Jeff Hampton, Writer
Jeff's Blog
Thoughts, musings, rambles, nonsense . . .
(WBC = Wilshire Baptist Church Weekly Blog)
Tuesday, January 3, 2016 (WBC)
A year of eternity
It was cloudy, chilly and damp; it was sunny, warm and dry. We heard laughter and fond greetings; we saw tears and consoling hugs. There was sadness for lives lost and broken; gratitude for the binding of community. There were words of civic pride and hymns of reverent comfort.
Such was the range of sights, sounds and emotions on the shore of Lake Ray Hubbard as citizens of Garland marked the night of December 26, 2015, when an EF4 tornado dropped down out of the sky. Nine people were killed on Interstate 30, thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed, and untold numbers of lives were shattered.
It’s hard to believe a year has passed. For most of us, the year has gone by as most years do – breathlessly fast – but for those whose lives were overturned it may have been painfully slow. The year has brought relief in the form of homes repaired or rebuilt, businesses refurbished and reopened. But those who lost loved ones will never see restoration; their lives are forever changed and the passing days may bring comfort but life will never be as it was.
The remembrance event at the lake was a snapshot of what we all experience – if not in a year’s time then over a lifetime. There will be cold rain and warm sunshine, laughter and tears, sadness and gratitude. In fact, as we listened and watched I recalled Ecclesiastes 3, which begins with the familiar words, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” What follows is a long list that I’ve heard read in Sunday morning sermons and at weddings and funerals. It begins with “a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,” and ends with “a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”
And then follows these words that I don’t recall reading before: “What do workers gain from their toil. I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
Translations vary but it’s a remarkable juxtaposition of ideas. A quick-read interpretation might be: Our burdens are God-given and are ultimately beautiful when looked at through the prism of eternity. I don’t know if that was the writer’s intended message, but I find myself holding tightly to the idea that God has a plan – it’s called eternity – and there’s no way to understand it.
Likewise, I’ve grown into the idea that we are already living in eternity and that events such as what happened a year ago in our community are markers on a continuum with no beginning or end. That is how I have been able to endure my own losses and appreciate the joy and rebirth that has followed.
That may be little comfort now for those who lost so much a year ago. To them the past year may have felt like an eternity without relief. But just as the clouds gave way to sunshine on the day of remembrance, there is hope that God will make all things beautiful in time.
Tuesday, December 27, 2016 (WBC)
Lingering in Christmas
With Christmas Day behind us I had intended to write something about New Years and all the hope and changes that come with the turning of the calendar. But then a song came to mind and I had a change of heart; I want to linger in Christmas a while longer.
You see, LeAnn and I have been going to sleep listening to Christmas music since early December. It’s mostly been quiet instrumental or choral arrangements of carols and classical church music and not secular songs. It’s been a wonderful way to drift off to sleep and I thought it was over until I remembered an album I hadn’t heard yet this year and one particular song that I needed to hear. And so I found it and listened.
It felt odd at first because the build-up to Christmas is behind us and the world is already racing toward the new year. But then I remembered what my good friend Paul Mangelsdorf announces every year at this time: “The 12 days of Christmas don’t start until Christmas Day and don’t end until January 5.” Aha! That is clearly a good reason to linger in Christmas.
But perhaps Christmas goes on beyond the 12 days. I’ve always admired the philosophy of hotelier Conrad Hilton, who is buried at Calvary Hill Cemetery near Dallas Love Field. Hilton was born on Christmas Day 1887 and when he died 91 years later he gave most of his wealth to charitable causes. His grave marker is engraved with these words: “Charity is a supreme virtue and one great channel through which the mercy of God is passed on to mankind. Christmas is forever.”
So Christmas is not just a season; it can be a way of living. In fact, that is the message I always find in that song I needed to hear. It is “Aspenglow” from John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain Christmas” album. The song is secular, but the melody and words are as gentle as candlelight, and in my listening I always replace the word Aspen with Christmas:
[Christmas] is a life to live
See how much there is to give
See how strongly you believe
See how much you may receive
So I’m going to linger in Christmas a while longer – to January 5th for sure and beyond that if I can. I think it’s a good place to be.
Wilshire Advent Devotional: Friday, December 16, 2016
Peaceful transition
In the weeks following a presidential election that brings a new administration into office, there is much talk about whether or not the transition will be peaceful. In our own lives, far away from the seat of power, we too crave peaceful transitions. The event that stands out in my memory came in November 2002 – the most chaotic month of my professional career and one of the most meaningful episodes of my spiritual life.
I’d been through a contentious six months at what had been a great job in Fort Worth. The business was changing, the organizational chart was in turmoil, the relationship with my boss had soured and I knew my job was no longer safe. As well, the chaos at work had made the commute from Dallas less desirable so I started making contacts closer to home. That led to a lunch meeting and then an interview with someone at an organization I admired. The interview went fine but I was told to be patient because their hiring process might take months.
While I waited, things got worse in Fort Worth and on a Friday morning before Thanksgiving three of us in the department received a not-so-subtle hint that one of us would be released on Monday. The three of us went to lunch and each of us said, “I hope it is me.” I went home and over the weekend I prayed that I would be the one chosen since I was already looking for a job in Dallas, and I prayed for the people considering me for the new job. I also bought a new shirt and tie to wear on Monday; I wanted to face my potential release from chaos with the same fresh spirit that I would approach a new job.
The corporate gods did not disappoint me: on Monday morning I was escorted to human resources and told my job was over immediately. It didn’t take long to leave because in the weeks leading to that day I had removed the few personal items I had. I drove home to Dallas in peace and waited to see what would happen next.
The God of new beginnings did not keep me waiting: on Friday I got a call that the new job in Dallas was mine and I would start on January 2. I don’t recall specific details about the Christmas holidays that year, but I’ll never forget the feeling I had of complete and total peace.
Fired on Monday and hired on Friday. Yes, I had seen the writing on the wall and had actively looked for an escape and a new beginning. But I do believe the God of Peace was at the center of it all, directing my every move, calming my spirit, and pointing the way to a peaceful transition.
Tuesday, November 29, 2016 (WBC)
A parent’s love
Last Sunday LeAnn and I served in Extended Teaching Care during the 11:00 worship service. It’s something the deacons do on a regular rotation that allows parents of pre-K children to worship without having to wrestle their little ones in the pews. We do this at least once a quarter, and while it’s ultimately a labor of love, for LeAnn and me it’s a tale of two experiences.
LeAnn has made her career in early childhood education and she’s a natural with children. She’ll gather up eight rambunctious kids and focus their energy and attention into songs and games that keep them engaged and actually teach something meaningful. But me? This is not my natural element at all. While LeAnn is down on the ground with the kids, I’m staying on my feet, policing skirmishes and picking up messes as fast as they are made. And when it comes to playing, I’ll sit with that one quiet kid who wants to play alone with blocks, maybe because I’m still that kid myself.
If the weather is nice, as it was on Sunday, we take the kids out to the playground for a while and let them run and play. That allows a reticent scrooge like me to stand and watch and generally make sure they don’t hurt themselves or each other. Before noon we go back inside and relief comes when the pastor says “Amen” in the sanctuary and the parents begin coming down the hallway. As each child is retrieved, I feel my pulse slow and my muscles relax and I start to breathe again.
It’s always that way for me, but this past Sunday I saw it all in a new light. As each parent or couple came, they gladly claimed that which had made me so nervous and uptight. They took this boy or girl, drew it close, hugged it, and said “yes” and “no” and “maybe” in answer to its pleadings about whatever else was on the day’s agenda. One couple came and collected twins that I couldn’t imagine ever being comfortable with, but these parents greeted their infinite energy with nothing less than unconditional love times two. My brief burden was their eternal joy.
In those moments of reunion I saw in a fresh way God’s relationship with each of us. You and I are a handful to each other. We wear each other out. We annoy, irritate, frustrate, even anger each other sometimes. But God? I’m pretty sure we disappoint God a lot, but anger? I’m not so sure. Just like those parents, God gathers us up and says, “Yep, he’s a pill, he’s an ornery one, he’s out of control, he’s bound to get hurt or hurt someone, but he’s mine and I love him because that’s the way I made him. Still got some work to do with him but he’s gonna be just fine.”
Tuesday, November 22, 2016 (WBC)
Ready, aim . . . give thanks
Most of my childhood Thanksgiving days were spent with my grandparents in Sherman, Texas, and many of my memories include driving out into the country for target shooting.
It went like this: While my grandmother prepared the meal, the rest of us would jump in the car and Dad would drive us a short distance to a rural railroad crossing. We’d get out and he’d pop open the trunk and carefully take out his wood-stock, bolt-action 22 rifle, and we’d walk a ways down the track to a high trestle. As we walked, my father would have us look for bottles, cans, spent shotgun shells or whatever else we could find that would make a good target. When we got to the trestle, he would slide down the embankment into the gully below, stand the targets up on fence posts or rocks, and climb back up.
And then we’d watch in silent anticipation as he got the rifle ready, pulled back the bolt, and slid in the first shell. He’d position himself – standing or sitting – pull his glasses up off his face so he could use his naked eye, and take slow, steady aim. And just when it got so quiet and still that you could almost hear your own heart beating, he’d pull the trigger and the air would crack.
Dad would take the first few shots, stopping to reload and check the gun sight, and then when he had dinged a few targets he’d let us take our turn. When we were small, he’d hold the rifle for us and let us try to aim and pull the trigger, and when we got older, he’d let us hold the rifle by ourselves, all the while giving pointers about technique and congratulating us when we made a tin can jump off its perch. Writing about this now I can almost smell the smoky scent of burnt gunpowder that came when we opened the bolt and the empty copper shell popped out.
When the targets were gone or the ammunition was spent, we’d walk back down the tracks to the car and drive back to the house. Tumbling into the kitchen, I could see the relief on my grandmother’s face when we all came back safe. But that was another part of the technique that we learned. My Dad – her son – always did everything safely. In fact, he would never put the bolt in the rifle until we got to the trestle, and he’d always take it out before we walked back to the car. Without the bolt, the rifle was just a polished piece of lumber.
Target shooting was an unusual Thanksgiving tradition for sure. Dad was not preparing us for the hunt because he was not a hunter, although he spent some boyhood days roaming the back roads of Sherman with a BB gun. It certainly had nothing to do with killing, hurting, dominating, destroying or anything else that guns are so often associated with today.
Thinking about it now, I see that it was mostly about the technique. It was about developing an eagle eye and a steady hand, calming yourself and being perfectly still, knowing when to breath and when to hold your breath. It was about focusing completely on one thing in order to do it right and ultimately do it well. It also was about a father sharing a piece of his childhood with his children.
Recalling those Thanksgiving days reminds me that being thankful requires discipline and focus. We often have our sights set on the things that irritate and disappoint us because they are so noisy and in our face. Meanwhile, the things we should be thankful for get overlooked or are not so obvious. Sometimes we have to look around and find them and then stand them up so we can see them.
If you don’t think you have anything to be thankful for, try some target shooting techniques. Be still and quiet. Focus your mind’s eye on something that makes you smile. Aim your thoughts at those things that bring you joy or pleasure. Slow your breathing until all you can hear is the sound of your heart beating. That is the sound of your life – a life worth living because it was created and given to you by a loving God.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016 (WBC)
Facing the future
Sitting in the Wilshire Winds last Sunday morning as I do on the second Sunday most months, I faced the congregation and especially the youth. The youth sit up front and that gives me a close-up view of who and what they are: attentive, sleepy, engaged, distracted. At first glance, they are just like I was in my day, but I know they are so much more than I was.
The low point of my youth experience at First Baptist in Richardson came one Sunday after church. The pastor’s wife, who sang in the choir and faced the youth group sitting up front, approached my buddy Ken and me:
“Did you boys enjoy the service?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“And what about the sermon?”
“Oh yes, it was very good.”
“Really? How would you know since you were talking the whole time.”
Busted.
I can’t say that never happens with our youth today, but I do believe they are more engaged in the life of the church and more aware of the place of the church in the world than I ever was. They’ve come up in a time of social and cultural upheaval that has churned up issues at home, school and church that I never faced. Fanning the flames of change has been the growth of the Internet and social media, which has made their world smaller and has put an infinite stream of information and opinions at their fingertips. I can’t imagine growing up with that power . . . and that burden.
But these youth have, and they’ve faced it more bravely than I could have in my day. They’ve had opportunities in recent months to stand before roomfuls of adults and speak their minds on serious issues. Their presentations have sometimes been unpolished and off the cuff, but their reasoning has been good and their emotions have been real – most especially their love for each other and their church.
Our youth care greatly for their church, and that gives me great hope for the future of Wilshire, our community and our world.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016 (WBC)
Tomorrow and the day after
Some people like to vote early at whatever location is set up for that, but I like to vote on Election Day because I get to walk through my neighborhood to the poll. The walk reminds me that while a national election may dominate the discourse and be the focus of our attention for months, we all still live in small neighborhoods.
Walking down the rainy streets to the recreation center to cast my vote today, I passed dozens of houses of neighbors I know and many I don’t know. Some have shared pieces of the stories of their lives, and I have done the same. I don’t know who my neighbors voted for and don’t really care, because that’s not what binds us together or sets us apart. We aren’t red or blue; we’re humans. We’re all cut from the same cloth woven by the same God and then stitched together for a unique human and spiritual experience.
Walking home from the poll, looking at the doors and porches and windows of people I know and don’t know, I was reminded that regardless of what happens in Washington or Austin or downtown Dallas, we still are responsible for and responsible to each other on the street where we live. Not responsible in a nosy or intrusive way, but in a congenial, communal and caring way.
The votes will be tallied soon and a winner will be declared. Some will be happy, some will be sad, but we’ll all still be here tomorrow and the day after. And what happens to us and our neighbors may be impacted for the better or the worse by how we live together in those new days that God gives us.
Tuesday, November 1, 2016 (WBC)
Walking into the holidays
At 6 a.m. on Halloween morning I was driving to Love Field when I stopped at a light at Inwood and Royal and what did I see but a sign advertising, “We’ll Decorate Your House for Christmas.” At the exact same moment, WRR-FM radio announced auditions for a holiday production of Handel’s “Messiah.”
I was too groggy to gripe about the rush to Christmas on Halloween morning. Besides, I’ve already seen plenty of Christmas in the stores, and after a year of turmoil in some of the community circles I hold dear I’m ready to move toward Christmas. It seems a good, safe place to be; a place that can’t be tarnished by gossip, innuendo or poor reporting.
Thinking about it later in the day, I was intrigued by the contrast of the two offers I experienced that morning: one to let someone come set up Christmas for you, and the other for you to help bring the story of Christmas to others. To serve, or to be served. That’s a choice we make every year to some degree: help bring Christmas or have it delivered to us. I’ll admit that some years I want to bring it and some years I want to sit back and let it come to me. And some years I don’t really want any of it at all. I think that is mostly OK, because our spirit goes through different seasons and we with it.
After a long year of unrest, I’m ready to be more involved with Christmas – more active and giving and less sitting back and receiving. But despite the fact that I’m writing about it now, I’m not running toward Christmas yet. I’m just walking because we still have Thanksgiving, and there’s so much to be thankful for.
As for Halloween, I can be a scrooge about that too and I initially thought my day of travel would help me miss the incessant ring of the doorbell that interrupts dinner and television and whatever else I want to do. As it happened, I pulled into the driveway just in time to see a bunch of grownups and children on our porch talking with LeAnn. I watched in the dark from the sidewalk and realized it was the owners of one of our favorite Garland restaurants. Something came over me and I rushed to the porch with my satchel open shouting, “Trick or Treat.”
May it be that way with Thanksgiving and Christmas as well.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016 (WBC)
Significance
“If Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would come out here for a while, they’d get a better sense of their relative significance.”
LeAnn said that as we drove down into Yosemite Valley for a few days among the granite cliffs and towering trees. We hadn’t been talking about politics at all, but those words flowed as naturally as the water cascading more than 2,400 feet over Yosemite Falls.
Indeed, almost everything in Yosemite has a way of making a person feel small and insignificant, from the 3,000-foot sheer cliff of El Capitan to the Sequoia redwoods that can grow 300 feet tall and live 2,000 years or more. Yosemite is one of those places that can set your mind on things bigger, more important and more lasting than yourself. It’s one of those places where human vanity, pride and control give way to a kind of spiritual understanding that we are not so powerful and important after all.
It’s also a place where we are reminded that we are not alone. Walking the trails in Yosemite you hear languages from every hemisphere and continent, and yet the faces wear the familiar expressions of wonder and awe. It’s a humbling reminder that we in this country are not alone on this planet. What’s more, we share our beautiful land with others.
Or, actually, God shares it with us. We are stewards for a while – each of us in our brief lifetime – and we’re fools to think any one of us has all the answers on how to fix or perfect this earthly paradise. We work best in trust with each other and together in covenant with God. But instead we make war and divide and conquer the land and then abuse and waste what we claim is ours.
On most days if you look up at the vast, vertical face of El Capitan you can see tiny specs of red, blue or orange against the gray-white granite. Those are climbers ascending or descending the monolith. If you didn’t stop to look, you wouldn’t know they were there. I can only imagine what they see suspended up there, or how small and insignificant they feel clinging to that mountain. I’m guessing they have a healthy respect for the mountain and the creator who carved it and raised it up out of the earth.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016 (WBC)
Trees of life
Over the weekend we made a long loop down through the Heart of Texas, into the Piney Woods and back up to home. It was a trip of roughly 560 miles on the map but more than 100 years through the tree rings of life.
It started Friday afternoon with a drive to Waco for class reunion dinners at Baylor: my 35th and my father’s 60th. After visiting with old friends and making new acquaintances, we walked around the heart of the old campus. Dad noted how the live oak trees seem to never age. They were there when he and Mom first met, and they were there for LeAnn and me during our own days of learning. I’m guessing many of them were there in 1922 when my grandfather crossed those same sidewalks.
Late that night we drove east on a dark rural highway where oaks and pecans give way to the pines. We stopped for the night, and continued the next morning to a family reunion at a small country church. But first we walked the sacred ground where various branches of the family rest side by side under the pines. Reading the stones, some lived long lives and some never really got started.
After lunch at the church LeAnn and I took a walk around the perimeter of the churchyard shaded by the magnificent pine trees. At ground level they seemed fixed and immovable, but LeAnn mentioned that if you looked at their branches 80 feet up you could see they were swaying with the breeze. I reasoned that if a person were to climb up there they’d have to hold on tight through the twisting and turning. But on the ground near the roots, it was safe and sound.
Continuing our walk we came upon a tree that had been cut a couple of feet above the ground with the stump showing the rings of its life. We don’t know its story, but we know that pine trees don’t stand forever. Some are blown down by storms; some are attacked by fire or beetles; some are cut into lumber for homes, schools and churches.
After the reunion we drove to a house in a clearing cut deep in the woods where my grandmother and her nine siblings were raised in the early 1900s. It was a hard life but a good life because their faith was strong. Behind the house, a giant tree of unknown variety that had stood for countless years lay stretched out across the ground, its trunk bleached almost white. I reached out to test the weight of a branch and it was as heavy as stone, evidence of the minerals that it had drawn upward and absorbed for strength over the years.
Sunday morning found us back in Dallas walking to the back door of Wilshire on Springside. As we kicked through the acorns scattered on the sidewalk I wondered how long the live oak trees had been there. Sixty years perhaps? I’ve been walking there 26 years and they’ve been there at least that long.
Those trees have stood the test of time and so has church, university and family. Though the winds may twist and turn us – cracking our branches and breaking our hearts – we endure because the roots of our faith are deep and strong.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016 (WBC)
Face time
Coming in from an evening walk, my phone vibrated in my back pocket and when I pulled it out it was a FaceTime call from our nephew Ethan. He was calling from the wilds of New Mexico and the connection was bad, so while he could see us, we couldn’t see him. Still, we knew it was him because we knew his voice. What’s more, it took just a few words from him to discern that it was his annual sales call for Boy Scout popcorn.
FaceTime is fun and useful when it works, and when it doesn’t it may be irritating but it’s no big deal. But imagine a different type of face time – between two people who have never met.
During a recent visit with the Red River County Genealogical Society to give a talk about “Telling Your Story,” we sat spellbound as an older man told us the heart of his own story. He had been placed for adoption as a child, spent time at Buckner, was adopted by a good family, grew up and started a career as a machinist. And then through a series of events he learned his birth parents were living in a trailer in South Dallas County.
He was taken to see them, and when the door opened, the man who was identified as his father brushed past him down the steps and walked out of sight without saying a word. “That was the only time I ever saw him,” the man told us.
But it was a different situation with his mother. He stepped into the trailer and found her sitting in a chair. Illness had blinded her and she couldn’t see him – at least not with her eyes. She called him to her side and with her fingers she touched and caressed his face.
So what was she looking for, and what did she see? Perhaps some trace of the little boy she had known decades earlier, or a sense of the man he had become? By touching the lines and features of his face could she read the story of his life: the joys and sorrows, the pleasures and pains?
The man didn’t tell us what she said after that. We don’t know what she learned from her face time with him, or if she said “I’m sorry” or “I love you.” But he didn’t tell the story with any hint of regret or anger. Instead, there was a sort of glow of wonder on his face as he recalled that meeting. After all, he had finally met the woman who had given him life. He had learned something of where he had come from. He seemed blessed by the encounter.
To some degree we are all orphans, created by a God we have never seen and raised by parents we didn’t choose for a purpose we often spend a lifetime trying to grow into. Like the mother and son in the trailer, we long to know who we are and whose we are. We search for answers in the darkness with our limited senses.
We long for face time with God – to see for ourselves this one who made us – but the only visual evidence we have of our family tie is in the faces and caresses of others that God has put in our lives. But we can know the voice of God through Christ who we also have not seen but whose words and deeds have been written and handed down to us through the ages like a family story. And wasn’t it Christ who told us that his father has numbered the hairs on our head? If he knows us that well, then doesn’t it follow that God knows us by face?
It may still feel like a one-way recognition, but through faith it is enough for now. Faith helps us cope with the big questions and frees us to go on with our little daily doings. The man who met his mother in the trailer went on to live a rich and happy life, and I need to put that check for popcorn in the mail to Ethan.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016 (WBC)
Left behind
I knew I had been left behind when I watched the opening to “The Late Show” and didn’t recognize any of the guests’ names. It’s not unusual for there to be one or two people I don’t know, but all three? That was a first for me.
In contrast, at breakfast recently Wilshire friend Steve Brookshire told us about a man he met while golfing who had worked for George Burns. All of us at the table knew who Burns was because we grew up seeing him in films, on TV and especially on the late-night talk shows. But Burns died 20 years ago, and anyone under 30 would have no clue who we were talking about.
I don’t mind being culturally left behind about some things. Entertainment “news” programs like TMZ and Inside Edition have nothing but gossip about the flashes and failings of today’s celebrities. I really don’t care to hear about their wardrobe gaffes, baby bumps and new tattoos. Not caring and not watching leaves time for more significant matters.
Unfortunately, that type of pop-culture journalism has spilled over into things that really matter. Such as the presidential campaign, where much of the reporting is about how well the candidates are performing and not what they stand for.
I’m wanting – even trying – to shut out this cultural noise, but it’s difficult. I look at Twitter and Facebook and find that I’m too easily drawn into discussions about petty issues that cloud my mind and eat at my soul. On a few occasions I have added my voice and it always feels dirty, not to mention futile. I can have the last word on something, but just for a nanosecond, because the comments pile up on top of mine like fall leaves.
No, it’s time to turn away from what is culturally popular and focus on what is culturally significant. Better yet: spiritually significant. This feeling of being left behind may seem like a mid-life crisis when it might actually be a spiritual awakening to what is really important.
I like the spiritually significant questions posed by the culturally popular rock band Coldplay in their song “Clocks”: “Am I a part of the cure? Or am I part of the disease?”
Tuesday, September 27, 2016 (WBC)
. . . and reverent
Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
I typed those words rapidly in that order without having to think about them. I can say them even faster without taking a breath. Early in our relationship I amused LeAnn by doing just that. I don’t remember the context, but it just came naturally.
I know those words from heart because they are the 12 points of the Scout Law. I learned them as a teenager and never unlearned them. Maybe by learning them, I've lived them to some degree. That’s for others to decide. What I know is that while I left Scouting almost 40 years ago, Scouting never left me – especially not that last item: “. . . and reverent.”
This has come to mind in recent weeks as we joined in the 50th anniversary celebration of Troop 1001, the Scout troop my brother and I spent roughly seven years in. We started as Tenderfoot scouts and left as Eagles. We have great leaders to thank for that, but we also owe a lot to our parents. They encouraged our participation and sometimes prodded our advancement. But mostly in their own way they lived the Scout Law alongside us, including “. . . and reverent.”
At the 50th anniversary dinner at Camp Wisdom in south Dallas County – where our troop camped often – one of the current troop leaders who blessed the meal said that when Scouting founder Robert Baden-Powell was asked where religion came into Scouting, he replied, “It does not come in at all. It is already there.”
That intrigued me and I looked further into Baden-Powell’s philosophy about the place of religion in Scouting. Among his many statements was this, made in 1919:
“Development of outlook naturally begins with a respect for God, which we may best term Reverence. Reverence to God and reverence for one’s neighbour and reverence for oneself as a servant of God, is the basis of every form of religion.” He went on to say that it wasn’t the place of Scouts to specify a certain religion. Instead, it was to respect the religion and reverence that a boy and his family come from.
He said that 97 years ago, but it was never expressed to me in those terms when I was in Scouts. I think that was because, as Baden-Powell said, religion wasn’t forced into Scouting; it was there first. It undergirded everything we did, everything we learned, every camping trip we took, every hike we made, every sunset we saw and every sunrise we awoke to. It was there in the way we treated each other and the natural world in which we spent so much time. It was unspoken because that just may be the best voice for respect and reverence.
“. . . and reverent.” Even though it was at the end of the list, it was always first. It still is.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016 (WBC)
Old-fashioned hospitality in bloom
Mowing in the back corner of the yard, I noticed the Turk’s Cap is blooming bright red again. It’s what some call an “old-fashioned” shrub, and while it is native to Texas, the only place I recall seeing it as a kid was around the side door of my grandparents’ house in Sherman. We sure didn’t have it in the new neighborhoods of suburban Richardson.
On W. College Street in Sherman, it seemed like the Turk’s Cap (also known as Cardinal’s Cap) was always there to welcome us as we piled out of the car, up the steps, and through the side door of the house. That was interesting too, because the side door opened straight into my grandparents’ bedroom, with the kitchen just beyond. There was no entering into a formal living room; we were always welcomed into the heart of the home.
The house was smaller than our house in Richardson, but I never thought less of it because it was brimming with hospitality and love. In fact, the welcoming environment made the house seem much bigger than it was.
It reminds me of what an interior designer told me recently during an interview for an article: “More is not better. More is just more.” The man has focused his talents on helping families with small or average-sized homes make the most of their space. A big part of that is creating an environment that is welcoming and friendly, no matter the size.
Years ago I was on a new building committee at Wilshire that considered plans for a children’s education building topped by a community hall. It was an exciting proposition, but as sometimes happens the economy went south and the plan was tabled. And then something wonderful happened: a new plan was developed by another committee that took what Wilshire already had and made it better. From Community Hall under the sanctuary to the Choral Hall to improvements up and down the hallways and in the classrooms, the physical church is no bigger than it was previously, but it is so much better.
In the years since then our numbers haven’t grown, but I sense that we’ve become more welcoming. The improved facilities have enabled us to host new programs and ministries that invite folks beyond the worship services and into the heart of the fellowship. In fact, new signage placed over the past year points the way to every nook and cranny of the church as if to say, “Sure, the Sanctuary is a focal point, but there’s great stuff happening all over the place.”
What’s more, the money not spent on a new building years ago and the fresh perspective that followed has helped fund exciting new ministries that touch lives in our community and around the world. We’re spreading the hospitality of Christ far and wide.
The lesson is you don’t need to be a mega-church with big programs to do that. You just need to have an old-fashioned heart for hospitality – like the welcoming color of red Turk’s Cap blooming around the door.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016 (WBC)
Discomfort
“Don’t be comfortable. There’s no reason you should be comfortable tonight.”
That was the advice the conductor gave the Lakeshore Symphonic Winds and Lake Cities Chorale an hour before our concert Sunday night in Garland. We were going over the program one last time, and he was talking first about posture and technique, but also about the theme for the night: “Remember 9/11.”
And who could be comfortable remembering that day 15 years ago. It stole thousands of lives, shattered untold thousands more, and changed much of who we are as a nation and the way we live every day.
But I had more specific and superficial discomfort layered on top of that. I had volunteered to play in the concert after a plea for musicians, and I dragged LeAnn in with me. We’ve played with the Lakeshore group before, and some of them have played with us in the Wilshire Winds and so it seemed right to volunteer to sit in with them. The problem was we could only make two rehearsals and by concert time we were both feeling painfully unprepared – and very uncomfortable.
The concert went fine, and as we finished each piece and turned it over, the tension subsided and by the time it was over LeAnn and I felt like we had been part of something worthwhile, even if we were not 100 percent ready. And in an interesting way it was the perfect bookend to earlier that same day when we played with the Wilshire Winds in church.
LeAnn and I are more comfortable playing with the Wilshire Winds because that is our home ensemble and we are able to practice more. And on this 9/11 morning, we were comforted in the playing of “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” also known as the “Navy Hymn.” The melody is sturdy, and the words are strong:
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who biddest the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea.
Fifteen years after 9/11, we still live in uncomfortable times. There’s a lingering fear of a repeat of that day. As the hymn says, the waves are restless. But what it doesn't say is that we continue to roil the waters ourselves. In our human failing we churn up all manner of chaos and hurt – some of it in our families and some on a national and even global scale.
I pray that God still hears our cry for deliverance, even when we need saving from ourselves.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016 (WBC)
Keeping time
Before we left home for a few days I made the rounds winding and resetting our antique clocks: a mantle clock in the dining room, a tall bookshelf clock in our bedroom, and a smaller clock in our bathroom. Three days later, we returned home and the clocks were, as I expected, out of sync. Compared to the actual time, the dining room clock was seven minutes behind, the bedroom clock was two minutes ahead, and the bathroom clock was 12 minutes fast.
That’s just the way it is with antique clocks. They tick along at their own pace, and you can either be patient with their “hare and turtle” ways and gently reset them every so often, or you can spend your time trying to keep them on time. But that’s really not necessary, because that’s not their purpose. My iPhone keeps perfect time, as does a clock radio in the bedroom and the two ovens and microwave in the kitchen. That’s where I go for precision.
Antique clocks serve a different purpose. They let you know the time of day in round, approximate numbers. They chime the hours and half hours and provide a sort of familiar company through the day and night. They stand tall and strong, their wood cabinets and brass pendulums conveying a kind of wisdom that says, “I’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been around. I’ve seen things you haven’t seen. You come and go, but I’m always here, always marking time.”
Antique clocks remind me of some people I know – not their age, but how they keep time in this world. They don’t worry about being early or late. What’s important to them – and to us who know them – is that they are always present. They don’t have much to say, but when they do it is always worth hearing because it comes from experience. The time they keep is not fleeting, second-by-second time; their time is expansive with infinite possibility, as in, “This is our time. This is the time to do something important.”
People like this live on God’s time, which is to say that the actual time is not as important as what is done with the time. They know that waiting for the right time is not really waiting. Every tick of the clock, every chime of the hour is a step forward on a journey.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016 (WBC)
A show and a shock on a train
I’ve seen plenty of strange things in all the years that I’ve ridden DART Rail to downtown Dallas, but nothing quite compares with what I saw Monday during the noon hour: A pantomime cowgirl.
If I can describe her from head to toe, she was wearing a black cowboy hat, a black mask covering her entire head, black gloves, a bright red knit top, bright red pants, and black shoes or boots. It was a costume to be sure, with the only thing not matching being a pink backpack. The only hint I had of age and gender was her red top was rolled up exposing her midriff and navel.
I don’t know if the costume was an expression of an unusual personality or part of a performance – maybe even a school project – but she got my attention when she suddenly glided silently up the aisle to the front of the train car. There, she spun in circles a few times and then began engaging individuals silently with hand gestures that seemed to say “hello” and “OK” and “looking good.” She jumped up and squatted on the front seat and turned to continue her little show with the man on the second row. She reached out a hand for a shake and he started to respond and then had second thoughts and withdrew his hand. That seemed to set her off, and she began talking through her mask.
The train was loud and I was wearing earphones – I do that often on the train to listen to music but also to block out strangers – but I lowered one earphone and heard some back and forth about, “What’s your deal?” and, “What’s wrong with you?” and, “Loosen up, man” and, “Mind your own business.” During this confrontation she lowered her mask and her gender and age were confirmed. She was attractive, in her early twenties perhaps, and her clothes appeared clean and well made. I wondered again if this was a performance of some sort or if she was living on the edge of normal. My questions continued as we both got off the train at Pearl Station and I watched as she continued her gliding run-walk down the street, engaging some passersby with her pantomime motions and waving at startled drivers waiting at the intersection.
All through this event my emotions ranged from surprise and bemusement to concern and irritation. The mask and backpack touched my worry nerve at first, but lots of people carry backpacks these days, especially students. If I had seen her at the State Fair or at a carnival, I might have assumed she was a paid character putting on a show and I would have watched her with carefree amusement. But in the context of public transit her purpose wasn’t clear and thus she didn’t seem so cute and harmless. I sure didn’t want her getting in my face and trying to pull me into a pantomime conversation. There was also the possibility that she was mentally ill and capable of who knows what.
This is the world we live in now. There have always been outsiders, nonconformists and simply unusual people doing their own thing, but now with greater mobility, they seem to be out and about more. Free expression is freer than ever, and with social media promising short-term fame and notoriety, more people are stretching the envelope and pushing the buttons. Even when nobody is breaking the law, they may still be breaking into our personal space and breaking down our definitions of what is normal and acceptable. I think I went through the first 25 years of life without ever feeling like, “Wait a minute now, that’s not quite the way it should be.” Now it’s a daily thought.
We’ve seen the same broadening and opening up of expression in the workplace, the schoolhouse, the statehouse and the church. There may be no actual harm being done, but there certainly are challenges to what we are accustomed to and what we’ve long regarded as normal. The culture is moving in new directions, and our institutions are struggling to sift and sort through the changes.
I don’t have any answers; just lots of questions: Where is our culture going next? Will we continue to push the boundaries or will there be a reining in and a bounce back from this “anything goes” culture?
As for the pantomime cowgirl, last time I saw her she was headed down the street into the heart of downtown. Maybe you’ve seen her too. Maybe she amused you, or maybe she frightened you. No question she got your attention and made you think.
Tuesday, August 23, 2016 (WBC)
Getting out of the taxi
Last week I was in Washington, D.C. for a few days to work on a project, but that’s not quite true because I was really in Fairfax, Va., which means I saw the Capitol dome and the Washington Monument at a distance from the window of a taxi between the airport and the hotel.
I’ve been to the nation’s capital four times in my life and I’ve never gone strictly as a tourist. I’ve always gone for business, which has for the most part kept me sequestered in offices and hotels in such places as Fairfax, McLean, Silver Springs or Alexandria. There have been minor exceptions. On my first trip to Washington my colleague and I skipped out on an afternoon conference to spend a little time in the Air and Space Museum. On another trip, I had lunch with a nephew who was stationed with the Marines in D.C., but it was a holiday week and there was gridlock on the National Mall. I saw the new World War II Memorial from the car window.
So after this latest trip, LeAnn and I have pledged to go back to Washington some day when there is no business agenda. We’ll be tourists and get out of the taxi and walk around. We’ll visit monuments and museums, wade deep into history, and soak up the feelings of “nation” and “patriotism” that I’m told are waiting on the other side of the car window.
There is a danger in being so busy and driven by business and responsibilities that we miss the true essence of a place – that special something that is often at the heart of it and thus the best part. That’s true of cities like Washington, and its true of other places and social structures where we spend our time. It’s true at home, at school, and even at church. We can rush through and miss the real experience.
On many Sunday mornings I find myself leaving Sunday School early to go get ready for a duty in another part of the building, whether it be ushering or fulfilling a deacon assignment. And then after church there might be a committee meeting that starts at noon and so I walk past people I know and don’t stop to visit. I’m not alone in this and I’m not complaining. I’m just doing what I’ve readily volunteered to do.
I’m not sure that “tourism” is a word we necessarily want to connect with church, but there is a time for rushing to “do” church and a time for slowing down to “experience” church. So I’m making a pledge to myself to slow down a little, get out of the taxi, and see some of the sights. I’m going to take in the art exhibit in the south hallway. I’m going to stop and visit with folks in the James Gallery over a cup of coffee. I’m going to pop into the library and look at some books. And I’m going to sit in the sanctuary after the final “Amen” and soak up one of Jeff Brummel’s fabulous organ postludes.
I may have to spend more time at church to accomplish that, but tourist time is different from work time. And everything is better when you get out of the taxi.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016 (WBC)
Walking the beam
For more than a week we’ve been treated to amazing Olympic moments. We’ve watched in awe as Phelps, Biles, Ledecky, Bolt, Jennings and other names have been added to the roster of Olympic champions.
But there have been other moments that have not created new Olympic champions. There have been the falls, the stumbles, the slow finishes, the no finishes. The moment I’ve identified with most was when a gymnast slipped on the balance beam, got flustered, then became scared and pulled way back on her planned routine. As she finished out her allotted time, the announcer said, “She’s just walking the beam now.
”
I “just walked the beam” once. It was in junior high school, at UIL band solo and ensemble competition. During the sight-reading exercise – when they give you a piece of music you’ve never seen before, give you a couple of minutes to study it, and then you play it – I was nervous and got flustered. My brain froze, I lost all sense of count, tempo and note value, and I just started playing the notes up and down the staff. I couldn’t wait for it to be over, and neither could the judge. I glanced above the top of the music and saw the shock and pity in his eyes. When I got to the end of the page, I walked out of the room and didn’t look back.
I lacked the skill, talent and courage to compete in music again. In fact, that may be the last time I competed for anything. Certainly I’ve competed for jobs, but that’s without ever knowing who I was competing with and not getting a score from an interviewer. At UIL, they posted the scores on a wall and you could see how you stood compared to others. That’s not usually the case with jobs; you get the job or you don’t. In one memorable case the interviewer never called back or returned my calls. Nothing says “you lost” more loudly than silence.
Losing is not the end, however. When we’ve walked the beam a few times and even fallen off, if we’re honest and know what’s best we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and go do something else. And it doesn’t have to be something less. It can be something infinitely more because it can be something we were born to do.
The reality is that most Olympians don’t win medals. I’m guessing most don’t go on to have lifetime careers in athletics, either. Many of their athletic skills don’t translate to anything practical in the real world, but some of the disciplines do: the commitment, drive, striving for excellence. Those can lead to golden moments in other endeavors.
And yes, some skills are applicable in later life. Years from now Michael Phelps will still enjoy being in the water, and I will always enjoy playing music.
Wednesday, August 10, 2016 (WBC)
Fifty years, but who's really counting
"I’m looking forward to your 50th anniversary celebration.” George Mason leaned in and said that to LeAnn and me as we sat at a table at a 50th anniversary luncheon for Claudia and Joe Barner.
