell him, "If you ever do that again, I'll come over and shoot your dog." Valvano wrote him back to explain he didn't have a dog. The man responded: "I'm sending you a dog. But don't get too attached to him." (The American Enterprise, June 2002, p. 42) If only we had as much passion for our faith as we do for sports!

I heard the story of a woman who had finished shopping and returned to her car. She found four men inside the car. She dropped her shopping bags, drew a handgun, and screamed, "I have a gun, and I know how to use it! Get out of the car." Those men did not wait for a second invitation; they got out and ran like crazy. The woman, somewhat shaken, loaded her shopping bags and then got into the car. But no matter how she tried, she could not get her key into the ignition. Then it dawned on her: her car was parked four or five spaces away! She loaded her grocery bags into her own car and then drove to the police station to turn herself in. The desk sergeant to whom she told the story nearly fell off his chair laughing. He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four men were reporting a carjacking by an old woman with thick glasses and curly white hair, less than five feet tall, and carrying a large handgun. No charges were filed. You see, she thought it was her car, but it really belonged to someone else. We think our lives are our own, but they really belong to God.

A teacher asked her students to list what they thought were the present Seven Wonders of the World. The students cast the most votes for: 1. Egypt's Great Pyramids 2. Taj Mahal 3. Grand Canyon 4. Panama Canal 5. Empire State Building 6. St. Peter's Basilica 7. China's Great Wall While gathering the votes, the teacher noted that one student had not turned in her paper yet. She asked the girl if she was having trouble with her list. The girl replied, "Yes, a little. I couldn't quite make up my mind because there were so many." The teacher said, "Well, tell us what you have, and maybe we can help." The girl hesitated, then read, "I think the Seven Wonders of the World are: 1. to see 2. to hear 3. to touch 4. to taste 5. to feel 6. to laugh 7. to love

Craig Brian Larson reminds us of the time that, "Not long ago, the world watched as three gray whales, icebound off Point Barrow, Alaska, floated battered and bloody, gasping for breath at a hole in the ice. Their only hope: somehow to be transported five miles past the ice pack to open sea. Rescuers began cutting a string of breathing holes about twenty yards apart in the six-inch-thick ice. "For eight days they coaxed the whales from one hole to the next, mile after mile. Along the way, one of the trio vanished and was presumed dead. But finally, with the help of Russian icebreakers, the whales Putu and Siku swam to freedom. "In a way, worship is a string of breathing holes the Lord provides his people. Battered and bruised in a world frozen over with greed, selfishness, and hatred, we rise for air in church, a place to breathe again, to be loved and encouraged, until that day when the Lord forever shatters the ice cap."

A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.

1. Wealth without work 2. Pleasure without conscience 3. Knowledge without character 4. Commerce without morality 5. Science without humanity 6. Worship without sacrifice 7. Politics without principle

Most middle-class Americans tend to: - Worship their work; - Work at their play; and - Play at their worship.... That which we worship, we serve, and that which we serve we will give our all - heart, soul, mind and body. By: Gordon Dahl Source: Gordon Dahl, Work, Play, and Worship in a Leisure Oriented Society, 1985

It is not only prayer that gives God glory, but work. Smiting on an anvil, sawing on a beam, whitewashing a wall, driving horses, sweeping, scouring, everything gives God some glory if being in His grace you do it as your duty...To lift up the hands in prayer gives God glory, but a man with a dung fork in his hand, a woman with a slop pail, give him glory too. He is so great that all things give Him glory if you mean they should. By: Gerald Manley Hopkins Source: A Hopkins Reader, Oxford, 1953

“Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush alive with God; And only he who sees takes off his shoes— The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.” - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit - Richard Crashaw The modest water, seeing its God, blushed.

<img src="http://glenandpaula.com/quotes/uploads/godismydj.gif" width="651" height="276">

Any proponent of “historic” corporate worship will have to answer the question, “Whose history?” Much of what is called “traditional” worship is very rooted in northern European culture. While strict contemporary worship advocates may bind worship too heavily to one present culture, strict historic worship advocates may bind it too heavily to a past culture. . . . A refusal to adapt a tradition to new realities may come under Jesus’ condemnation of making our favorite human culture into an idol, equal to the Scripture in normativity (Mark 7:8-9). While contemporary worship advocates do not seem to recognize the sin in all cultures, the historic worship advocates do not seem to recognize the amount of (common) grace in all cultures.

1. Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried. 2. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits. 3. Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs. 4. Chuck Norris defines love as the reluctance to murder. If you’re still alive, it’s because Chuck Norris loves you. 5. If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can’t see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death. 6. There are no disabled people. Only people who have met Chuck Norris. 7. There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live. 8. Chuck Norris does not go hunting. Hunting implies a chance of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing. 9. Chuck Norris is the only man to ever defeat a brick wall in a game of tennis. 10. Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding. 11. When Chuck Norris goes to donate blood, he declines the syringe, and instead requests a hand gun and a bucket. 12. Chuck Norris can divide by zero. 13. When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes, ever. 14. What was going through the minds of all of Chuck Norris' victims before they died? His shoe. 15. Some people wear Superman pajamas. Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas. Special bonus: Chuck Norris discovered a new theory of relativity involving multiple universes in which Chuck Norris is even more fearsome than in this one. When it was discovered by Albert Einstein and made public, Chuck Norris roundhouse-kicked him in the face. We know Albert Einstein today as Stephen Hawking.

From Mary Jo Leddy I learned another term besides “alternativity” for thinking about the uniqueness of the Church. In a conference lecture she reported that the playwright-president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, was asked why the “Velvet Revolution” against the communists in the former Czechoslovakia was successfully nonviolent—and we might add, why it remains effective when so many other satellites of the former USSR are presently in turmoil. Havel answered somewhat like this: “We had our parallel society. And in that parallel society we wrote our plays and sang our songs and read our poems until we knew the truth so well {141} that we could go out to the streets of Prague and say, ‘We don’t believe your lies anymore’—and communism had to fall.” --For the exact quotation, see Mary Jo Leddy’s closing plenary address in the volume from the conference Confident Witness—Changing World, ed. Craig Van Gelder (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999).

We sing to remember God’s word. We sing to respond to God’s grace. We sing to reflect God’s glory.

Music and singing are necessary to Christian faith and worship for the simple reason that the realities of God and Christ, creation and salvation, heaven and hell are so great that when they are known truly and felt duly, they demand more than discussion and analysis and description; they demand poetry and song and music. Singing is the Christian's way of saying: God is so great that thinking will not suffice, there must be deep feeling; and talking will not suffice, there must be singing.

God is infinite while we are finite. We can never fully comprehend the infinite, but we do have within us a spiritual sense that allows us to recognize and enjoy God's presence. The ocean is vast beyond our imagining, and it would never be possible for a person to fathom it or take in all its great treasures. But with the tips of our tongues we can recognize at once that the ocean is salty. We have not understood even a fraction of all there is to know about about the ocean, but with our sense of taste we can experience its essence. In the end, how can we expect to have full knowledge of the creator, when even our knowledge of created things is limited? We know a little about the physical characteristics of the created world, but we know next to nothing about the unseen spiritual world. Indeed, we know next to nothing about our own spiritual lives. If we had complete knowledge of our own spiritual nature, then perhaps we would be capable of knowing the nature of God, for we were created in his image.

The First Meal On The Moon

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first men to walk on the moon in the Apollo 11 space mission. Michael Collins third member of the group, was in charge of the command module, essential for their return to earth, which circled the moon while Armstrong and Aldrin landed. The moon lander touched down at 3:17 Eastern Standard Time, Sunday, July 20, 1969. Aldrin had brought with him a tiny communion kit, given him by his church, that had a silver chalice and wine vial about the size of the tip of his finger. During the morning he radioed, "Houston, this is Eagle. This is the LM pilot speaking. I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, whoever or wherever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the last few hours, and to give thanks in his own individual way." "In the radio blackout," he wrote later, "I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, 'I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit.' I had intended to read my communion passage back to earth, but at the last minute Deke Slayton had requested that I not do this. NASA was already embroiled in a legal battle with Madelyn Murray O'Hare, the celebrated opponent of religion, over the Apollo 8 crew reading from Genesis while orbiting the moon at Christmas. I agreed reluctantly..." "Eagle's metal body creaked. I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility. It was interesting for me to think: the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements."