14/03/2025
LISTEN TO THE MUSIC SHAMOKIN!
RUDY SHEPTOCK MARCH 14 2025
I hear the music even when the radio is off, and the stereo is unplugged. Wherever God has planted me, He has also given me the spiritual gift of seeing the beauty that could be someday even if there was no hint of color to be found today. When the sounds of earth shut down, the symphonies of heaven just begin to open. A friend of mine named Kelly taught me a lesson where even insomnia might be gift from God. She was having a hard time sleeping at night and couldn’t believe the surrounding birds in her neighborhood were chirping strong at four in the morning. There is majesty in this mystery, and it is literally called, “The Dawn Chorus.” It is a designed outbreak of birds coming together to sing in the period of early morning just before the sun is ready to rise. If human beings are going to be grouchy and cranky, God has wired our winged friends to anticipate the dawn and the arrival of Spring by singing melodies that are downright glorious if not appreciated by those who would rather they change the timing of their performance. There is even a schedule amongst nature where different species do their dawn singing at different times. But one thing is sure, there is always a song being sung even in the darkest night.
I am not an outsider of Shamokin. My great grandfather, who was also named Rudy, moved here to the Coal Mountains of Pennsylvania from Austria back in the late 1800’s. My grandfather John was born in Mt. Carmel in 1900 and raised in Marion Heights while eventually working the mines in Shamokin before hitching his wagon to the Erie Lackawanna Railroad and settling in Clifton, New Jersey where my own father, also named Rudy, would be born in 1932. Needless to say, I have been given a strong spiritual connection to this land that no manmade mapmaker put there. It was no accident that God brought me here in June of 2021. I may not have known it then, but I do know it now, the Lord called me to be part of a human dawn chorus to begin to sing songs of a hope and a future amidst a climate that might have bought into the lie that the best days have passed Shamokin by. Some appreciate the tunes of light and life while others want nothing more than to go back to sleep and wait for death to come and sweep them quietly away into oblivion.
In C.S. Lewis’ masterpiece, “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,” the people of Narnia are stuck in a constant state of bitter cold because of the curse put on them by the White Witch. It is described by being, “always winter but never Christmas.” Unfortunately, we people tend to be manipulated by our surrounding circumstances, especially when it comes to our moods. When things are “sunny and 70 degrees,” everyone seems to be in a positive mindset and optimistic about what might be waiting around the corner. But when the light disappears and it is one stormy forecast after another and the kids are sick and the fish don’t bite but the mosquitoes do, there goes our smile and here comes those tears again. When God gives us His Shalom, it is an inside out deal meaning that we have an inner joy even when the whole scenario has gone to hell in a handbasket. Lest you think I’m living in a Peter Pan Never Land, it was Viktor Frankl who proved that while enemies can rob our clothes, dignity, and even our life, they can’t touch our will. They can’t make us love because power is impotent when it comes to the matters of the heart. In a concentration camp, prisoners would be right in cursing their accommodations, but they made a courageous choice to not allow the darkness to steal their internal and eternal dawn chorus. If you can sing in the pit of despair, you can sing anywhere.
I believe that part of my assignment as a Minister is to help those of all ages to be reminded that God gave each and every one of us a unique but essential voice to be heard and a purpose to be applied to everyday life. We need to live in the present, “when” we are, where we are, while we are. When Jesus ministered here this side of heaven, He had nothing of the luxuries that He was freely given in Heaven and yet, He stayed true to the adventure His Father sent Him to do. He didn’t wait for the climate to become compatible to His call, He reset the temperature. He healed those locked up in their personal prison cells and gave them a whole new psalm to sing that others couldn’t ignore. Can’t you hear the questions? “Why do you have joy when you have none of the perks that come with royalty on earth?” Jesus created a party of anticipation that settled the issue, “nobody has authority to make me what I am but the God who is my Lord!”
If we look, we can find all the characters of Israel right here in our Pennsylvania neighborhoods today. Jesus preached a different Kingdom than the ones the Romans were selling, and He still does for us in 2025. If God is the King of my Life, then my identity and validity is sewn up in Him. No president, no earthly dwelling or even tragic diagnosis can alter the truth that I am going to Heaven. While I am here, I am going to show them Jesus wherever I may be. The kids need direction and loving care. They need discipline, but it must come from a place where they are assured that they are loved and not just being used. I receive no greater joy than when someone who forgot how to sing rejoins the dawn chorus as we look forward to what will be despite what we see today. Believers are challenged to walk by faith and not by sight. This world might rip out my tongue, but it can’t stop the music that floods the jukebox of my soul.
As we are in the season of Lent and with Easter being just weeks away, can I encourage you to plant a seed of faith in a person or a project around you that needs some supernatural assistance to be set free. Who could use a music lesson? Who has forgotten that God inhabits the praises of His people? The next time this old world starts to intimidate you into its misery, abandon the human ship and turn it into worship for God! Heaven’s ferry is still on time, and it hasn’t ever missed an appointment. I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but you are not your surroundings. You can plant a garden of beauty on the ugliest of streets and change the atmosphere with some tender loving care. Join me tomorrow as we greet the dawn with a song that shouts, it may not be well with my streets or my social standing, but it is certainly outstanding with my soul. Listen to the music! God always provides a song and I’ll be darned if I miss being part of its chorus.
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