It was a good-natured, tongue-in-cheek quip from the pastor who officiated at our wedding a little more than five years ago. He knows – as we know – that we’ll probably not see 50 years together because we got a late start. However, I did challenge LeAnn: “If you can make it to 105 years old, I’ll try to be there too.”
The truth is it’s not the amount of time a couple has together that matters; it’s the quality of time. The quality depends on how you spend the time you have. And because you don’t know how much time you have until you don’t have any time left, there’s only one thing to do: enjoy this blessed day right now.
I’m in a reflective mood about this because I’m coming to the end of an annual one-month span when I celebrate my anniversary with LeAnn and remember my first wife’s birthday and passing. The emotions are heightened as longtime friends celebrate 30 or more years of marriage. I take pride in the fact that I’ve logged 30 years too, but it’s just been a different arrangement.
One of God’s greatest gifts to me is that I’ve not been burdened with a spirit of comparison. I loved the life I had, and love the life I have. However, I do critique myself, and LeAnn should know that she benefits from my resolve to not make the mistakes I made earlier in life.
I won’t roll out a list of my offenses, but when you get married at 24 you’re still immature and that implies plenty of selfishness, warped priorities, impossible goals and unrealistic expectations. Some people grow out of that and some don’t. Others of us are shaken by death or divorce, and that often is accompanied by waves of self-inspection and guilt. After that, if you’re fortunate enough to meet someone new, brave enough to jump into the water again, and wise enough to learn from your mistakes, that process of self-inspection can help curb your worst habits and smooth your rough edges. You realize that some things – many things, actually – are not nearly as important as you thought they were.
While LeAnn and I probably won’t celebrate a 50th anniversary, I’m looking forward to sharing at least 25 wonderful years together, God willing of course. But to be honest, I’m not counting the years anymore. Instead, I’m counting the blessings.
Tuesday, August 2, 2016 (WBC)
Unwrinkled time
One of the more interesting aftershocks of the recent national political conventions came after Chelsea Clinton mentioned “A Wrinkle in Time” during the speech in which she introduced her mother. The next day Amazon lit up with orders for Madeleine L'Engle's classic 1963 science-fiction novel for children.
Ironically, that book is among several we checked out from the Wilshire library a couple of weeks earlier for our 10-year-old nephew to read while visiting us. It was a favorite of mine growing up, and we thought he might enjoy it too. He didn’t read it – he read plenty of other books while he was here – but I read it again and finished it just a few days before Chelsea mentioned it.
Without presenting a book report and giving too much away, it’s the story of two children who search for their father, a scientist who has gone missing in an experiment that folds or “wrinkles” time and allows instant travel across light years of space. With guidance from some special helpers, they find him on a faraway planet whose human-like inhabitants are controlled by a presence that has replaced individual freedom with a sort of numb, mindless peace. They don’t experience any of the heartache or turmoil that we know on Earth, but they also don’t know joy and delight.
It’s ironic that the novel has gained new attention during a political season in which the American people must consider who we want to lead us, and how much and what parts of our lives we want to trust to our government. In the book the struggle is between darkness and light, control and freedom. If you listen to the political rhetoric and the media reporting, the presidential election sometimes seems much the same.
L’Engle’s “Wrinkle” is not as rich with Christian symbolism as C.S. Lewis’ “Narnia,” but there are Biblical themes and wisdom in the pages. The children learn that they have within themselves individual character traits that are gifts that will help them on their journey. And at a key moment, one of the characters is charged to go do what needs to be done with a quote from 1 Corinthians 1:25: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”
I don’t know if it is fortunate or unfortunate, but unlike the children in the story we can’t wrinkle time and leap ahead to November to see how the election will come out or try to fix it one way or another. We have to endure the journey in unwrinkled time and wait for the results. But like L’Engle’s young heroes, we each have God-given traits that are our gifts to be used for the greater good along the way. And we can lean into that wisdom from Corinthians and trust that God is still at work in the world and is stronger and wiser than we can ever imagine.
Tuesday, July 26, 2016 (WBC)
What’s the buzz?
I’ve noticed that when I’m working in the yard with the edger, I’m quickly accompanied by dragonflies and a few red wasps. I first become aware of it when I see their shadow on the sidewalk beside me and then I look up and find them darting around me. The wasps seem irritated, but the dragonflies appear to be curious.
I’m curious too. I wonder if they are attracted by the audible buzz of my machine, or if not the sound, then some kind of vibration or stirring in the air. I don’t know if there is any science to support what my imagination conjures, but I wonder if they mistake me for the big king of all buzzing insects. I don’t mind being king of the dragonflies because they eat mosquitoes.
This summer there is plenty of buzz of another kind in the air. Information is flying all around us, and from the volume of Facebook posts and Twitter feeds that churn across my computer and iPhone screens, it seems that people are buzzing around that information as well, voicing opinions, arguing back and forth, sometimes being thoughtful and often being rude. The topics are political, cultural, societal. They encompass gender, health care, immigration, security, religion. It’s all important to someone or there wouldn’t be so much buzz about it.
The buzz is especially loud as we sit through two weeks of national political conventions. Both parties are buzzing loudly for their candidate – trying to keep the faithful close and hoping to attract the undecided into the whirring vortex of their influence. There’s nothing new about that, but more than at any time in my lifetime the national mood seems to be concern rather than excitement about the future and the change that is coming.
Thinking about all this buzzing, my mind goes to “Jesus Christ Superstar” and the song, “What’s the Buzz?,” where the disciples are floating around Jesus like bees, asking him, “What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s a happening.” The line repeats over and over again as the disciples are impatient to know the plan and especially, “When do we ride into Jerusalem?” They are caught up in the mistaken hope that Jesus will lead a political takeover.
Jesus responds to their buzz for details with these words:
“Why should you want to know?
Don’t you mind about the future.
Don’t you try to think ahead.
Save tomorrow for tomorrow;
Think about today instead.”
The 1970s rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice is not an accurate reading of the gospels, but I do like the way this Jesus urges his followers to set aside the buzz, stop looking ahead so much, and focus on the present. That is where their life is; it’s today, right now.
It’s natural to want to know what lies ahead and there is some good in that for the sake of planning. We can’t leave the future totally to chance. But we can’t get so caught up in the buzz about the future that we don’t take care of the present. Today is where we live; today is all we really have.
It’s also human nature to want to get on board with the latest trend, but less buzz and more discernment might be advised. Some trends become traditions, but most just come and go.
We also need a personal reality check every now and then. It’s easy to begin believing that the buzz we are creating is pretty good, is even important. It may be trending, but the truth is our buzz may be nothing more than just noise. We may think we’re the king of the dragonflies when we’re actually just a guy edging the yard.
Tuesday, July 19, 2016 (WBC)
Floating together
Water. It’s a fundamental element of all life. We humans are approximately 60 percent water, which explains why we get thirsty and need to drink plenty of water to stay alive. Under the skin and down to the cellular level, every human being is made alive and kept alive by water.
We also are drawn to water for recreation. Whether it’s a far-away memory of our dance in the womb or a cellular attraction to H20, we like to be near and in the water. This is especially true during the heat of summer, and especially with children. My parents have ancient home movies of us playing in the water – all spastic and jimmy-legged as we jumped through the spray of a lawn sprinkler and chased each other with the hose – and that hasn’t changed with children.
In the water, children are equal. They play easily together and without prejudice; they are all there for nothing more than the refreshing splash of the water. We witnessed this while Ethan, our youngest nephew, was visiting us last week for Wilshire’s MusiCamp.
One afternoon we took him to Legoland Discovery Center in Grapevine and ended the day at their splash park. We watched from the shade of an umbrella while kids of all ages and colors worked together under the spraying water to build a house out of large foam Legos. Ethan and another boy gathered bricks from all around and carried them in stacks to the construction site, where another group sorted through them and yet another built the walls. Nobody was more important than the other, no job was better than the other. There were no bosses or underlings, just everyone pitching in under the spray of the cool, refreshing water.
Later in the week, Ethan and I waded into the water at a wave pool where he and I were clearly the minority if you just considered skin color. But in the water, everyone was equal. The bell sounded and all the kids squealed with excitement as the waves began to come. They jumped on their floats and inner tubes and bobbed up and down in unison, bumping into to each other without a care and just enjoying the excitement of a day in the water.
That’s the way it is with kids. They just don’t seem to care about what divides them; they are only interested in what unites them, especially the water. But then something happens to them – to us. We grow up and get out of the water and forget our equality. In the white-hot heat of our personal aspirations and self-centered agendas, our skin becomes dry and rough, and our spirits do too. Before long we forget that we were equals back at the wave pool.
Worse than that, we forget that we are equals in the water of baptism. We also forget that those who have not yet found the saving waters are no less loved by their Father, and our own baptism calls us to share that love. At the wave pool the floats and tubes are shared; when kids get out for a while or leave, they push their floats over to those just arriving.
We seem to be living at a time when there is a great thirst for a better way. There is violence everywhere, there is little trust anywhere, and you can almost hear society inhaling to let out a great, loud, collective wail – like a child left sitting alone in the sun, crying out for the cool of water.
I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know that we have a choice to make: We can sink and drown under the weight of our fear and distrust, or we can accept our equal humanity and embrace our common baptism and float on this sea of life together.
When it was time to leave the splash park at Legoland, Ethan introduced us to Phil, his new friend. They wanted their picture together, and we took it. Ethan will never see Phil again, but when he sees the picture years from now we hope he’ll remember how two boys with different skin colors but kindred spirits played and worked together in the water.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016 (WBC)
Speaking through
Last Friday I rode DART to downtown Dallas for my occasional visit with my friend Paul for noon mass at the cathedral and lunch. There are never more than 30 people at weekday mass, but on Friday the number was doubled. Violence in a city has a way of drawing people to prayer in search of answers. We saw the same thing right after 9/11 when churches in Dallas and across the country had prayer services.
On this day I rode the train from Garland with a neighbor who was going to the special prayer service at Thanks-Giving Square. Hundreds were at that event and I’ve seen video clips and I know it was meaningful, but the small regular service I attended was no less so.
The noon mass is always brief, just 30 minutes, and early on there is always this prayer spoken in unison: “I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do.” Actually, the words have been changed in recent years to say, “Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.”
It’s heavy stuff, because I’m betting there are few of us who can say we haven’t been guilty every day in one way or another, especially in our thoughts. The priest – a man from Africa who likely has witnessed plenty of violence – put us all on notice during his homily when he said, “Evil is often difficult to see. You can’t see a picture of it in a book, but we can see the evil in our ideas.”
Ideas. Thoughts. That’s where evil begins. That’s where evil takes root and grows like weeds into words and actions as small as an unanswered “good morning” in the grocery line and as titanic as a shooting spree on a downtown street. It all begins with a small, ugly, evil thought.
The Gospel reading for the day was from the Book of Matthew and included these instructions from Jesus to the apostles on what they were to do when confronted: “When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
That scripture does not provide a perfect, tailor-made response to what happened in Dallas on Thursday night, but perhaps it suggests a starting point. We need to quit thinking and speaking from a place of evil – especially when provoked or feeling “handed over” – and instead we need to ask the Spirit to guide our thoughts and form our words.
If we need to pray for anything today, it is for our evil ideas to be replaced with God’s generous love. We need to ask God to cast out our evil thoughts and silence our evil tongues and let the Holy Spirit speak through us. The Spirit never divides; the Spirit always unites.
Sunday, July 10, 2016
Sunday night church
Five years ago this morning, I woke up and said to myself, “I’m not going to church. Not this morning. Don’t have time. Too much to do.” I hadn’t said that in years, and I haven’t said that since, but I did on that morning. I had to pack up my stuff and move out of the room where I was staying, and then I had some other errands to run. LeAnn did go to church. She was on Tasha Gibson’s lay advisory team and wanted to be there for her blessing service. LeAnn is good about that. In fact, she’s better than me in most ways – one of the reasons I love being around her.
I didn’t go to Sunday school, didn’t usher, didn’t do any of what I usually do. But I had a backup plan. Wilshire was having a rare Sunday night service and so I promised LeAnn I’d see her there. In fact, I told her I’d save her a place up front and I did.
It was a good service as one would expect at a church that knows how to do church well. We sang hymns, read scripture, prayed, heard a great message. There was even an ensemble that sang one of our favorite numbers.
Lots of people turned out too for a Sunday night service on one of the hottest July days on record. I wouldn’t have blamed them if they had chosen to go to the lake instead, but they didn’t. The pews were filled with lots of friendly faces – some we see every week and some we hadn’t seen in years.
LeAnn and I grew up in families that went to Sunday night church. We’d both been hundreds of times before, but for us this was the best Sunday night service ever, because in the big middle of it we said, “I do.”
Friday, July 8, 2016
Bachelor’s party
Five years ago tonight, I sat at a table at a restaurant with my best men, Ken Wilgus and R.W. Hampton, and raised a toast to the end of my time alone and the eve of my new life with LeAnn.
The truth is I was never really alone. Twenty-eight years earlier they sat with me at another table in another town on another eve and raised a glass with me to the future. (Both times they honored my wish for a party-less bachelor party.) They were with me as the future rolled out through the years and tomorrows became yesterdays.
They were with me in the valley and were there with the family and friends who encircled me. Not in an over-protective or suffocating way. Nobody tried to pull me back up on my feet or push me in a new direction. They just let me know they were there and let me be me. I know they prayed for me, and I suspect they might have shared winks and thumbs-ups behind our backs as LeAnn and I slowly pulled the ribbons on this gift we’d been given.
So, thank you Ken and R.W. for sitting with me that night. And thanks to everyone else they represent who walked with us toward the new day.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016 (WBC)
Independence daze
I have plenty of fun memories of July Fourth celebrations: swimming at the Thompson’s, hotdogs and burgers on the grill, sparklers and bottle rockets in the open fields near our house before Richardson got big and the police started watching. I also have memories that are less ideal and in fact puzzling.
Like the July Fourth when I was working in Waco and a few of us decided to go see the big fireworks show at Fort Hood. I don’t recall anything about the show, but I remember driving into the Army base and passing a windowless building with a yard that was fenced and topped with barbed wire. Behind the fence were a dozen or more men just standing around. It took me a moment to realize that this was the stockade, the jail for the base, and then the irony hit me: at one of the world’s largest military posts, where men and women train to preserve and protect freedom, there were men who were not free. They were imprisoned behind barbed wire for breaking laws and violating freedoms. I wondered later if they could see the fireworks, and what they thought as they saw or at least heard them? I also wondered if the graduate student from China who was with us and who grew up in the confines of communism had similar observations.
Some years later while living near Samuel Grand Park in East Dallas, we walked to the park to watch the fireworks from the Cotton Bowl stadium. We came upon a neighbor standing outside in the dark, and when we invited him to walk with us, he took the cigarette out of his mouth and said, “Seen one fireworks show, you’ve seen’em all.” I should explain that this man made his living traveling to state and county fairs with a mobile fried chicken stand, so no doubt he had seen plenty of fireworks shows. Still, I still marveled at his total lack of interest and emotion.
How is it that people become so estranged from the joy of independence, so indifferent to the gift of freedom? I admit that I am so free to do whatever I please that it is easy to take it for granted. I still enjoy the annual celebration, but it’s easy to forget that freedom is lacking in many corners of the globe and must be vigilantly protected and actively maintained here at home.
I’m not talking in a military sense but more in a community sense, where freedom only happens when it is given as much as it is received. The giving of freedom to each other is difficult because it requires courtesy, respect, patience and healthy amounts of give and take. That type of freedom sharing comes from a different place than the courthouse. It comes from a spark within each of us that is planted by something greater than us.
Much of our national friction comes from our attempts to strike a balance between allowing those freedoms that come as naturally as the air we breathe while not ignoring the freedoms of others. Often the result is a narrow gauntlet of laws that has to be navigated – like the laws that say I can’t celebrate my freedom with firecrackers in my own front yard because I might accidentally burn down the home of my neighbor. It’s a small price to pay for public safety, and it helps set the stage for community celebrations.
Monday night we rode DART from the Garland station to Rowlett to see their fireworks show. It was a good one and it debunked the notion that if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Every celebration is unique, especially when you factor in who you are with and where you are. Community is always part of the show.
And then walking home from the Garland station, we were reminded again of the true source of that spark of freedom we all have. As firecrackers popped and flared from backyards and alleys, the sky above us rumbled and flashed with thunder and lightning. The manmade explosions were no match for the pyrotechnics of the Creator.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Moving on
Five years ago this morning, I left the house on Galway near White Rock Lake for the last time and drove to Oasis Cafe on Greenville Ave. for my weekly breakfast with Steve, Pat and Allan. We are a remnant of a weekly men's prayer breakfast that started in the early 1990s and probably had 20 men at the peak. Over the years the numbers have shrunk as people got busy or moved away and as venues closed and even burned to the ground (remember Vickery Feed Store?). We met at Legal Grounds in Lakewood until 2007 when dear old Willard Bishop died and then we moved north up Greenville to Oasis.
We've all experienced a lot of change over the years, and in my case five years ago this morning I rolled up to Oasis jobless and homeless. I say that with tongue in cheek because I was jobless and homeless by choice. I walked away from a perfectly good job at DART in 2010 in answer to a spiritual nudge I felt to freelance for a living and write stuff like this for whatever value it might have. And I sold my house in 2011 because LeAnn and I were going to merge our lives on July 10 and we didn't need two houses. In fact, we were going to build a new house together, so we put both our houses on the market and trusted God and a good realtor.
My house sold first, a month before the wedding. We got the news while walking into a party thrown for us. I had to be out by June 30. LeAnn and I are old-fashioned and there was no way I was going to move in with her before the wedding. I was prepared to move into an extended stay hotel or some such arrangement, but before that even became a serious consideration God intervened with a gracious invitation from Steve and Gail Brookshire to stay with them. That invitation came during a shower at their house. It seems God likes to hang out at parties and showers.
So after the breakfast at the Oasis five years ago this morning, I drove to the Brookshire's, took a shower, napped a few hours, and then took the next steps in this new life I had been given. As it worked out, the stay with the Brookshires was almost comical because that next Sunday at church Gail asked, "Are you really staying with us?" She asked that because we never saw each other. They would get up and go to work before I got up, and then I would spend the day and evening working at LeAnn's house and return to the Brookshire's after they were in bed. That's the way it went for those 11 days. I lived in their house like a 52-year-old teenager: home but never around.
There's no way to adequately repay the blessing of having a wonderful place to stay during those days of transition, where I could be myself, even if that meant being absent most of the time. Or the blessing of having a few good men walking with me through the peaks and valleys of life. The best I can do is float a few words out into the wind every so often, starting with just two: thank you.
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Saying goodbye
Five years ago tonight, I spent the last night in the house that had been my home for 18 years. It had been a place of joy, sorrow and renewal, and now it was time to turn the keys over to someone else. So my last night was not just a time of reflection and remembrance; it was a time of cleaning and scrubbing and sweeping and seeing the corners of rooms that I hadn't seen since 1993.
Earlier during the day, movers had taken everything I owned to storage, and I was left with my clothing and a few items that I would need over the next two weeks. With a boom box playing music to keep me company, I worked all night to leave the great old house better than I found it. If I sat down to rest I don't recall it because there was no place to sit. There was so much to do, and I had an early morning appointment to keep.
And then when the work was done – and as the sun started to rise and the morning birds began their songs – I made one last tour, standing in every corner of every room to soak up as many memories as I could. And then I turned off the lights and locked the doors and backed down the driveway with an SUV full of stuff and a heart full of memories of what had been and anticipation for what was to come.
To be continued . . .
Tuesday, June 28, 2016 (WBC)
What happens next?
We’ve had doves nesting in our front porch hanging baskets again this year, and the newest batch of chicks found their way from the nest a few feet to the blades of a ceiling fan where they sat and watched the world. I couldn’t help but muse about what was happening in their tiny brains. Were they wondering what type of world they’d been born into? Was their soft cooing their way of asking their attentive parents, “What happens next?”
