She wasn’t a mother, but she was a lovely lady…

I’d never heard of pianist Ruth Slenczynska until a tribute in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), print edition, May 1, 2026, by Brenda Cronin. Born in 1925, she just passed away on April 22, 2026, at the age of 101. She recorded her last album in 2022 at the age of 97. Click the picture below for an 8-minute tribute by pianist Robert Estrin, one of her students.

Robert writes:

We have lost something irreplaceable. Not just a great pianist. Not just a great teacher. We’ve lost a living connection to music history that can never be restored. But what Ruth Slenczynska leaves behind — the students she shaped, the recordings she made, the principles she lived by — those don’t disappear. Those live in every pianist who ever heard her play or sat across from her at one of those two grand pianos. I’m grateful that I was one of them. And I hope that by sharing her story with you today, a little piece of her spirit stays alive in this world. I am grateful for everything I learned from Ruth Slenczynska, but most of all having been able to know such a kind, joyful person with such a giving spirit.

Ruth played her first concert when she was 4 years old. At age 9, she substituted for Rachmaninoff who couldn’t play a concert because he was ill. She later studied under him, becoming his last living student.

Brenda, the WSJ author cited above, previously wrote a tribute: Pianist Ruth Slenczynska, 89, Shows No Signs of Diminuendo, October 28, 2014. This article contains a 2-minute video, also worth watching. She’s 8 years old in the left-hand picture below.

What’s remarkable is that she continued playing piano despite a horrific childhood:

Her early career was the product of an abusive father. He sensed Ruth’s musical gifts when she was a baby and for years forced her to practice nine hours a day, berating and beating her if she made a mistake at the keyboard. Following years of concerts, she broke with her family entirely after age 16. In her 20s, Ruth returned to the piano on her own terms, teaching, performing and recording.

That she survived this baroque ordeal and continued working through her 90s reflects her extraordinary will and levelheaded optimism. She married twice, had no children and had been a widow for more than a decade when we met. – Brenda Cronin, 2026.

So many lessons. She could have been bitter. Instead, she is described as joyful. She could have quit piano. She could have kept her gift to herself. Instead, she blessed others with her teaching and her performances.

During superstorm Sandy [2012], she soothed fears in her building with an impromptu concert the night the hurricane hit. When the power went out, Ms. Slenczynska rigged up a flashlight beside the Bösendorfer, propped her front door open and sat down at the keyboard.

“I started out with the second movement of Beethoven’s Pathétique because it’s such a calm piece,” she says. Outside her apartment on the 27th floor, “the noise was horrendous! The wind was so scary.” Within minutes, neighbors bearing candles and flashlights crept in to her living room and sat down to listen. – Brenda Cronin, 2014

She could have retired, but she made an album at age 97.

Brenda Cronin ends her 2026 tribute:

When I try to describe Ruth’s nature, I come up with old-fashioned words, such as pluck. But that trivializes the engine that propelled her joyfully through life. Unlike many famous people today, she had immense talent. A relentless worker, she was always grateful, not expectant or plaintive. If I make it into my 90s, I thought, here is a pretty good template.

Another gift from God. Some traditions refer to such a gift as “common grace.” A gift for everyone.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1.17, ESV)

They still bear fruit in old age… (Psalm 92.15, ESV)

See to it that… no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled. (Hebrews 12.15, ESV)

PS I bought her last CD, My Life in Music, and gave it to June for Mother’s Day. We have 100s of classical CDs. This one will become our favorite. Indescribably beautiful. If you like classical piano, strongly recommend.

I’m going to reprise what I wrote last year: it covers a lot of important points.

Happy Mother’s Day! Your work is important…

Household management:

She watches over the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her: “Many daughters have done well, But you excel them all.” Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, And let her own works praise her in the gates. (Proverbs 31.27 – 31, NKJV)

Teaching:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. (Titus 2.3 – 5, ESV)

Raising the next generation of Christian leaders. Paul wrote to Timothy:

I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. (2 Timothy 1.5 – 7, ESV)

Thank you!

PS The high view of women and mothers, as presented in the Bible, is not universally held. I just finished a novel by the late Michael Crichton, The Great Train Robbery, inspired by events in Victorian England in the 1850s. The book gives us glimpses into London society, where, as the teaser for the book starts:

London, 1855, when lavish wealth and appalling poverty exist side by side…

Another theme is the station of women at that time. They were considered to be emotional creatures with no intellect put on earth solely to serve men. Michael Crichton points out the absurdity of that position:

The belief in a biologically determined personality in both men and women was accepted to some extent by nearly everyone at all levels of Victorian society, and that belief was held in the face of all sorts of incongruities. A businessman could go off to work each day, leaving his “unreasoning” wife to run an enormous household, a businesslike task of formidable proportions; yet the husband never viewed his wife’s activities in that way. (Page 323)

Again, thank all you mothers for your work. It’s important AND difficult!

I’ve written before about how we’re being taken over by gambling. Otherwise intelligent people have lost enormous amounts of money, athletes have lost their careers, and the poor are getting poorer. As Economist Elliot Eisenberg wrote:

On 4/3/24, a drawing for a $1.09 billion Powerball jackpot will occur, the fifth largest. While the chances of winning are one in 292 million, Americans spent over $100 billion in 2022 buying lotto tickets and it’s mostly the poor. In the poorest 1% of zip codes, the average adult spends about $600/year or 5% of income, versus $150/year or 0.15% of income in the wealthiest 1%. Talk about regressive. 

Today I’m exercised about a couple of things. First, “prop bets,” gambling on micro-outcomes in a game is not only hurting athletes who are sometimes tempted to participate in scams, but it is also killing community. People in a sports bar, for example, are no longer experiencing community with their fellow fans as they root for their teams to win the game, they’re following their prop bets, communing with their phone. Russell Moore writes about this phenomenon at length in the article, Against the Casinofication of the Church. A long article, worth the read.

But the article also contains this observation as an aside. He’s quoting McKay Coppins, a writer for The Atlantic:

When Coppins describes the “casinofication” of everything, he points to the ways betting markets are now about, almost literally, everything. You can bet on whether a Venezuelan drug boat will be blown up between May 1 and May 10. You can bet on whether Tom Holland and Zendaya will split up in 2027. You can bet on whether famine will hit North Korea by winter. And on and on.

WHILE I WAS READING MOORE’S ARTICLE, a report came out that someone manipulated the weather at the Paris airport to win A LOT of money.

More grievous, I think, a master sergeant bet that President Maduro in Venezuela would be gone before a certain date. Then he participated in the US-led raid that took him out. The report of his arrest came out the same afternoon as I was reading Moore’s article. You can’t make this stuff up.

If this were the stock market, that would be called “insider trading.” But it’s not the stock market, it’s a largely unregulated betting platform that’s not even called a betting platform. Andy Kessler decries it in Gambling by Another Name.

I don’t even know where I’m going with this except evil seems to be multiplying. Take care, my friends. We’re still in a war.

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

But as for you, O man of God, flee these things… (1 Timothy 6.9 – 11, ESV)

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. (Matthew 6.13, ESV)

Specific judgment on Jerusalem in Jeremiah 21 starting with the Jews’ request for deliverance:

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Malchiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, saying, “Inquire of the LORD for us, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is making war against us. Perhaps the LORD will deal with us according to all his wonderful deeds and will make him withdraw from us.” (Jeremiah 21.1, 2, ESV)

“Perhaps the LORD…will make him withdraw from us.” NOPE. Not this time. “Thus says the Lord…”

I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath. And I will strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast. They shall die of a great pestilence. Afterward, declares the LORD, I will give Zedekiah king of Judah and his servants and the people in this city who survive the pestilence, sword, and famine into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their lives. He shall strike them down with the edge of the sword. He shall not pity them or spare them or have compassion. (Jeremiah 21.5 – 7, ESV)

A specific message for the king:

Hear the word of the LORD,…I will punish you according to the fruit of your deeds, declares the LORD… (Jeremiah 21.11, 14, ESV)

We like to think of the “wonderful deeds” the LORD has done in the past, what he is capable of doing today. But we don’t often think of reaping the “fruit of (y)our deeds.” We want God’s deliverance without giving a thought to how God wants us to live.

I’m in the middle of the book WITH, by Skye Jethani. He argues that God wants us to live with God, with faith, hope, and love. We, however, have other postures, including what he calls LIFE FROM GOD. That is, I can pray and ask him for things, and he will deliver. It’s a life that, like the prodigal son, values our Father’s gifts more than we value our Father.

And here are the Jews living as they please, violating all kinds of God’s laws, wanting to know if “the LORD will deal with us according to his wonderful deeds and deliver us.” In this case, they will be rewarded, not according to God’s wonderful deeds, but according to their deeds.