I sort of envied them because their lives seem fairly simple, fairly peaceful. They are, after all, one of the best-known symbols of peace. Just eat, fly, eat, sleep, and do whatever else doves do – including make a mess of our porch. Meanwhile, just inside our house, we’ve been riding on a carousel of sadness.
During one recent week we attended memorial services for two people who died suddenly, and we missed the service of a third. All three were between 50 and 60 years old. Parents are not supposed to bury their children, or so we think, and it’s hard to see our contemporaries leave us so abruptly. It’s just so very sad.
We feel gut-punched over what’s happened at Baylor. We’re shocked by the reports of physical abuse, we’re saddened by the aftermath, and we’re wearied by the on-going chatter from those who wag a judgmental finger. LeAnn and I both graduated from Baylor and I lived and worked in Waco two years, and we know the university and city are not the center of evil that has been portrayed.
Nationally, our political process has turned into something that few of us recognize and none of us want. The debate has become so toxic, and the lines between fact and fiction have become so blurred that I almost don’t care anymore. I just want it all to go away.
The national debate over gender and sexuality has been ugly and even more so with the horror of Orlando. Experts on all sides profess to know the way and the will of God, yet like Job in the Old Testament, none of them were present at the day of creation so their expertise may be thin. Meanwhile, the suffering of the hungry, poor, homeless and jobless grows greater every day.
All of this welled up in LeAnn and me on a recent morning and we found ourselves standing in the kitchen, facing each other, tears filling our eyes. It was spontaneous and honest, and it was cathartic, but just for a moment because the question lingers, “What happens next?”
Outside, the doves cooed and floated on the blades of a fan that wasn’t turning. But even though we never touched the switch, the wind eventually blew and the fan blades turned and the doves had to leave that temporary perch to go find out what happens next.
Tuesday, June 21, 2016 (WBC)
The enemy I know
I recently was presented the opportunity to submit something I’ve written on the topic of “enemy,” and I’ve been stumped because I’m not sure I’ve ever written about that. Not in a pointed, direct way, because I’ve never had a real enemy.
Certainly I’ve had collective, communal enemies. I’ve lived during the eras of the old Soviet Union, the Viet Cong, North Korea and ISIS. They’ve been real threats to the world – and in fact in grade school we had bomb drills along with tornado and fire drills – but the threats have never shown up on my doorstep.
I have pretend enemies during football games on Saturday afternoons in the fall, but those are really just opponents and I get to watch instead of play so win or lose there’s no harm done to me. During political campaigns and entire political administrations there have been those who have not shared my perspective, but I’ve never felt they wanted to do me harm, nor me harm them. I’ve had disagreements at work and in family and at church, but nobody has ever risen to the level of enemy.
So, no, I can’t write on the topic of “enemy.”
Unless, well, wait a minute . . . yes, there is that one person who has been as big an enemy to me as there can be. He’s been clever and covert in his attempts to attack and harm, and often he’s gotten away with it through disguise and deception. He’s been living right under my nose for 50-plus years. In fact, he’s the first person I see every morning and the last person I see just before I turn off the lights. He’s the one I’ve cussed at and hammered with my harshest epithets: moron, idiot, loser, and to quote Anne Lamott, “asshat.”
He’s full of contempt, bias, prejudice, impatience and envy, and he’s used his charm and powers of persuasion to lead me to do things I shouldn’t do, say things I shouldn’t say, think things I shouldn’t think. He’s whispered in my ear: “Come’on, go ahead, do that,” and “You have a right to be heard,” and “Don’t let them get away with that” and “You deserve this.”
And then I’ve done or said those things and have looked the fool for it, or if not, I’ve felt the fool and that’s even worse. Because when you feel the fool, you want to build a wall around yourself with bricks of mud and straw and other bits of filler such as self-contempt, shame, regret, inferiority and guilt. And that’s my enemy’s slickest trick: He’ll stand beside me like he’s helping out and hand me the bricks.
It may be true that I have not written about enemies. But I’ve written plenty about myself, and that’s where most of our real enemies live: inside our own skin, and especially inside our own minds and memories. So maybe I know something about this subject of “enemy” after all.
Thankfully, I also have the Holy Spirit living inside my skin in that thin space between the me that God created and the me that I sometimes think I am. The Spirit pushes away the bricks and breaks down the walls I build around myself. The Spirit tells me to “chill” if I’m worried about something stupid I’ve done and prompts me with a loud “now” if I’m holding back from what I am meant to do. But mostly the Holy Spirit keeps reminding me I was created by a loving God, and as long as I keep that in focus, the enemy inside me doesn’t stand a chance.
Tuesday, June 14, 2016 (WBC)
Love on a stick
“Who wants a Fudgsicle?” That’s what Dad asked enthusiastically from the kitchen on a recent visit with my parents. It was a familiar question and I readily responded as I always have: “I do.”
When I was a kid it wasn’t unusual for Dad to stop at the neighborhood 7-Eleven to cash a check and pick up whatever else was needed. And more often than not, and especially on Sunday nights after church, he’d come out of the store with all of that and a handful of Fudgsicles. In case you aren’t familiar, they are fudge ice cream bars on a stick and once were sold loosely in big floor freezers at convenience stores. Maybe they still are.
When we got home we’d sit around the table and Dad would hand them out and we’d unwrap and eat them. It became one of those unremarkable family traditions that you don’t really notice until you’ve not done it for years and your father suddenly invites you to indulge. But back then it was such a regular thing that on one occasion after my sister died, we gasped a little when we got home, Dad passed them out, and he realized he had bought five when only four were needed.
That was on my mind on this recent night as I ate the Fudgsicle in the same way I did as a kid. I nibbled down one side and then down the other until I had a slim chocolate ice cream bar that was easier to handle. It was cuisinery memory and muscle memory all at once. It also was a sweet memory of the small, simple, subtle ways my dad has always taken care of his family.
My dad has never been one of those over-zealous dads who jumps in the middle of everything. He was never a booster club member, but he was always there for the band concerts and the halftime shows. He was not a scoutmaster, but he didn’t miss the courts of honor. What’s more, he’d volunteer to pick up a load of us from summer camp and drive us home – with the windows down, enduring our reek from a week’s worth of sweat and smoke.
Dad was the go-to guy when I procrastinated on a school project. I remember a Sunday afternoon when he typed out a research paper I had handwritten. He never edited or questioned my words; he just punched out what I had on his manual typewriter. He was a great typist, but he was a better writer. He composed a monthly letter and essay to his father and uncles and later to my brother and me. I learned from his words, and I didn’t realize until later that I was also learning the discipline of writing – of doing it regularly. He also taught me the power of writing. His only published book, “Once There Were Three,” is still healing lives today.
Dad taught in unconventional ways. When we were kids he’d spread a blanket on the ground at night and point out the constellations he learned as an Air Force navigator. Later when I wanted to explore the cosmos myself, he let me spend my life savings of $20 on model rockets.
A friend recently saw Dad at the car wash, cleaning up not his but my mother’s car. He’s always been good about that. He’s a beast with a vacuum cleaner too, and for better or worse, so am I.
Dad taught me the importance of dignity and privacy. In the sixth grade when it was time to see the infamous films about reproduction, I was so embarrassed that I put the permission slip on Dad’s dresser without saying a word. He signed it and put it back on my dresser without saying a word.
When my sister died and Dad’s world fell apart, he kept his faith and kept the family going. When my world fell apart, his faith fed mine. He didn’t try to make things better because he knew better than anyone that he couldn’t do that. He knew the weight of loss, and his silent presence helped me carry my load.
When I moved to Dallas in 1983, Dad went with me to look for apartments and didn’t raise any alarms when I chose one on the third floor. In fact, he helped me move my furniture. He was 50 at the time, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have done that for anyone when I was 50.
When I was eager to get engaged the first time around, Dad quietly loaned me the cash to pay off the ring and acted like he’d forgotten about it when I repaid him months later. And even though I wandered off the Baptist farm and married a Catholic, he never said don’t do it. He found plenty of common ground and stood firmly on it with me.
When I found love again, Dad cheered me on and welcomed LeAnn with open arms. And now he buys Fudgsicles by the box so there are plenty for everyone.
Tuesday, June 7, 2016 (WBC)
Jump-start
Last week on Facebook, former Wilshire member Katie Gilbert asked a crowd-sourcing question: “What is the best visitor gift you’ve received when visiting a new church?” Katie is director of College and Young Adult Ministries at First United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Ala., and her question drew a variety of answers from her far-flung friends across the country:
• “Jar of homemade jam.”
• “Homemade ramen from a church in Japan. Oh, and Japanese candy.”
• “Coffee mug hand delivered to my house the next day, by a member who gave me her phone number. So awesome!”
A couple of people answered by telling what their church does or what they have done personally: “We give out homemade bread at our church. It’s great.” And, “I remember noticing how well a visitor sang and told them about the choir and Sunday School and UMW. They became members for years. I think feeling truly welcomed is the best.”
My own answer came instantly and it was surprising because it came from a memory I hadn’t recalled in decades: “A jump-start for my car.”
It was Waco, circa 1983, and I pulled into a church parking lot for a Sunday evening service but forgot to turn off my car lights. This was back when car lights didn’t turn off automatically, and it wasn’t unusual at events and even at church for someone to step up to the microphone and announce, “If you drive a brown Chevy Malibu, license number TYY-999, you’ve left your lights on.” And the crowd would hush for a moment as everyone thought, “Is that mine?” and then relieved, they’d look around with pity to see who had been so absent minded.
But on this night, there was no announcement and the service went on as planned without interruption. When I got out to the parking lot afterward, I was met at the side of my brown Chevy Malibu by a man with his own hood up and jumper cables in hand. He explained that’s the way they do it: they don’t interrupt the service; they meet people at their car and jump-start them if needed, and indeed it was needed. He hooked me up and got me started. As I thanked him, he said, “You might want to let it run awhile to make sure you’re fully charged. And do come back to see us.”
Looking back at all the answers to Katie’s question, it seems like they all fall under the heading of “jump-start.” Isn’t a friendly gesture from a stranger – a loaf of bread, a jar of a jam, a compliment, an invitation – a jump-start to our spirit? Don’t those offerings of hospitality make us feel like we matter, that we’re appreciated, and that we belong? Don’t we all long for community, even if we still want to choose how much and when?
Isn’t a jump-start generally what churches should be about? Providing the tools for a closer walk with Christ, a place of fellowship and sharing with others, a safe place to pop up the hood on our weak, beaten spirits and get a recharge through the love of each other and the love of Christ?
And how about routine maintenance? A jump-start is only, well, a start. There’s so much more on the service menu:
• A time of quiet in a noisy world.
• A place of safety in a dangerous age.
• A ray of hope when all seems hopeless.
• An embrace of unconditional love when we feel unlovable.
• A forum for discernment when searching for answers to hard questions.
• An outlet for sharing the love of Christ in the community.
I did take the advice of the kind man in the parking lot of the Waco church. I drove around awhile until I was certain my battery was recharged, and I did visit again. I didn’t join that church because I was moving to Dallas in a few months, but I found a church here that not only jump-starts me when needed but keeps me fueled and going.
Tuesday, May 31, 2016 (WBC)
Grumbling Samaritan
I missed a weekly meeting in order to take a friend home from the hospital. He was released a couple of days ahead of schedule and didn’t have a ride and I was his only option. When I emailed the others in the meeting that I would be absent and told them why, one emailed back, “Using the old Good Samaritan excuse, huh?”
I replied, “I’m grumbling as I go, and there’s no Good Samaritan in that.” I was grumbling because it’s a meeting I enjoy – a group of writers who share their words and prod each other to keep working at it – and after the pickup and drop-off from the hospital, I would have to hustle to make another appointment that I wasn’t going to enjoy so much.
But the writer responded again, “Hey, just showing up counts. You don’t know how the Good Samaritan was feeling about rescuing that pesky guy on the side of the road.”
I read the parable of the Good Samaritan again, and it’s true: It says nothing about the Samaritan’s attitude or demeanor in helping the man. It says the Samaritan bandaged his wounds, took him to an inn where he could rest and heal, left some money for ongoing care, and said he would be back to pay for anything else that was needed.
We assume he did all of that with a glad heart, but he might have hurried away in a huff because he was late to his next meeting. I’m programmed to think he was happy to help because of one of the first Bible verses I learned as a child, 2 Corinthians 9:7: “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
Actually it was those last five words – “God loves a cheerful giver” – that were memorized and mostly in the context of giving an offering to the church. But I know now that the verse is about more than just money, because helping people is a gift that usually is more valuable than money. And a gift given cheerfully? That’s priceless.
If being a cheerful giver is what God loves, then I’m not so loveable. I grumble and mumble, moan and groan. I see someone coming with a hand out and my shoulders slump under the weight of what I feel is an imposition. I’m quick to give but slow to smile and that taints the gift.
My friend hasn’t said anything but I’m sure the tone of my voice and my body language spoke loud and clear when I met him at the hospital. He was irritated about his hospital stay and I was irritated by his irritation, and I’m sure I barked at a time when he needed some calming, soothing words. After all, he’d been in the hospital. It’s not like he’d just come home from a cruise.
The parable of the Good Samaritan ends without us knowing if the Samaritan actually came back to check on the man. That’s not the point of the story, but I’d like to think that he did as he promised and came back and provided help if it was needed. And I’d like to think that he was happy to help again.
My friend is going back to the hospital next week. I’ll take him again because I said I would. And this time I’m going to do more than just show up.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016 (WBC)
Daily exercises
Wilshire organist and music associate Jeff Brummel played piano for the deacons at the start of their monthly meeting on Monday night, but not for background music as we ate or entertainment after the meal. Jeff was asked to play at the beginning of the meeting where there is usually a brief devotional message and a prayer. Jeff did exactly that, but with music instead of words.
Jeff played two pieces. The first was “Prestissimo from Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor” by Beethoven, which is as energetic and challenging to listen to as the title implies. Jeff filled the room with tremendously intricate and beautiful sounds that grabbed and focused our attention. And it set the stage for the second piece, which was an arrangement of “This Is My Father’s World” by contemporary Christian musician Chris Rice. In contrast to the Beethoven piece, it was peaceful and calming and got us settled and still. It called us to contemplation and prayer.
Jeff’s playing was outstanding as you’d expect, but I had the privilege of hearing him rehearse in the Community Hall as I got the tables ready for the meeting and I saw a different side of his artistry. He played both pieces through at least twice, and on the Beethoven piece he even did what some musicians call “woodshedding” – repeating complex passages to work through the difficulties and “get the notes under his fingers” as some like to say.
And then, Jeff spent perhaps 20 minutes on scales and other movements up and down the keyboard in different ways that I’m guessing keep his fingers nimble, his mind sharp and his ears tuned. I joked that he might save that for his encore – because some of it was every bit as vigorous as the Beethoven piece – and he said, “These are my daily exercises.”
I asked him about that later and he said, “I have a 20-30 minute daily piano regimen that accomplishes two major things. First, it keeps my technique strong. Second, I end up playing in all major and minor keys, which helps me to play music in any key without fretting about oodles of flats or sharps. This greatly helps when I work on improvisation—I feel comfortable improvising in any key.”
It’s easy to assume that a musician of Jeff’s talent can just sit down and play anything that’s on the sheet in front of him or that pops into his mind, but he practices and practices to make sure that he’s making music and not just playing notes. What’s more, he spends time with daily exercises that sound tedious and unnecessary to someone like me but that provide the foundation of dexterity, muscle memory and improvisational creativity that makes music possible.
We can all learn from this concept of daily exercises. We can apply it to anything we do and that we want to do better and not just in an average way. I think deep inside most of us there is something we want to do and must do that makes us feel vital and alive – it can be a part of what makes our living, or something we love to do on the side – but either way it feeds our soul and may be our true calling. And but for that extra practice and exercise, we’re not quite there.
For me it is sitting at the computer keyboard every day, especially on Tuesdays, and working at writing something that may or may not be meaningful or start a conversation but that stretches my mind. That is my “daily exercise,” and it helped on Monday afternoon to see Jeff Brummel doing his. It not only gave me a topic for today, but it launched a thousand thoughts and ideas to pursue on future such days.
I’ll let Jeff Brummel have the last word: “If I miss a few days or a week, I begin to feel as if life has stopped and I am an unable musician. Even if I don’t get to play or work on pieces, I always find time for the routine.”
Tuesday, May 17, 2016 (WBC)
Reality check
There is a church near us, in a storefront, that has an interesting window display. A tall wooden box directly inside the doors has two signs: “Prayers” and “Donations.” And off to the side in the corner is a small but realistic model of a water well with a rope and a bucket.
I’ve never attended this church so I know nothing of how these elements come into play in their worship and theology. But as I walked by, I began thinking about the different ways we look at church and in a broader sense our faith.
We learn to pray in church, but having a box to receive prayers might lead one to believe that prayers placed in the box get special attention from someone. I’m amazed and touched by the number of people at Wilshire who fill out prayer cards each Sunday. As an usher captain, I sometimes read some of them as I walk them to the prayer room and I can confirm that our needs are very real and sometimes serious and dire. I’ve learned that it is a good thing that these needs or desires are written down and shared with someone. What God does through that sharing is a mystery, but I hope we all understand that those praying over the cards are just flesh and blood, bruised and battered pilgrims like the rest of us.
Having “Donations” on the same box as “Prayers” seems a little awkward to me, because it may put into mind the idea that money given relates to prayers heard and answered. There’s a certain slick Robert Tilton feel to that, but then I recall that at Wilshire and many churches we collect offerings and prayer cards in the same receptacles, and we don’t consider it anything more than a convenient way to collect those items. They are separated out in the narthex, and perhaps that should be remembered by all of us: Prayers and gifts go in separate directions and are in no way connected. Prayers are our relationship with God, and offerings are our unabashed gifts to God’s work on earth.
As for the water well, it might relate to the living water that Christ represents – that nourishes and cleanses us both inside and out – and I’m all for that. We see that at Wilshire when we look up at the baptistery. But my questioning eyes see a wishing well, and that makes me uneasy.
Like I said, I’ve never visited this church and I’m not passing judgment. At different times I’ve been guilty of misreading and misusing all of these tools of our faith. I’ve wished for deliverance, I’ve tried to pay for forgiveness, I’ve used prayer to barter and beg for mercy. Walking by gave opportunity for a reality check, and that’s good for the soul.
Tuesday, May 10, 2016 (WBC)
One of those houses
Sunday night as I was going to bed I looked out the front windows and was provoked by what I saw: It was raining and our sprinklers were on. “We’re not one of those houses,” I grumbled as I rushed out to the garage to turn the system off.
We’ve all seen those houses and I’ve been the first one to shake my head and wag a finger and even mutter “wasteful idiot” under my breath. But I am not a wasteful idiot because I know why the sprinklers came on.
The night before I had stopped the sprinklers from coming on at their usual time in deference to our neighbors, who had a crowd of people at their house with cars parked all along our curb. I sighed under the feeling of invasion, but I knew that we had been one of those houses often enough. We’ve had church groups, family reunions and office friends over who have parked up and down the street. And I thought about how messy it would be for these people to come out to their cars and have to jump through the sprinklers, so I reset the system for midnight but I botched the programming in the process.
Sunday we had our parents over for Mother’s Day lunch and the neighbors were at it again, with a dozen cars parked around. We figured it must be an extended Mother’s Day gathering, but after we walked LeAnn’s parents out to their car and watched them drive away, we learned the truth. A man about our age walked toward us, apologized for all the cars, and said, “My mother-in-law passed yesterday.”
We were shocked to learn that Julie had been ill with pancreatic cancer for five years – the entire time we had lived next door. We had introduced ourselves when we moved in and waved whenever we saw her, which was often. We told the son-in-law how Carl, Julie’s husband, leaves every morning at 8:30 to work on remodeling projects, and Julie usually left a little bit later. He said, yes, she kept living a full life despite a poor prognosis. He told us that we might have seen them all outside with balloons some months earlier and we did. He explained that was the fourth anniversary since Julie’s diagnosis; it was a celebration of life. But then he told us that she had taken a turn for the worse, and we realized we hadn’t seen her in weeks. It’s amazing what you can see and yet not see or not understand, especially with people who live quietly and privately.
I was one of those houses once upon a time. If the neighbors had been watching, they’d have seen people coming with food after a surgery, slow walks around the block during recovery, our coming and going as usual as if we had the disease under control, and then parents’ cars parked out front for days when things got bad. They might have noticed a quieting of movement, and then at sunrise on a July morning they’d have seen the van from the funeral home and then a fresh wave of cars parked along the curb.
The cars were lined up again yesterday and LeAnn baked some beans and ham and we took them over just as some of the group was mingling outside. They received our offerings with hugs and handshakes and apologized again for all the cars. “Anytime,” we said.
Because we’ve all been or will be one of those houses at one time or another – the one that hosts the parties and reunions, the recovering and surviving, the mourning and grieving. And sometimes the sprinklers will come on while it’s raining.
Tuesday, May 3, 2016 (WBC)
Big love
Imagine the scene: A herd of adult female mammoths and their young wander down into a ravine, perhaps seeking protection from a coming storm. The mothers stand tall – up to 14 feet, in fact – and the young ones huddle in the shelter of their massive bodies. But it’s all for naught. Water rises in the ravine, the mammoths become mired in the gooey mud, and they all drown.
That is a probable storyline at the Waco Mammoth National Monument, a new unit of the National Park Service just outside of Waco near the Bosque River. The monument has been in the works since the late 1970s when two teenagers went looking for arrowheads and discovered an unusual bone protruding from a ravine wall. They reported their find and scientists from Baylor began carefully brushing away the layers of sediment to reveal the remains of the only nursery herd of Columbian mammoths found anywhere in the world.
It’s called a nursery herd because mammoths moved in groups of adult females and juveniles while adult males were solitary. So far, the skeletons of at least six adult females and 10 juveniles have been found at the site, and paleontologists have determined that the Waco nursery herd died together somewhere between 61,000 and 71,000 years ago.
I’ve learned about this while writing an article for a university magazine, and the thing I find most remarkable is the story told by the position of the mammoth skeletons. The juveniles were found at the center of a protective circle of adult females. And in two cases, the bones of a juvenile were resting across the tusks of an adult. Some scientists suggest the mothers might have been trying to lift their young above the rising water.
Remarkable too is the fact that elephants – the modern descendants of the mammoths – travel and live the same way as nursery herds and lone males. The babies are raised by a group of females known as “allomothers” that includes not only mothers but young females who learn how to take care of the babies. Together they help ensure the survival of the newborns by giving the new mothers time to rejuvenate and eat so they can provide milk for their babies. And in a crisis, they will fiercely protect and defend the young ones.
As Mothers Day approaches I’m aware that I’ve been blessed to have been surrounded by a loving group of allomothers, not just during my childhood but throughout my life and even today. From babysitters like Dianne and Kathy, to “second moms” like Sandra and Peggy, to wonderful mothers-in-law like Thelma and Terri. They've protected, taught, supported, disciplined, loved and often tolerated me. They’ve circled me in times of trouble and lifted me high above the floods of life. They’ve been a blessing to my own mother as they’ve given her time and space to rejuvenate so she can face the trials of parenting and be the best mother ever. In the same way, I’ve watched in wonder as my mother has been an allomother for many mothers and their children over the years.
It’s a big love – mammoth, really – placed in the hearts of women by a generous and infinitely creative God.
Tuesday, April 26, 2016 (WBC)
Safe crossings
You know the saying: The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Still, while the straight path may be the short path, there may be challenges and even dangers. That’s when it’s good to have a good guide leading the way.
Hiking up the Paria River in Utah, we stayed down on the canyon floor, which was a broad expanse through which snaked the narrow river. We could have chosen to cling to one side of the dry riverbank or the other, but we would have encountered cliffs, brush and cactus, narrow passages and deep sand. We also would have added miles to our trip because the river zigzagged wildly across the canyon floor.
So, our leader chose a straight path that had us crossing the stream dozens of times. Sometimes the water was shallow and slow and we took big splashing steps. Other times it was knee deep and fast and we kept our steps low and slow to keep from being swept off our feet. Sometimes the water was crystal clear, sometimes murky brown. Sometimes the bottom was slick with mud, sometimes firm and crunchy with fragmented rocks, sometimes scattered with large round stones that tumbled underfoot and threatened to topple us on our backs.
While the way was straight, there were many obstacles, many dangers. There was potential for bruised feet and calves, sprained or broken ankles, falling and soaking everything in our backpacks, and even being swept into the current and who knows what after that. And yet we faithfully followed our leader through one crossing after the next because we trusted him to choose the best route based on his knowledge and experience of how rivers run.
There’s a misconception promoted by some in the Christian world that the Christian way is the easy way, but that’s never been true. Following a loving, all-knowing God doesn’t protect us from the dangers of life. There still is hurt, stumbles, heartache, cuts and bruises, disappointments. You can count on that.
The Christian way is not about the ease or difficulty of the journey. It’s about faithfully following one who has endured the hardship ahead of us and knows the best way through it – even when that means crossing the turbulent stream over and over again.
As long as I’m wading through metaphors, I’ll add another: the Christian way has much refreshment and adventure. Every time we crossed the river, the cold water rushing through boots and socks was a welcome relief for tired feet. And every time we stopped beside the river to rest, there were high ledges to climb, side canyons and caves to explore, and rest to be found on sunny rock or sandy bank.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016 (WBC)
Standing down, standing by
“I want them gone.” With those four words, the battle ended before it started and the warriors stood down.
I’m talking about what happened in our neighborhood last week when someone sounded the alarm that the city was going to cut down two mature trees – a beautiful cedar and an oak – to make way for a sidewalk where there isn’t one. Our neighborhood association is not an HOA so we don’t have and don’t want any legal jurisdiction, but we certainly are ready to rise to the occasion when a property owner is threatened. So as president of the association, I jumped on our web site and announced we were ready to do whatever we could to protect the trees and work with the city on an alternative plan for the sidewalk. I even suggested that we would rally around the trees if the chain saws came before we worked something out.
And then LeAnn and I drove down the street and around the corner to survey the battleground, and when we saw the homeowner sitting outside, we lowered the car window and I said, “We’re going to work with you to save those trees.” And that’s when he walked up to the car window and said, “I don’t want the trees. I want them gone.”
Wow, did not see that coming. We sat in silence a moment and then listened as he explained. His reasoning was straightforward and sensible. The trees were on the city easement and yet he was responsible for their upkeep as well as any damage they might do if they fell. He preferred the city pave the easement with a sidewalk. In fact, he said he’d been working with the city on that for several months. “I want them gone.”
There was nothing else to say but, “Oh . . . OK. It’s your property and if that’s what you want, then we’ll not do anything else.”
Personally, I still hate to see the trees go. If it was my property, I’d welcome the beauty and the shade that the tall trees provide. I’d protect them with occasional trimming, and I’d make sure my homeowners insurance covered damage should they fall. But it’s not my property and I can’t tell someone else what to do with their property. If they’d rather have the trees gone, then that’s their right and I respect that.
Sometimes the people we want so badly to help don’t need or want our help and there’s nothing we can do. We can only stand by, let them make their decision, and respect their right to own their decision. But we also might stay close because we might see a chance to help in a different way.
If we hadn’t driven by and checked on things, we would have missed hearing the truth about what is actually going on. And who knows, perhaps if we drive by more often we might see an opportunity to be a good neighbor.
The homeowner says he will replace the cedar and oak with trees of his own choosing and will plant them away from the street and up on his lawn where he really wants them. That’s great, and if he needs a hand digging the holes, we’d be happy to help because we still like trees, and apparently he does too.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016 (WBC)
Finishing in stride
A few weeks ago in this space I told how I was getting in shape for a backpack trip with my brother and three of his sons. I didn’t want to fall behind the younger guys; I didn’t want to be a burden and become a bad memory. Well, I’m pleased to report that we had a wonderful trip and I came home invigorated and alive. However, I must confess that I did fall behind – not embarrassingly so, but behind just the same.
During four days covering about 10 miles each day with backpacks of 50-plus pounds, the five of us would start out together and over the next few hours the distance between us would grow. First in line was always the 29-year-old (a U.S. Marine) then alternately the 15- and 24-year-old, and then my brother and me, 58 and 57, respectively.
It would be easy to assume that my brother and I were always at the end of the line because we are some 30 years older and less agile, but while the hike was demanding the pace was not difficult. Every time we stopped for a break my brother and I didn’t come up huffing and puffing behind the others. We were not any more tired than the younger men.
What we discovered was that at 5’10” and 5’8”, my brother and I were no match for his sons who are each 6’2” tall. With longer legs, they easily covered more ground with each step. They weren’t better hikers and they weren’t in better shape. They simply had longer strides. The only advantage for them was they arrived a minute or so before us.
In camp, length of stride didn’t matter. There, it was all about everyone contributing according to their ability and our common need. Each evening after we picked a campsite, everyone got busy: one went to get water, another dug a fire pit, others gathered wood and started the fire, and everyone pitched in to pitch tents. At mealtime we swapped and traded favorite foods, and on the trail we shared snacks and water. When the sole of my hiking boot began to fall apart, the Marine pulled out a roll of duct tape and patched me up. Later when he needed a dab of sunscreen, I dug into my pack and made sure he was covered. Every night the younger guys stayed up a little later and put the last logs on the fire, and every morning the two of us older men were up first to build a warming fire against the early chill.
In an age of “winner take all” on the one hand and “nobody should win” on the other, it’s refreshing to walk on a middle ground where everyone works together so that all succeed at their own pace. It’s done with patience, respect, fellowship and love. It’s not about being first or best. It’s about being present for each other.
Tuesday, April 5, 2016 (WBC)
Love in the age of affluenza
Waiting at baggage claim at the Albuquerque airport to be picked up by my brother and nephew, I caught up with LeAnn and things at home by text. After all, I'd been off the grid a full two hours - a lifetime in today's hyper-connected world.
I found a quiet corner to sit and text and looked up to see a relic from the past: a pay phone. It had a slot for nickels, dimes and quarters, a decal that promised "4 minutes for $1," and instructions for how to make collect calls, and how to use a credit card. It was housed in the usual stainless steel wall enclosure perforated with holes to absorb noise. Anyone else miss the days when phone calls were private? I think that's why I prefer text or email.
So much has changed so fast and there's no going back. I'm not saying we should, because it was great to be able to tell LeAnn I had landed safely and to get a text from my brother saying he was running late and I shouldn't stand out in the cold.
But I think we've become spoiled and in fact have some symptoms of affluenza. Not the entitlement and outlaw mentality of Ethan Couch, the "affluenza kid," and his mother, but baseline symptoms such as a desire for instant gratification. So much information and product is available at our fingertips. And much more is available that we can't afford and probably don't need but we can have it today with the swipe of a credit card.
The connectivity we have today is a powerful tool, but too often we use it on trivial or unnecessary things, such as the pre-conversations we have on the way to seeing someone in person.
I miss the days when a phone call was the big event of the day. When we sat and stared at the phone, building up the nerve to call the girl and ask for a date. Or the time I called my parents from a pay phone at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to let them know I was safe. Or the Sunday nights I called my grandparents from the dorm room to thank them for sending cookies and to hear the twinkle in their eyes. We'd say goodnight and bridge the gap to the next week's call with warm thoughts and prayers.
By the time this is posted I will be off the grid for four days, camping with my brother and his sons in Utah. This will be the longest time that LeAnn and I have been disconnected in our brief five years of marriage, but I'll make the most of it. I'll shake off the symptoms of affluenza and communicate old-style - by warm thoughts and prayers. I'll take a moment each night to stand quietly and gaze at the moon. I might even hum a few lines from the old nursery rhyme, as sung by Chris Rice:
I see the moon, the moon sees me,
The moon sees the one that I want to see.
God bless the moon, and God bless me,
And God bless the one I'm longing to see.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016 (WBC)
Breaking rules
I can’t imagine what it’s like inside Garrett Wingfield’s head – the way he sees the world. But I know something of how the world sounds to him because he turns what he experiences into amazing music. We got a good dose of this at his master’s jazz composition recital at the University of North Texas, where he conducted three original pieces that he composed, and three that he arranged. I won’t try to explain what we heard because music is meant to be experienced and not explained in words.
Something I can describe, however, that I got a real kick out of was the way Garrett broke the rules – doing things with the saxophone that I was taught not to do and I’m sure he was taught not to do. From the beginning of the recital with Garrett’s first solo and later with some of his other soloists, there were sounds made, I think, by biting the mouthpiece, squeezing the reed, overblowing the horn, and using finger combinations that are usually mistakes. The result was squeals, squawks and groans that junior high band directors and private lesson teachers work hard to make sure young instrumentalists never make; sounds that have no place in a Sousa march or a Holst suite. And yet when written into a jazz chart by Garrett they become cries for freedom and acceptance, moans of sorrow, shouts of anger, squeals of rapture. They become music.
I can play the sax a little but I’m no musician, so I turned to writing and there, too, I was given rules to follow. I was taught to build tidy little noun-verb-noun sentences, and then compound them and adorn them with prepositions and colorful adjectives. I followed the rules and made good grades on compositions and term papers. But then I started reading classic novels and new works and – wait a minute, these writers are not following the rules. This one is writing rambling, run-on sentences that go on and on and before long I’ve forgotten what the subject of the sentence is but my head is tingling with an understanding of what the writer is feeling and trying to make me feel. Or this writer? Fragments. Just small pieces. Incomplete thoughts . . . . Not the way I was taught, and yet it is literature.
I grew up in the church and was taught as a child in a very simple way about how Jesus loved everyone. But then I got older and started digging deeper and discovered that when our teachers said, “Jesus loved the people,” they meant he loved those other people too – the ones that we’ve grown up to distrust, disdain or disregard because they’re different. The ones who society and well meaning people tell us don’t live right; don’t believe what we believe; are dangerous to be around. They need our help to become good people just like us, and then they’ll be ready for our friendship and love.
Maybe I’ve grown tired or lazy, but I don’t want to play by those rules any longer. I’m tired of saying “yes” to this person and “no” to that one. I’m tired of trying to play God and separating the sheep from the goats. Jesus didn’t play God, not the way the Jews of his day expected. He broke the rules that they had known and observed for centuries because they distracted people from the two rules that mattered most: love God, and love each other the way you wish to be loved.
It’s very simple and straightforward, and yet it’s very hard. We like rules because they keep us safe and keep us safely in our comfort zone. Breaking the rules goes against our habits and even our human nature. It rubs us the wrong way – like discordant sounds from a saxophone or over-long sentences in a book. But if we listen and read with our hearts and not just our heads, we might just hear the music and read the poetry that is in the lives of those around us, the ones that Jesus told us to love.
I’m hoping Garrett Wingfield will post his recital somewhere, and if he does then be prepared to be challenged, moved, entertained, pushed to the ground and lifted to the heavens. Sort of like what happens when you live the Gospel.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016 (WBC)
Marked
“Hey, Donkey, you’re on in two hours.” That’s what I said through the car window on Sunday morning as we drove past the old Williams farm on our way to Wilshire. I was thinking about the annual Palm Sunday processional with the children and choirs waving palm fronds and singing “hosanna” and how all that was needed to make it complete was a donkey. And there at the corner of the Williams farm was the bedraggled little donkey we often see, munching on dry grass, and I thought he needed a prompt to get ready for his big entrance.
I was just having fun, of course, because the donkey knows nothing of his role in the Palm Sunday ride of Jesus into Jerusalem and all that followed: the meal in the upper room, the garden prayers, the betrayal, trial, crucifixion, resurrection. He also doesn’t know that he bears the mark of the cross on his back, which legend says was put on the backs of all donkeys after the animal that carried Jesus into Jerusalem stood beneath the cross at Calvary.
Which leads me to ask during this Holy Week: Do we, too, walk around with the shadow of the cross on our back and not acknowledge it? Do we forget it or neglect it? Do we know it’s there but we fail to share it with others, to say, “You've got the mark, too.”
On Palm Sunday we remembered how a donkey carried Jesus into Jerusalem, and during Holy Week we recall how Jesus carried our sins and brokenness to the cross. It is a grace we can never repay, but we’re not asked to. Instead, we are challenged to carry the grace of Christ into the world – to show the mark of the cross in our words and deeds and most especially in our love and caring for others.
It’s really not much to ask of us, and yet it is everything.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016 (WBC)
Training for the journey
I’m training for a backpack trip with my brother and three of his sons. It promises to be memorable in many ways, but I’m training because I don’t want it to be memorable in the wrong way. You might say I’ve given up fear, pride and laziness for Lent.
Fear: It’s been years since I’ve hiked over rugged terrain with weight on my back, and when the trip was first proposed I was intrigued and yet fearful. I’ve done adventurous things in my life, but I’m not adventurous by nature. What’s more, my three nephews are 15, 24 and 29. All are in top physical condition, especially the oldest who is a Marine and probably could carry me on his back. I don’t want him to have to do that – and I don’t want to miss the trip either – so I’ve set aside my fear and have begun training.
Pride: I’m haunted by the memory of a Scout trip in 1975 when one of the fathers was a little too proud of his training as an infantryman 20 years earlier. He talked big until we got out on the trail and he discovered that his weight and age were more of a burden than he realized. He fell way behind and when we stopped to rest and let him catch up, he huffed on past us only to be lapped by us later on the trail. Each time this happened, the man became more irritated, embarrassed and just plain exhausted. It was uncomfortable for everyone.
Today I am 10 years older than that man was at the time. I’m not carrying the physical weight that slowed him down, and I’ve remained physically active in many ways, but I’m probably in no better shape than he was for that type of trek. So, I’ve set aside my pride, I’m keeping my mouth shut about past successes, and I’m training.
Laziness: A year or two after that Scout trip, our leader took a small group of us on a three-day, rim-to-rim backpack hike at the Grand Canyon. He’d made the trip several times himself, and knowing the wear and tear on the toes during the descent and on the heels during the ascent, he took us on practice hikes up and down every hill, creek and ditch he could find. The work paid off: nobody got hurt, and nobody fell behind.
And so I’ve set aside my lazy nature and I’m training. I’ve had treadmill sessions at the gym and long, brisk walks to get my feet, ankles, legs, hips and lungs in shape. LeAnn and I have taken four- and five-mile hikes on the hilly east shore trail at White Rock Lake. The next phase for me will be to load up a backpack and log more miles – especially on upward and downward slopes.
My training is prompted by the lesson of one man’s failure to prepare, and the example of good planning modeled by another. Not just to prevent pain and embarrassment for myself, but to be a good companion on the trail. I don’t want to be the one the others have to wait for, and I don’t want my failure to prepare to be the memory they hold years from now.
I believe that in everything we do – whether climbing a mountain or traveling the road of life – we owe it to each other to be at least a little bit prepared for the journey.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016 (WBC)
Sacred ground
“You’re living on sacred ground.” That’s what I told our friend on Saturday who has learned her husband will not survive cancer. “It doesn’t feel like it,” she cried, and I cried with her, and LeAnn too. “But that’s what it is,” I said.
The sacred ground of living with someone who is dying is an idea first planted in my head by the hospice chaplain assigned to us when my first wife Debra was dying. He said, “Whenever we enter a home where a family is walking with a loved one to the next stage of their journey, we are entering sacred ground.”