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. (Galatians 6.8, 9, ESV)

I closed yesterday with the teaser that life would get worse for Jeremiah: chapter 20 opens with real persecution:

Now Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer, who was chief officer in the house of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. Then Pashhur beat Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper Benjamin Gate of the house of the LORD. (Jeremiah 20.1, 2, ESV)

Jeremiah responds with a message of judgment:

The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD does not call your name Pashhur, but Terror on Every Side. For thus says the LORD: Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They shall fall by the sword of their enemies while you look on.

And I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon. He shall carry them captive to Babylon, and shall strike them down with the sword. Moreover, I will give all the wealth of the city, all its gains, all its prized belongings, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies, who shall plunder them and seize them and carry them to Babylon.

And you, Pashhur, and all who dwell in your house, shall go into captivity. To Babylon you shall go, and there you shall die, and there you shall be buried, you and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied falsely.” (Jeremiah 20.3 – 6, ESV)

Judgment on Pashhur is clear! But Jeremiah is discouraged. He’s declaring God’s judgment and being persecuted for it:

O LORD, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the LORD has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. (Jeremiah 20.7 – 9, ESV)

But Jeremiah knows that God is protecting him:

But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. (Jeremiah 20.11, ESV)

A real back and forth chapter. Praise:

Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers. (Jeremiah 20.13, ESV)

Followed immediately by depression:

Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, “A son is born to you,” making him very glad. Let that man be like the cities that the LORD overthrew without pity; let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon, because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great. Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?  (Jeremiah 20.14 – 18, ESV)

God doesn’t hide the emotional swings of his people. Not only does God not say, “You can’t complain like that!” God preserves the complaint in the sacred record. Kind of like the psalms.

Here’s a sample from my blog entry from February 13, 2025:

To You I will cry, O LORD my Rock: Do not be silent to me, Lest, if You are silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. Hear the voice of my supplications When I cry to You, When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary. (Psalm 28.1, 2, NKJV)

Now in my prosperity I said, “I shall never be moved.” LORD, by Your favor You have made my mountain stand strong; You hid Your face, and I was troubled. (Psalm 30.6, 7, NKJV)

I cried out to You, O LORD; And to the LORD I made supplication: “What profit is there in my blood, When I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your truth? Hear, O LORD, and have mercy on me; LORD, be my helper!” (Psalm 30.8 – 10, NKJV)

Back to Jeremiah. I hope you understand that life doesn’t always go well for those on God’s team. Sometimes, maybe often, life is harder. (Life is harder for the athletes on a football team than it is for the spectators, also!)

Jeremiah 18 opens with the potter illustration.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the LORD came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.” (Jeremiah 18.1 – 6, ESV)

So God gives Jeremiah message to deliver:

Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the LORD, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’ “But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’ (Jeremiah 18.11, 12, ESV)

So they all repented… I crack myself up. They didn’t repent; they wanted to “shoot the messenger.”

Then they said, “Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not pay attention to any of his words.” (Jeremiah 18.18, ESV)

In other words, we can get rid of Jeremiah. We’ll still have the priests, the “wise,” and other prophets.

It didn’t go that well for Jesus either.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 53.3, ESV)

For Jeremiah, it gets worse. Stay tuned.

Yesterday, we reminded ourselves that we have the real Force, the power to do what Jesus asked us to do.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1.8, ESV)

My friend John Ed Mathison in his April 28, 2026, blog entitled To Gaze or To Go captures a lesson from what happened next. The text reads:

Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven?”… (Acts 1.9 – 11, NKJV)

John Ed wrote:

…The angel told them to quit gazing and start going to fulfill the mission Jesus gave them. 

It’s a lot easier to gaze into the sky than it is to go and fulfill God’s purpose.  Sky gazing is a popular pastime of the Church today.  It’s easy to sky gaze and talk about how things used to be.  It’s easier to discuss how Jesus disappeared.  It’s easier to debate some of the things that He said.  But in today’s world it’s time to stop sky gazing and start going about the mission that Jesus left for us to do!!

The book of Acts is named Acts of the Apostles because it is a record of how the apostles acted.  It’s not about how they thought positively or creatively – it is about how they acted.  They went out to witness and to serve. 

…

The time is urgent.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “If Jesus returns tomorrow, then tomorrow I’ll rest from my labor.  But today I have work to do.”

Are you gazing at what Jesus did, or going to what Jesus wants done? – John Ed Mathison, April 28, 2026

A good word, John Ed. Thanks. (By the way, John Ed is a “retired” minister, still active at age 88.)