I had never thought of it in that way, but it felt like it to me because it was a place where heaven and earth meet. We watch as the person who is leaving begins to think and live more spiritually than physically. We help as much as we can, in whatever way they request, but the transformation is not happening to us and so there is only so much we can do. We stand on the earthly edge of what we know and try to hold on while at the same time trusting and letting go.
Not long after Debra left, I was reflecting with her father on what we had been through and I told him, “This is the most important thing I have ever done, and may ever do.” I was talking about standing on that sacred ground with his daughter. It might have been hyperbole, but that’s what it felt like at the time.
But on Saturday as our friend drove away and LeAnn and I turned to go back up the sidewalk, flanked by a beautiful blanket of snapdragons and tulips, I realized that I am still living on sacred ground, and unexpectedly so.
You see, anytime we tie our lives to another and vow to go share our joys and sorrows and everything else that life brings, we’re living on sacred ground. How we treat that other person, whether in the worst of times or the best of times, is a direct reflection of how we believe God loves us – or doesn’t. And so while I stood on sacred ground with Debra through 25 years and those difficult last months, my relationship with God didn’t end on the morning she left. He let me go to my knees for a while and in fact knelt there with me, but then he stood me up again, dusted me off and pointed me in a new direction and toward a new piece of sacred ground.
It’s a quarter-acre lot in downtown Garland with LeAnn, but more than that it is the minutes and days and years we may have together. And we know that we are not the ones who make this ground sacred. That is the work of God.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016 (WBC)
Called to prayer
Sitting in the cool sunshine on the south lawn of the Texas Capitol last Wednesday afternoon, I closed my eyes for a moment and my ears were drawn to a “ting, ting, ting” sound. I opened my eyes and followed the sound across the park to a man sitting in the grass, his hands holding small brass cymbals that he touched together in a steady rhythm as his lips moved to a chant I couldn’t hear.
I sat on the bench outside the capitol after a morning sitting at a table at a Barnes & Noble while LeAnn attended a legislative conference at a downtown church. I took some work to “poke at,” as I like to describe it, including a chapter from a new book. Sitting there, I felt the heavy irony of the fact that I was working on a book that nobody would read in a bookstore full of books that nobody was buying.
So the time in the park at the capitol was a welcome change of pace for my last hour before picking up LeAnn. And I wasn't disappointed – except for the ting, ting, ting of those cymbals. The man wasn’t close, but the sound was sharp and I was irritated to the point of closing my eyes so as not to see him. And that’s when something interesting happened: the ting, ting, ting seemed to soften and, perhaps in unison with the man sitting in the grass, I found myself gently called to prayer.
It started by listening. For every sound I heard – the shaking of dry brown leaves in the oak tree above me, two women walking by and talking about Friday fun, the flapping of flags in the wind, the clatter of skateboard wheels on pavement – a silent prayer was born. There was thanksgiving for the changing seasons, gratitude for family and good friends, concern for our state and nation, hope for the future. And then came thoughts about vocation and continuing with what I’m doing.
This went on for a while and then the ting, ting, ting stopped and my eyes opened and I was sitting quietly in the sunshine again. I looked across the park and saw that the man with the cymbals had stood up and stretched and then he plucked his phone from his pocket and made a call that I couldn’t hear.
The spell was broken, and I realized once more that I don’t pray often, not really. I listen to others pray, and I pray out loud when asked, but that’s not necessarily prayer so much as it is performing or participating. And I do think quietly and deeply about lots of things, but I’m not sure that is prayer either. It doesn’t usually feel the way it felt while sitting on that bench – like my entire being was engaged.
The hardest thing about prayer is making room for it. Clearing your head, if not your calendar. And then sometimes instead of making an appointment for prayer, prayer sneaks up on you and finds you where you are. Sometimes it comes in locations as far away from the church house as you can get, like on the lawn of the statehouse on a sunny Wednesday afternoon.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016 (WBC)
Love is the common ground
Last summer on a road trip we made a side jaunt to visit an old friend. He left Dallas some years ago after a lifetime of city life and is enjoying himself in a smaller, quieter place. During the hour we spent with him he told us about his new life in the town and the pleasure he is getting from becoming a part of a small community that has benefitted from his experience, perspective and energy. But what he was most interested in talking about what his church.
He is a Baptist like us and when he got to his new hometown he looked around and found there was only one Baptist church. So he went to visit and quickly discovered that it was, well, different from what he was accustomed to. Their worship style is different, and on some theological points he does not see the world as they do. In fact, his status as a single male has prevented him from serving in some ways.
If faced with that obstacle some of us might decide to worship elsewhere – to travel a distance to attend another Baptist church or check out another denomination that aligns with our style and beliefs. But he stayed put and stuck with them because he discovered that this church has a huge heart for the community and the world, and that was a place of common ground that they could stand on together. And so he has become an active member of the church and a leader in many of its mission efforts both in the community and abroad.
It’s a wonderful example for anyone who has found themselves at odds with their church, their neighbors, their family. It’s tempting and perhaps human nature to focus on our differences and let them be what defines our relationship and thus what keeps us apart. In fact, it’s often easier to turn and leave than it is to set aside the differences and embrace all that is still so good.
Our friend has taught us that the common ground of Christian love is more stable than the shifting sands of theology and tradition. That doesn’t mean that we won’t still stumble over those differences; they are still there. Our friend misses the church traditions that he had grown to love, but he’s grown to love the work and the community that he has found in his new church. And nobody has pushed him to change his beliefs. Even if they did, he wouldn’t because they are locked in his heart and God alone has the key.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016 (WBC)
Living in tune
LeAnn gave me a most memorable Valentine’s gift this year: a wind chime. But not just any old clanging wind chime. This one is tuned to the opening B minor guitar chord of the “Adagio” from Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquin Rodrigo.
The concerto by the 20th century Spanish composer is a favorite of mine, and the adagio is the centerpiece. If you’re not familiar with it, all I can really explain is that it begins with the soft strumming of the B minor chord and then a gorgeous melody played by an English horn, which is later repeated by guitar and full orchestra. The “Adagio” has been interpreted and used often in popular culture, including by international figure skaters such as Michelle Kwan, who skated to it for her final world championship in 2003.
The piece was composed in 1939 by Rodrigo while in self-exile in Paris during the Spanish Civil War. For him it embodied his memories of the gardens at the Spanish royal palace at Aranjuez that he could not visit but also that he could not see because diphtheria had left him almost totally blind at age 3. In his writings, Rodrigo explains that the piece portrays “the fragrance of magnolias, the singing of birds, and the gushing of fountains.”
The wind chime tuned to that piece replaces a smaller one that I brought into our marriage from my previous home. It was tuned to a different chord – and a different time and place in my life – and over the past few years it had begun to fall apart. Still, I let it remain as the strings broke one by one and the individual tubes fell to the ground, changing its sound from a sweet chord to a discordant tinkling. When all the tubes finally fell, I gathered them up and thought about restringing them, but then LeAnn gave me a new melody.
I’ve hung the new wind chime on the front porch and when I hear that chord my mind begins to fill in the melody of Rodrigo’s “Adagio.” What’s more, the wind chime is tuned to the melody of my life today, and perhaps some years from now I will hear that chord and recall the song of my heart and soul at the time when it was given.
In this season of Lent we focus on Jesus the Son, who points the way to God the Father. In the Gospels, Jesus’ words and deeds reveal the love and mercy of the Father and point the way to how we are to live with each other. But there’s more to it than that: While a wind chime can evoke a melody and stir memories, Jesus is more than just an echo or memory of the Father. He is “one in Being with the Father,” which means he is the full music of God’s love. What’s more, his melody never fades or diminishes, it weathers all of life’s storms, and if we listen and tune ourselves to that melody, we can live it and share it with others.
Tuesday, February 9, 2016 (WBC)
Transfigured
Sunday was Transfiguration Sunday, the day many Christians recall when Jesus went up on Mount Tabor with three of his disciples and was joined in a brilliant light by Moses and Elijah. The event has been interpreted in various ways through the ages, most notably as the moment when Jesus left no doubt about his divinity.
At Wilshire we heard two interesting views of the event: Josh Thiering talked about how the redemptive work of Christ, like Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, leads us to a new life free of sin and bondage; and Erica Whitaker focused on how just as Jesus led the disciples down from the mountain to continue his work, we too are called to follow Jesus down into the world.
The idea of coming down off the mountain to do the work of Christ resonates with me, and not just because of Erica’s fine sermon but because of my favorite rendering of the Transfiguration. It’s in a stained glass window in St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Victoria, Texas. It was commissioned a dozen years ago by my late wife’s family and depicts a haloed Jesus flanked by Moses and Elijah in glowing robes of white. They’re standing on a grassy outcrop, and kneeling at their feet are Peter, James and John—huddled together perhaps in fear, and yet looking upward with eyes wide open.
It’s a simple and lovely rendering, but what I like most about the window is its location. It’s not standing tall among the beautiful windows that have graced that sanctuary for 112 years. It’s in an unadorned sacristy tucked away behind the altar. This is not a place where the window casts its lovely light on priests and parishioners on the high holy days of Christmas and Easter and on every ordinary Sunday in between. This is a workroom where communion vessels are cleaned and shelved, where priests and altar servers are robed and readied, where church calendars and duty rosters are posted. Few people visit this room, not because it is the holy of holies but because it is the lowly of lowlies.
Yet there is a holiness in this place where the work of the church is done quietly and humbly. I can imagine that the servants who work in that room might look up from their tasks from time to time and see themselves in that window. They’re not the transfigured Christ or the holy prophets; they’re the kneeling disciples who look at Christ with eyes wide open and see the source of their freedom, as Josh described, and also see their calling to the work of Christ, as illustrated by Erica.
And while the work in that room contributes mostly to worship, it is symbolic and preparatory for the work that the church must be doing in the world. Christianity is a faith of salvation by grace and not by works. The work we do in the name of the risen Christ springs naturally from that faith, and it is that work that ultimately transfigures us—not spiritually and eternally, but in a loving, wide-eyed, human way.
Tuesday, February 2, 2016 (WBC)
Father and son
“How’s your dad?”
“He has Parkinson’s, and it’s not any fun.”
That’s been the give and take between my friend Ken and me the last couple of years when I’ve asked about Bob, his father. The answer has been honest and brief, and has been given by a son who loved his father so much and knew his father so well. You see, Bob was an electrical engineer, and I’ve known enough engineers to know that he would have appreciated Ken’s precision and brevity.
I don’t know exactly what Bob did during his career at Collins Radio and Rockwell International. I know he worked with some of the earliest computers and I recall a Saturday when he took Ken and me to his office and let us type commands into a computer. It was nothing compared to what computers can do today, but in that day a machine talking back to us was fantastic.
I know more about what Bob did at home and in the community. He turned spare parts and household items into TV antennas and satellite dishes. He drove a VW Beetle with the enthusiasm of a man who loved its simple mechanical design. He was a behind-the-scenes, go-to guy at his church, especially for audio-visual and electronic matters.
A few times when our home TV went dark, Bob would come with his gear and test the vacuum tubes one by one until he found the culprit that had gone bad. In the 16 years since his diagnosis I never heard Bob talk about his disease, but I’m guessing he approached it the same way: quietly, methodically, honestly.
Ken’s description of his father’s struggle likewise was honest because as a counseling psychologist he knows how these relationships should work. When I was going through my own trials he advised that the person with the illness gets to set the tone for how it will be addressed. If they want to talk about it openly, then that’s the way it should be. If they want to be silent, that’s fine. If they want to punctuate their struggle with humor, that’s OK.
In recent years Bob was known to smile and say, “mission accomplished” when completing what once was a simple task, and that was part of his personality too. He was a master of the one-liner and the groaner pun. He often would comment or answer with a line from an old song or a movie. He could express pleasure with nothing more than a smile, and could discipline his children – and me by association – with a few softly spoken words.
Following Ken’s counsel, I believe we best love the ones we love when we let them continue to be themselves even as they are losing themselves and we are grieving. It’s tempting to try to make it better or more comfortable and manageable for ourselves, but it’s an act of tender mercy and love to let them leave the way they lived.
Bob left this life last week, just two days after his 84th birthday. He was a man of strong but quiet faith, and we have faith that his spirit is no longer trapped inside his failing body. I think Ken might say it this way:
“How’s your dad?”
“He’s free.”
Tuesday, January 26, 2016 (WBC)
Listen to the silence
Sometimes I come to this place of thought with an idea that just rolls right out onto the page fully formed. Sometimes I have so much I want to say that I struggle to wrestle it into a coherent idea. Sometimes I am so completely empty that all I can do is lean my head on my hands, close my eyes, and listen to the silence. The hope is that perhaps if I still myself I will hear one clear thought that I can build on.
Today has been one of those days, and through the silence I have heard traffic, trains, birds, airplanes, dogs, chainsaws, sirens. Not the sounds of the spirit, but the sounds of life around me. It’s not been inspirational or particularly meaningful, but it’s been very real. The best thing is that the sound hasn’t been me. I’m mostly an introvert by nature, but even the most introspective people can create a lot of internal noise.
So my suggestion today: Take a moment to quiet yourself and listen to the silence. Perhaps you’ll only hear the noise of the world around you, or perhaps you’ll hear a hymn or a prayer. Perhaps they’ll be one in the same. Somewhere in the wail of the siren I found a prayer for a friend who is hurting. And in the wintery cry of a Blue Jay I may have heard a line or two from “This is my Father’s World.”
Tuesday, January 19, 2016 (WBC)
Customer favorite
It’s a fact of life that magazines beget magazines and catalogs, and last week LeAnn’s subscription to The Christian Century garnered us a catalog catering to those who buy supplies for churches.
This is a catalog you’d want if you were starting a church from scratch because it has almost everything you would want and need: offering plates, communion dishes, worship banners, priestly vestments and choir robes. They don’t have pews, but they have chancel chairs, kneelers and pulpits. They have communion wafers in every size and shape, and communion cups in plastic and glass. They have live fronds for Palm Sunday, and candles that assure you won’t burn the church down on Christmas Eve. They even have braided velvet ropes to reserves pews for special occasions – or separating the sheep from the goats.
Several selections are emblazoned with a bright yellow oval and the words “Customer Favorite!” such as a set of polished aluminum communion ware, a short sleeve wrinkle-free clergy shirt available in four colors, and reversible paraments dyed to match reversible stoles. Think Garanimals for the priestly tribe.
The catalog is an interesting read because it illuminates many church expenses that we often take for granted. It also shows the choices that church administrators or committees make based not only on cost but on congregational or even personal tastes – those customer favorites.
Which leads me to wonder: Do we come to church like patrons at our favorite restaurant wanting to sit at our favorite table, with the waiter who knows our name, a menu that is familiar, and our old favorite – chicken fried steak with two sides –when we want our comfort food? On a broader scale, do we approach our faith and spiritual life like customers who thumb through a catalog of ideals and perspectives and pick the ones that match our personalities and lifestyle – the ones that are familiar and comfortable?
This life is not easy and it’s good to have a place to recharge our spirits and replenish our souls. That is very important and is part of what church does, and that is a good reason to go. But the hard parts of life are still waiting for us when we leave, and church needs to be a place for learning how to live in that world. So in addition to being a place to be healed and comforted, church needs to be a place where we are challenged, convicted, perhaps even provoked.
Sometimes we need to know when we’re getting it wrong and why we’re getting it wrong. Church is a place for that too. Not because we are bad people, but simply because we are human. And as humans we have trouble seeing the big picture – that God’s kingdom is meant for all and the table has been prepared for all. Not just in our Sunday best but in our grubby mid-week work clothes.
In God’s kingdom the old adage “the customer is always right” does not apply. But that’s OK because even when the customer is wrong – or is lost, confused or struggling – the customer is redeemable. Best of all, the customer is loved unconditionally. That’s something we should all want and should all want to share. That’s a love that should be stamped with “Customer Favorite!”
Tuesday, January 12, 2016 (WBC)
This little light of mine
I took my car in for a routine oil change and as usual they suggested doing more, including changing the air filter and wiper blades and replacing some lights that were out in the back. Wow, I had no idea any lights were out and of course I had those replaced. It’s the law, after all.
Later that night when I got home, I walked around the back of the car while the engine was running and noticed that two rectangular red lights on the corners of the back bumper were not lit. I was ticked off – What, they didn’t fix them? – but then in researching the matter so I could go back to the maintenance garage and give them a good dose of righteous indignation, I made a discovery. Those two lights are only required in Europe and Asia, but in the interest of mass production they cut the holes in all the bumpers and plug them with reflective covers for the U.S. market.
It’s an interesting reminder that mass production does not always produce identical results, nor should it. Whether talking about vehicles or the people who ride in them, all are not designed or equipped the same. We’re designed for different purposes, different life journeys. Some of us will need those extra lights where we are going. Some can see in the dark. Some reflect the light.
Some seem to give off a special light all their own, but it’s important to remember that no matter how much light we put out, we aren’t the source of that light. We may enhance it or magnify it, but we don’t create it no matter what the world may tell us.
A couple of weeks ago in church we sang one of my favorite hymns, “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light.” It’s a text with a simple message and important lesson and it’s right there in those four words, “child of the light.” Children may think differently, but they don’t create themselves or the light that shines through them. They have a source of life and light beyond their own flesh and blood. It’s hard to grasp as a child, and it’s hard to remember as we grow up and build a busy universe around ourselves.
This light is a gift from God and it’s meant to be more than just a spotlight for our own flashy adventures or a headlight as we race toward some ambitious reward. It’s meant to be shared as a way finder and a beacon for others on the same journey as us. And whether our light burns brightly by wordly standards or faintly, it’s no less important and no less powerful.
As the hymn states:
In him there is no darkness at all;
The night and the day are both alike.
The Lamb is the light of the city of God.
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.
Tuesday, January 5, 2016 (WBC)
The real work begins
One of the small miracles of One Starry Night, Wilshire’s interactive Bethlehem experience, was that after a year of planning and background work, a full week of setting up and three hours with more than a thousand people in the marketplace, it took just 90 minutes to put it all away.
As soon as King Herod (Timothy Peoples) declared, “Bethlehem is now under curfew” and the last guest had cleared the market, the lights came on and everybody scrambled to take down the tents, pack up the crafts and supplies, and cart everything away. We even had a few volunteers who came specifically to help “sack the village,” as I described it.
I made this speedy takedown a special mission of mine – for reasons that I will explain in a moment – but I have to admit that I anticipate putting Christmas away as much if not more than bringing it all out. While I do love Christmas and all its sights and sounds and especially the tastes and smells, I always look forward to the ordinary flow of life that returns after the holidays. I don’t think that makes me a Grinch, and I hope it doesn’t make me a Scrooge, but during Christmas so much seems to grind to a halt while there is still important work that needs to be done.
I’m usually ready to sing “Joy to the World” in a different way when the calendar changes, but this year on New Year’s Day as we began packing away Christmas at home, I remembered the words of Howard Thurman’s poem, “The Work of Christmas,” and the Dan Forrest composition of it that Wilshire’s Sanctuary Choir sang during the Hanging of the Green service Dec. 6:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.
Last year after One Starry Night we cleaned it up fast because everything had to be back to normal for church on Sunday morning. But this year we worked even faster because Gateway of Grace was to host a Christmas luncheon for some 300 refugees from 10 countries in the Community Hall the next day. After we had removed all traces of Bethlehem, some of us stayed a while longer to help roll out tables and chairs. We did it because Gateway of Grace is truly doing the work of Christmas as they help refugees from around the world find a safe footing in North Texas.
This year the ongoing work of Christmas has been magnified by the tornadoes that struck North Texas the night after Christmas, leaving hundreds of families who had just opened new gifts with nothing but new sorrows. As I write this, just two blocks away, Garland’s Central Park is the resource center for people who need food, clothing and shelter, and untold numbers of people from Garland and beyond have answered the call to do the work of Christmas in providing resources.
LeAnn and I have experienced the work of Christmas in new ways in recent days. On New Year’s Eve our neighbors across the street invited us to a celebration with their extended family. Their language and food is different from ours, but we understood their laughter and hospitality and together experienced that last item in Thurman’s poem: music in the heart.
On New Year’s Day longtime friend Gary stopped by with cornbread and a pot of black-eyed peas, and we spent the noontime sharing stories of life’s love and loss. And the next morning we found ourselves at a “Prayer on the Square” gathering in a downtown Garland restaurant, where our gracious host, Tammy, kept coffee cups full while a couple of dozen concerned citizens prayed for their community. Good Christmas work for sure.
So while most of us have packed Christmas away for another year, let’s not pack away the work of Christmas. There is plenty more to do on that list in Thurman’s poem. While my good friend Paul Mangelsdorf reminds me every year that the 12 Days of Christmas don’t end until Jan. 5, the real work of Christmas never ends.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015 (WBC)
Growing patience
On Christmas Day as we prepared the noon meal, I looked out a window and saw bright red balls hanging just off our front porch. These were not red glass ornaments hung on a tree or red lights strung in a bush. Amazingly, they were ripe cherry tomatoes ready to be picked. I grabbed the blue bucket and went out for the harvest.
Winter tomatoes? The wet warm fall had a lot to do with that, but more than that it was patience and restraint.
A couple of years ago a master gardener from the A&M Extension Service told our neighborhood association that you can get fall tomatoes out of a summer bush if you don’t give in to impatience. He said it’s a natural reaction in late summer to look at a scraggly, burned up, played out tomato bush and say, “It’s done,” and dig it up. But if you’ll not worry about what it looks like and keep watering it, cooler weather will make it leaf out and start producing again. And often the fall tomatoes will be better than the summer ones.
We followed that advice this year and have been well rewarded. We’ve picked hundreds of tomatoes through the fall, including close to 50 on Christmas Day and that many the day before. I picked another eight this morning and there’s still more to pick if the cold weather doesn’t get them first.
Location is important too. We had three clusters of tomato bushes this year: in a raised bed in full sun that was tailor-made for tomatoes; in a side-yard garden plot with a little more shade; and in an empty spot in our front corner flowerbed that wasn’t prepped for tomatoes. Of the three locations, it was the bushes in the flowerbed that have kept producing through Christmas. We’ve had so many tomatoes, in fact, that the ones that fell to the ground before we could pick them will seed next year’s crop.
We’ve come to that time of year when we’re hungry to turn the page, brush aside the past, plow the field and get ready for new growth. We do it under the banner of New Year’s Resolutions, and in most regards it’s a worthwhile exercise to assess where we’ve been and what we’ve done and set the stage for new opportunities. But while some advise us to clear the stage completely and start fresh, we might look more closely at what seems worn out, tired or finished.
Seasons change, hearts change, conditions change and new opportunities can arise. That project that didn’t fly might yet take wings. A relationship that seems burned out may just need a change in temperature to grow. The great idea that seemed barren may yet bear fruit.
I have a blue bucket full of red tomatoes that tells me there’s still good to be found if we’re patient and don’t give up.
Sunday, December 20, 2015 (WBC)
From Wilshire’s Advent Devotional Guide – 2011
Charity – 1 Corinthians 13
“When I was a child, I talked like a child, thought like a child, reasoned like a child.”
I celebrated Christmas like a child, too, which is fine because there is a wide strand of wonder and excitement woven through the Christmas holiday tailor-made for children. It engages their senses, and with the right nurturing it connects them to the true meaning of Christmas in a way they can understand. The hope, of course, is that children will embrace that meaning—the gift of “God with us”—and the relationships we can have with each other through Christ.
Two early memories are mile markers on my journey through this changing perspective.
First, I was sitting on the living room floor, surrounded by toys and wrapping paper, and I looked up to see my grandfather sitting on the sofa with a couple of thin boxes in his lap. I could see socks and a necktie poking out of the tissue paper. I remember feeling a wave of sadness at the fact that he had received only two gifts, and neither one exciting at all. I felt like I could cry for him.
Second, one pair of grandparents was in the house, and I was anxiously watching out the window for the others to arrive. When asked what I was doing, I said: “It’s not Christmas until everyone is here.” I wasn’t waiting for them to arrive so we could open gifts; I just wanted them there with us. Such is the transformation we go through as we grow from children into adults. We no longer crave toys and things; we long for relationships.
Even so, we still can get stuck in childish ways. Without the love (or “charity,” as it sometimes is translated) Paul writes about, our relationships can be immature. We can focus solely on what we receive from others—attention, praise, approval, validation—and overlook what we can give of ourselves. We also can forget that sometimes the best part of a relationship is not the giving or receiving; sometimes it is just being together.
Looking back on that early Christmas memory, there is one more piece of the story: I recall the sound of my grandfather’s hoarse laugh as he watched us kids playing under the Christmas tree. I understand now that the necktie and socks were appreciated, but the gift he loved most was just being with us.
Lord, help me embrace the gift of your Son with the enthusiasm of a child and share it through my relationships with the love and wisdom of an adult. Amen.
Sunday, December 13, 2015 (WBC)
From Wilshire’s Advent Devotional Guide – 2009
Journey – Luke 2:1-4
There’s something magic about “coming home” for Christmas – the anticipation building with every mile until at last you burst in the door and find yourself in the warmth of family and friends. The first opportunity I had for such a trip, I decided to do it big.
During Christmas break from college I rode a Greyhound bus from Dallas to Tucumcari, New Mexico, to join my older brother on a long, winding drive home for the holidays. In the span of four days and a thousand miles we saw some sights, visited friends, bought some gifts and horsed around. We survived ice and snow, too little sleep, too much fun, and a blowout on my brother’s pick-up truck.
There was nothing holy about that trip, although the mountains in the winter snow can be heavenly. Little resemblance either to the grueling journey of Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem – except that our goal was to arrive at our childhood home in time to be counted among our people.
Since then I’ve learned that you don’t have to actually travel to “come home” for Christmas, because our most important journeys are spiritual and emotional rather than physical. There have been years when I’ve traveled hundreds of miles but my soul hasn’t budged an inch, and times when I’ve stayed at home and yet my spirit has soared to the far side of the sun. What we experience depends on our focus.
It also depends on whether or not we're paying attention. Looking at pictures from that trip with my brother, I recall that a highlight was standing high above the village of Eagle Nest and looking out across the Sangre de Cristo (blood of Christ) mountains. Had I been paying attention that day I might have wondered if the narrow road coming down off the rocky pass and across the valley resembled the rugged path that Joseph and Mary followed. I might have reflected on how their trip to Bethlehem was the first leg of a long journey to our salvation through the true blood of Christ.
So, where will your advent journey take you this year? How far will you travel – physically, emotionally, spiritually? What will you see and experience? With whom will you travel? With whom will you be counted at journey’s end?
Father, thank you for the journey of Joseph and Mary. Travel with us now on our Advent journey. Guide our steps, thoughts and spirits so that we may arrive safely at the destination you have chosen for us. Amen.
Sunday, December 6, 2015 (WBC)
From Wilshire’s Advent Devotional Guide – 2010
Peace
On the wall in my parents’ den is a framed poem that I wrote one summer while visiting my grandparents. Titled “Peace,” I typed it on my grandfather’s heavy, black, Underwood typewriter with the title word stamped into big block letters with asterisks.
With lines like “It’s in the beauty of the flowers, but not in war or Communist power,” the perspective is definitely 1960s. The evening news was full of the Vietnam War, racial unrest and political turmoil, and pop culture overflowed with songs and posters about peace. I was obviously mimicking what I saw and heard.
I was also presenting a child’s skin-deep view of peace. I was a kid growing up in a perfect family in a perfect suburb, with perfect friends at a perfect school and perfect church. At that age everything was external, and in my case, everything was good. I didn’t begin to understand the concept of “inner peace” – or the lack of it – until 1971 when my sister died in a car accident. A few months later I entered seventh grade with all its angst about self-perception, and the idealistic slogans about peace were forgotten.
It’s taken me years to understand that there is a type of peace that transcends all chaos. This peace can’t be typed onto a page. It can’t be bought, bartered, earned, stolen or won. It doesn’t come from a perfect life in a perfect world with a perfect body, because it’s not external. It comes with living from the inside out.
Sit still for a moment and consider everything that you can see, touch, taste and smell. None of that can ever bring lasting peace. Now consider your physical body. Prone to fatigue, misuse, injury and wearing out, there’s no peace there either. Now consider what is left: the mind, spirit, conscience, heart – what we collectively call “the soul.” It’s the place that God created especially for himself – to dwell within us. It’s the only place where we can know lasting peace.
I’ve known the peace that comes from this place. It’s not a feeling of “everything is the way I want it to be,” but rather, “God is with me, and I’m okay.” This peace is simple and straightforward, and yet it can be fleeting. I get busy and distracted and find that I’ve crowded God out of his place. The best way to prevent that is to spend more time in prayer and with the scriptures. Just as Jesus said, “I go and prepare a place for you,” I need to be vigilant in keeping a place prepared for him within me.
So what about the external peace that I typed onto that page in the 1960s? We can have that too. But it’s hard to “think of your fellow man, lend him a helping hand,” as the song goes, until you first “put a little love in your heart.”
Lord, live within me now so that I may know your peace that lasts forever. Amen.
Sunday, November 30, 2015 (WBC)
From Wilshire’s Advent Devotional Guide – 2015
My Spirit Rejoices in Hope – Isaiah 64:1-9
Hope is a precarious proposition. The moment we place our hope in something or someone, we set ourselves up for disappointment. That is partly because of our mistaken understanding of the word. We throw “hope” around like a blessing or a prayer – “Hope it goes well” or “Hope you have a great time” or “Hope you find what you’re looking for” – but the word is really about “maybe” and “possibly” and “there’s a chance” if everything goes right.
We adorn “hope” with an expectation of success and even wonderful, spectacular results, when hope actually straddles the fence between pessimism and optimism. Hope floats in the middle of a glass that is half full and half empty.
Not only do we misuse the word and sentiment of hope, but in practical application we misplace our hope. There have been days when I hoped fervently for healing but the damage could not be repaired, the cure could not be found. Or times when I put my best foot forward and gave my best effort but someone else got the job. And many times I’ve worked so hard and put everything I can into a project, only to see it flounder and fail. I was hoping for better and got the worst possible results. In fact, that has prompted a well-worn philosophy for many of us: Hope for the best but expect the worst.
Doctors, bosses, teachers, friends and relations – we put our hope in what they can do for us but they can only do so much. They can’t guarantee survival, happiness, wealth or success. Just like us they are flesh and blood, fallible and frail, and yet we put our hope in them.
But there is one who transcends our expectations and transforms our failures, one we can place our hope in without reservation and know that wrong will be made right, dread will be turned to relief, sorrow will become joy and chaos will give way to peace. It won’t be in the way we expect or understand or even experience today, but in a way that will make perfect sense over time because it will be in God’s perfect time.
That is the hope of Advent and the reason for rejoicing in this season. The one who can make it all make sense came among us and is with us always. The glass is no longer half full of a hope that can’t be trusted; it is overflowing with a hope that is eternal.
Tuesday, November 24, 2015 (WBC)
No holding back
“Why are they doing that?”
“Because they don't know.”
That was the whispered conversation between the couple sitting next to us Friday night at the Dallas Symphony. After the first movement of a violin concerto by Philip Glass, the audience broke into applause. It’s customary to hold back applause until the end of a multi-movement piece, and this couple apparently were irritated by the behavior of the great unwashed among them. “They don’t know.”
I held my applause because I know the rules, but I wasn’t bothered by the break from tradition. The solo violinist had played beautifully and the orchestra was in fine tune and there was no harm in letting them know, “Thank you, that was great.” And apparently neither the violinist nor the conductor nor the other instrumentalists were bothered by the outburst. They didn’t glare or shake their heads; they moved on to the next two movements.
The same thing happened after the intermission when the orchestra performed “The Planets” by Gustav Holst. The audience applauded a couple of times between the seven movements, which brought more whispers and headshaking from our neighbors. I couldn’t hear them, but I knew what they were saying: “They don’t know.”
But what those two apparently don’t know is that sometimes appreciation and gratitude can’t be held back. Sometimes you can’t just sit on your hands when someone has shared something special. Sometimes you have to let go of etiquette and let thanksgiving spill out.
Like on Sunday morning at Wilshire. We are not a church that applauds at the end of a rousing anthem or a spirited sermon, but we put our hands together on Sunday when saying “thank you” and “goodbye” and “God’s speed” to Brent Newbury, who for two-plus years gave us his heart and soul. Or earlier in the service after hearing the passionate testimony of a young man whose life is being transformed through the ministry of the Prison Entrepreneur Program. In either case it would have been awkward – even wrong, perhaps – to sit in silence and withhold our emotions.
There’s a time for silent, buttoned down decorum, and a time for unrestrained enthusiasm. Sometimes we receive a gift or a blessing so special that there’s no way to repay or reciprocate. If all we have to offer in return is to stand up and clap our hands, then we should get up and do it regardless of what’s written in the rule books. We may never get that chance again to say, “Thank you.”
For all their strict decorum, the couple beside us broke the biggest rule of all when it came to showing gratitude. When the audience stood in a generous ovation at the end of “The Planets,” the couple walked out. Instead of showing the orchestra their appreciation, they showed them their backs. Perhaps they don’t know so much after all.
This week, this Thanksgiving and on through the year, look for opportunities to say thank you in unexpected ways – even if you have to break a few rules.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015 (WBC)
A wonderful world?
Emotions were mixed Sunday evening as we listened to the Dallas Christian Jazz Band at the Village Country Club. As the big band played beautiful, lively arrangements of songs like “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” the TVs on the walls flashed silently with a “60 Minutes” report on the terrorist attacks in Paris. While my mind filled in the words to the melody – “through the storm, through the night, lead me on to light” – my eyes saw scenes of bodies draped with sheets on blood-stained streets.
Just a few hours earlier over Sunday lunch, George Gagliardi and I lamented our lack of understanding of God’s justice in light of these events. Are we to wait for God’s justice in God’s way and in God’s time and meanwhile take whatever harm may come? Are we to be instruments of God’s justice and mount the attack to put an end to the terror? Or are we to try to reason with an ideology that is unreasonable?
Earlier that morning in church, George and I and the Wilshire Winds played “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” with words that say:
“O Trinity of love and power!
Our brethren shield in danger’s hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them wheresoe’er they go.”
So where was that protection Friday night on the streets of Paris?
Also that morning Jason Edwards gave a thoughtful sermon on Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, which addresses the question, “Who is our neighbor?” The answer is that our neighbor is not just the person we despise and hate, but the person who feels that way about us. But neither Jesus nor Jason tell us what to do when our neighbor wants to kill us on the streets of our cities.
Back at the concert, as the band played and the singer sang – “I see friends shaking hands, sayin’, “How do you do?” They're really sayin’, “I love you.” – the TVs flickered again with more images from France and a pre-game tribute to the fallen of Paris at the Seahawks-Cardinals football game. It was a wonderful expression of support and unity, but in that moment I found it hard to think to myself, “what a wonderful world.”
Tuesday, November 10, 2015 (WBC)
Five bucks for Jesus
On a recent Wednesday night I stepped out of the garage to roll the big green trash can out to the curb, and from the darkness I heard a voice, “Excuse me, sir.” I looked up and saw a man walking down the middle of the street and then turning onto our driveway. “I was wondering if you could help me? I’ve run out of gas and I need to go to Greenville.” The town, not the street.
We live on the edge of downtown Garland with a convenience store/gas station nearby. It’s not unusual to see someone walking by, but it’s startling at night when someone suddenly appears and calls out to you. My initial nervousness was relieved a little by his next words: “You remember me – I offered to help you clean out your flowerbeds one day.” I thought about it and did remember a few offers like that, none that I’ve ever taken, so he might have been telling the truth.
I asked him if he had something to carry the gas in, and when he said yes I told him to wait a moment and I went back in the house. As I was getting my wallet, LeAnn asked what was up, and I said, “There’s a man walking by who needs money for gas. It may be a scam, or he may be Jesus. I’m going to give him $5.”
Back outside, I handed him the five, and when he looked at it in the dim light, he wasn’t happy. “I need more than that to get to Greenville. Don’t you have more?”
“No sir, that’s all I have.”
That was a lie. I did have more. I had enough to buy him a tank of gas. I had enough to call him a cab. I had enough to buy him a new car . . . to charter a private plane or helicopter and land him wherever he wanted to go. I could have done any of that, but I wasn’t going to give him more than $5. I figured that if he was being honest and if his vehicle got 20 miles per gallon, $5 worth of gas would get him to Greenville. And if he was being dishonest, then $5 would not get him in too much trouble.
There was another option: If he was serious about going to Greenville, I could have given him a ride. Sometimes we’re bold and make such an offer because we really do want to help. But other times we make the offer to call their bluff. Someone asks for money for food, we offer to take them to get something to eat, and when they decline we think, “Busted.” But I didn’t make that offer on this night because I really didn’t want to go to Greenville. I really didn’t want to help. I just wanted to be left alone.
His irritation at my measly $5 irritated me right back and for a split second I wanted to take it out of his hand and go back inside. A man once asked me for money on a downtown Dallas street on a freezing night after work. He didn’t have a warm coat or gloves, and I handed him my gloves. He took them but didn’t put them on, and when he still wanted money and I rejected him, he got angry. I got angry too and I grabbed my gloves back and turned away.
On this recent night I let the man keep the $5 and said, “Good luck.” He walked away still angry or at least disappointed. I’m thinking Jesus was disappointed too – not in the size of my offering but in the smallness of my heart.
Tuesday, November 3, 2015 (WBC)
Families and saints
Sitting at a holiday bazaar last Saturday selling books, one thing was very evident as we watched masses of people walk by: There’s no denying the power of DNA and genetics. All day we saw groups of people who looked so much alike it was almost scary. This was most noticeable among women, with mothers and daughters and sisters in ages from teens to octogenarians revealing amazing family resemblances.
Each of us carries the genetic material of those who created us. On the outside those genes help determine the shape of our nose, the color of our eyes, the tint and texture of our hair. Our bloodlines dictate our hairlines and waistlines, our freckles and moles. I have my mother’s blue eyes and fair skin, and my father’s stature and build, along with his full head of hair that began turning gray in our 30s.
The story is the same on the inside. Anyone who has started with a new doctor has answered all the questions about family medical history. Blood pressure, cholesterol levels, tendencies for certain cancers and serious diseases – they all have a starting point in those who came before us. There’s not much we can do but be grateful for the good stuff and vigilant about the bad.
When it comes to personality and character traits, there’s much debate about the impact of nature versus nurture on how we behave, who we befriend, what we believe. Like the shape of my ears and the length of my toes, I have my parents and their parents to thank for the best parts of my personality.
And the worst parts? I once thought I had my mother’s handwriting, but the one time I tried to use it to cut a corner I got busted. We laugh at the infraction now but it was so outside the character that was modeled for me from day one. My parents aren’t cheaters, and it turns out neither am I.
All Saints Day has just passed, and I need to pause and thank the saints who have shaped me – physically, socially, spiritually – and those who have been patient with me and continue to be so. I’m not perfect yet and I know I never will be. But I’m not done yet either, and none of us ever are.
Our challenge, then, is to help bring out the best in each other and help each other overcome the worst – whether we are families in the flesh or siblings in the spirit.