I am Jesus…I am sending you…to the Gentiles…to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. (Acts 26.15 – 18, ESV)

It’s our annual reminder (perhaps we should do it more often!) that we’re not in this battle alone. The “Force” was the power behind Jedi knights (and their evil counterparts like Darth Vader) in the Star Wars movies.

We have the real Force:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1.8, ESV, emphasis mine)

And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness… And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. (Acts 4.31, 33, ESV, emphasis mine)

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (1 John 4.4, ESV, emphasis mine)

Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel… No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you…Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1.2, 5, 9, ESV, emphasis mine)

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28.18 – 20, ESV, emphasis mine)

Did you see the Kentucky Derby yesterday? I missed it live, but as I was watching the full race replay, I was thinking to myself, “I thought I read that the horse that won came from last place. They can’t be talking about that horse where the jockey is wearing a black shirt and a red helmet. He’s trailing the field by several lengths!”

Even with only 1/2 mile to go, that horse is still trailing the field:

With a 1/4 mile to go, he’s moving up…from 18th place to 13th place. Remember, red helmet, black shirt:

His name is Golden Tempo. You don’t see his name on the leader board. Down the stretch, he appears to be in 8th or 9th place:

And, sure enough, Golden Tempo goes from dead last to first:

You can’t make this stuff up. He also made history because his trainer, Cherie Devaux, is the first female trainer to win the Kentucky Derby.

So many lessons. First, of course, is it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. But beyond that, I was thinking about Bible people who went from last to first. David the shepherd boy, who became King David. The eighth and maybe an illegitimate son of Jesse, David wasn’t even invited to the party with Samuel.

And what about Saul of Tarsus? The dude was a terrorist. But he not only became a believer, he was chosen by God to carry the gospel to the Gentiles:

Later, you can see progressions of his humility:

• “I am the least of the apostles:” (1 Corinthians 15.9)
• ”I am the very least of all the saints:” (Ephesians 3.8)
• ”I am the chief of sinners:” (1 Timothy 1.15)

Can we bring it closer to home? Consider Donald Trump, considered “last” by many people in character, as well as actions. (I wrote about his character on April 23, 2026.) Can such a man go from “last” to first as Saul of Tarsus did? Do we believe in transformation? Do we believe that last to first occurs only in horse races? Or can people also go from last to first? Let’s pray to that end, not just for the President, but for ourselves and others we know.

With Jeremiah as our guide, we’ve been considering Whom Do We Worship? and In Whom Do We Trust? In the second half of Jeremiah 17, we’re reminded that one way we trust God is not working seven days a week to meet our needs. It’s called the Sabbath, and although the Pharisees of Jesus’ day weaponized it, resting one day a week is not a bad idea. It’s the one command of the Big 10 that gets the most press:

Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. (Exodus 20.9, 10, ESV (from verses 8 – 11)) See also Exodus 16.26, 23.12, 31.15, 34.21, 35.2, Leviticus 23.3, Deuteronomy 5.13 – that’s a lot of verses saying the same thing!)

I’m especially challenged by this verse’s emphasis:

“Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest. (Exodus 34.21, NIV)

“Even during the plowing season and harvest, you must rest.” That requires trust, does it not? And, predictably, in Jeremiah’s day, ignoring the Sabbath command was a problem:

Thus said the LORD to me: “Go and stand in the People’s Gate, by which the kings of Judah enter and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem, and say: ‘Hear the word of the LORD, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates. Thus says the LORD: Take care for the sake of your lives, and do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem…Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck, that they might not hear and receive instruction.(Jeremiah 17.19 – 21, 23, ESV)

So for that violation and many others, the Jews were cast out of their land and taken off to Babylon. After the captivity, when Nehemiah rebuilt the wall and was governing in Jerusalem, the problem was still there, and Nehemiah remembered:

In those days I saw in Judah people treading winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys, and also wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them on the day when they sold food. Tyrians also, who lived in the city, brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah, in Jerusalem itself! Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers act in this way, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath… (Nehemiah 13.15 – 18, ESV, emphasis mine)

Isaiah turns the command into a promise:

“If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.” For the mouth of the LORD has spoken. (Isaiah 58.13, 14, NIV)

PS I have written before that I don’t believe that adhering to a Sabbath principle precludes our working on Sunday. After all, Sunday is your pastor’s busiest day of the week. But the command to rest is clear. Sometimes, we just have to do it on another day.