Tuesday, October 27, 2015 (WBC)
No painting over the spirit
A few weeks ago we went to San Antonio where I interviewed the new executive director of the Alamo for a magazine article. When all my questions had been answered we walked from her office across the street onto the Alamo grounds, and into the sacristy of the chapel. There, a conservator was inspecting the limestone walls for remnants of frescos and stenciled patterns dating to the building’s construction by Spanish missionaries in the 1700s.
While it isn’t news that the Alamo was once a church, most of the physical evidence of that was removed or painted over by waves of secular and military occupiers years before the famous battle of 1836. But now, with slow and painstaking work using water and rags, tiny tools and brushes, and even ultraviolet light and x-rays, the conservator is bringing that evidence to light.
Some would say the church as we’ve known it for a century is falling the way of the Alamo with our modern culture painting over the values and principles that the church has represented. With declining memberships and the rise of secular activities on Sunday mornings that once were practically forbidden, it’s hard to deny that the church doesn’t hold the cultural influence it once did.
But the physical church does not hold God, organized religion should not be confused with faith, and humankind cannot whitewash the Holy Spirit. Doesn’t the history of the church through the ages show that the spiritual life endures because God is the one who ultimately remains faithful to us? Shouldn’t we trust that God’s faithfulness continues even in these seemingly God-less days?
Instead of witnessing the decline of the church, I like the notion that we are seeing God rebuild the church for a new age. Just as technology has freed information and learning from the confines of books, libraries and schools, making it portable and accessible, the Holy Spirit is coaxing us out of the sanctuary and into the streets. We’re proud of our hand-held gadgets, but God has always been heart-held. It’s interesting that it has taken the advent of new technology for us to realize how liberating that can be.
We recently had lunch with a young pastor who is experiencing this firsthand in an urban Chicago neighborhood. Instead of building a church and calling people to prayer, he is being the church and praying with people wherever they are. He may never build a church of stone and stained glass, but that’s okay. A church built in the hearts and souls of people can’t be painted over.
Tuesday, October 20, 2015 (WBC)
One moment at a time
Every so often the cogs in my brain connect just right and everything slows down and I become keenly aware of the moment that I am in. I’m not thinking about the moment just past, and I’m not thinking about the moment to come. I’m living squarely in the immediate moment and it feels like there is no other moment but that one moment.
When I get in that place I have a feeling of infinite peace and contentment because all I have to manage or care about is that one moment. If it is wonderful I can enjoy it for what it is, and if it happens to be a difficult moment, I can endure it because it is just that moment. And when that moment ends, there will be another moment and that is all I have. And if I take care of that moment, another one will follow, and so on.
It is life lived at a micro level, and it’s a wonderful, lovely place to be. It’s cocoon-like. It feels safe. It’s doable. It’s enjoyable, and if not enjoyable, it’s survivable.
Most often I get that feeling when I am driving. I think it is because you can make a journey only one mile at a time and your progress is measured in those small increments. You also are looking out at the world through windows when you drive, and that has a somewhat cloistered feel – in a bubble looking out at the world.
I got that feeling on Tuesday morning while driving across town from Garland to an appointment near the Dallas Market Center. As is my habit I took a non-freeway route – Garland Road, Miller, Skillman, Northwest Highway, Inwood, Harry Hines. There wasn’t much traffic but I certainly wasn’t flying, and at that slow, steady pace I slipped into that one-moment-at-a-time state of being. I wasn’t thinking about what I had done earlier in the morning, the appointment itself, or what I needed to do later. I was very much in the moment – noticing the sunshine, the bright blue sky, the trees beginning to turn, the grand houses and lush landscaping on Inwood.
I’m not sure what triggered that feeling, but it may be a residual reflection from attending a memorial service on Monday for a wonderful woman who died way too young from an especially bad cancer. During the service the woman’s son and a colleague spoke of her struggle and how she lived every moment she had with faith, joy and dignity. There was no future; the moment she was in was all she had.
I hurt for that family because I know firsthand what they went through. And looking back at that time I know that I got through it by squeezing life down small, manageable moments. I didn’t waste time in the “what ifs” of the past or the dreads of the future. My limited energy and focus kept me engaged in the moments I was in. In that disposition, I survived. The outcome didn’t change, I didn’t escape harm, but I got through it. There were even moments of joy between the moments of pain.
I am not in that “right now” moment very often or for very long. In fact, as I drove this morning a song from the past came through my car speakers, the bubble burst, and my mind raced back thirty years. It didn’t help that I was driving through an area of town that I frequented in those days, and along with the memories came regrets about missed opportunities and running too fast and not savoring each precious moment.
I’m looking for a way to stay longer in that state of immediacy – perhaps even to string together more of those moments into an ongoing way of being. I think God is in those individual moments, so maybe that is where I should begin. Instead of waiting for those moments to pop up unexpectedly while driving across town, perhaps I should invite God along for the ride.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015 (WBC)
Bravo to the page turners
Wilshire’s new Arts on Abrams fine arts series got off to a remarkable start last Thursday night with a concert of violin and piano music. The program ranged from the 18th-century “Devil’s Trill Sonata” by Giuseppe Tartini to John Williams’ theme to “Schindler’s List” performed beautifully by violinist Hubert Pralitz and pianist James Michael Williams.
In the intimate and acoustically superb setting of Wilshire’s Choral Hall, I not only could hear every note but I could see every stroke of the violinist’s bow, every pressing of strings on the fingerboard, every movement of fingers on piano keys. And from where I sat I also could see every movement of the pianist’s page turner, and she too gave a remarkable performance.
The page tuner didn’t play a note, but she saw and felt every note, watching the page as closely as James and bobbing her head slightly with the tempo. And then at the right moment she’d stand up, lean over, pinch the corner of the next page, and when James gave a little nod or made a murmur, she swiftly turned the page and smoothed it out as she sat back down to follow the notes to the next page turn. She was so immersed in the music that occasionally she would glance up at Hubert, her lips moving slightly as if humming the melody, and then she would close her eyes in anticipation of a moment of musical passion. That told me that she is more than just a page turner; she too is a musician, perhaps a violinist herself.
It was, I believe, a beautiful example of what we might call empathetic servanthood. The page turner wasn’t just “sitting in” and doing a job; she was feeling everything that the musicians were feeling because she knew the music by heart. And while she was contributing to their artistry – helping them move from measure to measure and page to page – she did so in a way that put herself in the background. This was their moment to shine.
Intrigued, I emailed James, who I’ve met just casually at Wilshire, and I learned from him that the page turner is Bethany Wildes. He confirmed that she is an accomplished violinist and teacher in her own right. She plays in local symphonies and could easily be the star of the show, but she was no less the star by turning the pages.
James explained it this way: “For both Hubert and I, Bethany is irreplaceable. For me, because I usually learn my music with Bethany before rehearsing with Hubert. After my music is learned she generally helps us agree on tempos and transitions between sections. When we cannot come to terms on a difficult section (usually my fault), she generally has a safe solution. During concerts she is my safe zone. If I get lost, she always has a way of bringing us back together.”
If James or Hubert got lost on Thursday night, it certainly wasn’t evident to anyone listening. However, I think the audience got lost, applauding between the movements of a piece by Edvard Grieg instead of waiting silently until the end. But perhaps we lost our sense of decorum because we were lost in the beauty of the experience. But when the concert was over, we knew exactly what to do: We stood and applauded for all three artists: violinist, pianist, page turner.
So, who do you know who is a page turner? Who turns your pages, keeps you on the right line, keeps you moving forward, helps you find your way when you get lost? Who works in the background so you can shine? Who is there with you through the allegros and adagios – the fleet days and crawling hours – of your life? Who quietly experiences every moment alongside you? Who closes their eyes and prays with you and for you?
It might be a friend, a family member, a coworker, a neighbor. It might be a spouse or a fiancé. As James shared, “For Hubert, Bethany is invaluable because, well, they are engaged to be married.”
If someone comes to mind, send them a message of “bravo” in whatever way you can. Better yet, stand before them with an ovation of gratitude.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015 (WBC)
Neighbors
“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood . . .”
“Hey . . . HEY . . . you know it’s against federal law to put something other than mail in a mailbox.”
I walked back one house and stood face to face with the man who shouted at me and stood quietly as he repeated that statement. I reached forward, took the crumpled piece of paper out of his hand, and calmly said, “I’m sorry. We won’t bother you ever again.” I leaned hard on that word “ever” and stopped short of saying what I felt: “We don’t want your type anyway.”
That was the one little hiccup in my effort Sunday evening to distribute flyers inviting neighbors to our National Night Out block party. I shouldn’t have been surprised, because two years earlier when we distributed flyers announcing our new neighborhood association, I received an email from someone regarding mailbox abuse. Now I was meeting him face to face. He’s probably about my age, my size, with a shaved head that seems to intensify his wrinkled brow and angry frown.
By the way, I looked it up and technically he is right about his mailbox. I only tried to use it because there was no place else to put the flyer: no chair, no flowerpot and certainly no welcome mat. The house is neat but with no landscaping – perhaps because yard work means he might have to spend time outside and engage someone such as me.
Just three houses earlier I met for the first time a newcomer to the neighborhood. He was out watching a sprinkler he had placed on a bare spot under a tree. He looked at the flyer and asked if it would be okay if he cooked hotdogs for everyone. “That’d be great,” I said, and then he told me about some of the work he’d done on the house. He was freely offering details about himself that I hadn’t asked for. “Just the type we do want,” I thought.
The contrast couldn’t have been greater, and it’s easy to make a quick judgment about the angry man – that some people are just mean and angry by nature. They don’t want to be a part of anything. They want to be left alone and so that’s exactly what we should do. We’ll not only leave them alone but we’ll ignore them completely. As far as we’re concerned, their house is empty.
Not so fast. Nobody comes out of the womb that way. Most likely there’s a backstory to this man’s anger. I may never know it, and it isn’t my right to know it, but it just may be my responsibility as a neighbor to respect it and make room for it. And certainly not to judge it.
After all, I lived in my previous neighborhood for 19 years, and while I provided financial and moral support to the neighborhood association, I did so from behind closed doors. I didn’t go to any events or meetings. I didn’t want to be bothered. I wanted to be left alone. No wonder that when death changed my world and I found myself living alone, nobody from the neighborhood came calling. They gave me what I had wanted: total privacy. I reaped exactly what I had sown.
It’s strange now that I’m the one roaming the neighborhood handing out flyers. Stranger yet that I’ve been the president of our neighborhood association since we formed two years ago. And once again, I’m reaping what I’m sowing. During the summer when we were out of town and got a call from our security company, I called a neighbor. As soon as I said “alarm” he interrupted and said, “I’m walking to your house right now,” and we stayed on the phone as he checked every door and window. A false alarm brought an example of the blessing that comes when we are neighborly to our neighbors.
So, what to do about the angry man on the block? The first thing is to set aside the response I dreamed up in my childish imagination: to sneak over there at night and superglue his mailbox shut once and for all. That would show him, right? Wrong. That would just show him the mean person I can be in my mind, and by association, what kind of mean neighborhood association we are, which we aren’t at all. We’re a friendly, live-and-let-live neighborhood, and I’ll try to respond in that manner.
Bottom line: Our neighbors don’t have to come to the party to be our neighbors. They don’t have to be friendly or nice or helpful or anything at all. They are our neighbors because they share the street with us. But it’s a two-way street, and regardless of how they choose to travel it, we have a choice in how we travel it too: angry, friendly, indifferent, respectful, closed, open. The choices are many.
“. . . a beautiful day for a neighbor, would you be mine?”
Tuesday, September 29, 2015 (WBC)
Heels over head
After three breakneck days of driving to San Antonio for a writing assignment, coming back through Waco for a football game, and then a busy Sunday morning and afternoon with church and committee meetings, how wonderful it was to kick back on Sunday night and do nothing more than gaze at the moon.
With a rare super blood moon eclipse rising above the trees, we pulled a couple of rocking chairs from off the porch and out onto the front sidewalk for a better view. From there we watched as the moon – described in song by Chris Rice as “sugar-white perfection” – was slowly overtaken by the dingy shadow of the earth and then transformed to an eerie yet beautiful dark orange.
As we observed the heavenly changes, we snacked on crackers and almonds and cued up songs like “Moondance” by Van Morrison and Ella Fitzgerald singing “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” Our neighbor Ray came over with his camera and that prompted me to go get mine. My pictures pale compared to what I’ve seen from folks with better equipment, but the outing was never really about pictures anyway. It was about marveling at God’s creation and “making memories” as LeAnn likes to say.
And the best memory of the night came as we were rocking there quietly, side-by-side, when suddenly LeAnn let out a little yelp of surprise. In my peripheral vision I saw her disappear and when I turned my head I was looking at her feet instead of her face. Apparently the nails and wood glue on the runners had given way and she had fallen backwards in a slow-motion tumble. Thankfully she fell onto the soft grass and we had a good laugh as she crawled out of the chair and onto her feet. We went back to moon gazing and called it a night when half of the shadow was gone.
We don’t know where we’ll be 18 years from now when the next super blood moon is eclipsed, but we’ll always remember how LeAnn fell heels over head for the moon in 2015.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015 (WBC)
A book and a smile
The assignment seemed straightforward on the surface: Read my children’s book about snowmen to some kids, sign a few books if they want them, ask and answer questions. I’ve done that before at a school library in Austin and a tiny bookstore in Glen Rose. What made this very different was the venue: a giant H-E-B Plus! grocery store in Bellmead. It’s definitely not a gig I would have thought up myself, but we were invited to go by the Texas Association of Authors, and so we went.
And what a great time it turned out to be. In two hours I read the book two and a half times. The first group of kids left in mid story when their parents finished shopping, but the second two groups followed along from start to finish. Between readings we played Simon Says and Musical Chairs and the kids colored with crayons under a tent set up between the deli and the picnic supplies. As you can imagine, LeAnn knew exactly what to do with the kids.
Between readings I walked the aisles with Amberlie Arzola, our host, to invite kids to the reading area, and we visited with a young man named Eric who gamely donned the costume of H-E-Buddy, the chain’s smiling grocery bag mascot.
Along the way we learned that this was not a random event; H-E-B has taken on literacy as a keystone issue in their South Texas markets. In fact, Amberlie is the Literacy Coordinator for the Bellmead store and one of a growing number of such employees among the H-E-B chain. Along with in-store events such as our reading, H-E-B sponsors an annual book drive for schools and families with almost 3 million books collected since 2011. They also award hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to top teachers, principals and districts. And their Read 3 program encourages parents to read to their children at least three times a week.
When we got home Saturday night, I was intrigued enough to look into it further and learned that none of this is new to H-E-B; it’s in the company’s DNA. In 1934, Howard E. Butt Sr., for whom the chain is named, started the HEB Community Investment Program in response to a devastating hurricane in South Texas. That same year he established the H.E. Butt Foundation to fund public school programs and libraries.
Good corporate citizenship for sure, but there’s an unmistakable missionary fervor in all of this. In case you didn’t know, Howard E. Butt helped fund the youth-led revival movement that swept across Texas and the South in the late 1940s and 1950s. Among the young preachers in that movement were his son, H.E.B. Jr., and Bruce McIver, who later became pastor of our own Wilshire Baptist Church. As well, Wilshire’s Bill O’Brien trained the music directors for many of the revivals.
Bruce and Bill brought to Wilshire that DNA of sharing the gospel in both deed and word, and it is alive and well today in many initiatives. Among them are reading, tutoring and mentoring programs at neighborhood schools, with the efforts coordinated by Katie Murray, a Christian advocacy specialist placed at Wilshire for two years in a pilot program funded by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Speaking to Wilshire’s deacons recently, CBF Executive Coordinator Suzii Paynter said this advocacy is not about having opinions and ideas and forcing them on others. “Advocacy is (where) there’s a heart, there’s a mission, there’s a ministry, there’s already energy here around something, and that needs support – that needs new gifts.”
Suzii added: “Any time that you want to have a voice for the Gospel, you have to express that voice in the context that you are living in.”
Sitting under a tent at H-E-B and reading a book about snowmen didn’t feel like ministry or mission or advocacy at the time, but I see now that showing up with a book and a smile can be beneficial to good efforts already under way. And there’s no missing the context: the need for childhood education, and that begins with knowing how to read.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015 (WBC)
The parable of the mower
A man with a tract of land stepped out of his house on a weekday morning to mow his pasture. It was not a day of the Lord but a day of work, and he was heavy with his toils when he noticed the arrival of worshipers at an adjacent temple. They were not a bother to him until their numbers began to swell, and with no more room on the temple grounds to rest their carriages, they began to rest them on the roads leading to the temple.
Now the mower’s tract was adjacent to the temple, and when he began to see that the carriages along his property would hinder the progress of his work, he lay down his tools to help the people find a place that would be advantageous to them for their journey to the temple and would still allow him to complete his labor.
Everyone was satisfied and the mower resumed his labor, but while his back was turned, more carriages came to the road and were rested along the land where he still was working.
Now this troubled the mower not a little, and his anger rose and he was greatly provoked. He raised his head to the heavens, saying, “Are they so blinded by their devotion to the Lord that they don’t see how I labor? Do they not understand that I too am devoted to their Lord and must be away soon to my own temple for a meeting of the elders, but first I must complete my morning labor and mow my pasture?”
With a heart hardened by frustration, the mower began to imagine reprisals and ways of revenge, including continuing to work his land as was his right and allowing the chaff and the stalks to fall all around and upon the carriages. “With this sign they would know that they were wrong,” he said.
But then a voice rose up from somewhere within him and convicted him with the truth that lay hidden beneath his self-righteousness: That he was new to this land while the others had been coming to the temple to study and pray for many generations. And that he had chosen this day to mow the pasture in order to impress the people of his own temple who were coming to his home that very night. And what’s more, did not he rest his own carriage in a like manner along the properties of other land owners when he too went to his own temple in another part of the region?
The mower felt the weight of shame upon his shoulders and he asked the Lord for forgiveness for his thoughts against those who had committed themselves to the work of the temple. And he made a covenant that he would respect the people of the temple and would allow them to come to his property without reservation. And he would greet them with glad tidings and songs of praise because they indeed worshipped the same Lord. And most of all, he vowed that he would never again mow the pasture on this particular day of the week – for it was a day of blessing for those who came to study and worship the Lord. And likewise, he would be vigilant and respectful when he drew his carriage close to the properties of the land owners near his own temple.
As he put away his tools, the mower raised a song of blessing:
Blessed are those who pray in the temple,
Blessed are those who work in the field,
Blessed are those who are careful and watchful,
Blessed are those who know when to yield.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015 (WBC)
Getting ready for dragons
“Are you winning?”
That’s what I asked the young boy sitting at a computer next to me at the Microsoft Store at NorthPark. I was there helping my mother look at new computers, and the boy sat at the computer next to us. It looked like he was gaming, and so I leaned toward him and asked the obvious question.
And his answer? “You don’t really win on this. You do what you want to do.” He explained that you can try to win by killing a dragon, but that was not what he was doing. “I’m getting supplies to fight the dragon.”
He wasn’t fighting; he was preparing. And since he obviously wasn’t going to be there all day to play – his mother eventually called him away – he was practicing the art of preparing. Nice.
I’m not one of those people who believe that everything should be equal and there should be no winners because winners create losers. I believe competition is good because it helps us strive for excellence rather than just settling for being average. It helps us set goals and priorities. Practice is a big part of that; it stretches us, teaches us, prepares us.
Practice includes “getting supplies” as the kid was doing on the computer. On the screen he was gathering physical provisions – sword, fire, water, food, magic potions – but not all supplies are physical. How about knowledge, strength, stamina, skill, faith? Good to have all of those in the backpack.
Perhaps the most important thing we can gather for the battle ahead is a good friend – someone to stand beside us when we need support or when we just need to know we’re not totally alone. They may have nothing tangible to add to the struggle, but their presence may be provision enough. It may be enough to know that they will be there when we get back from fighting the dragons.
When I was going through my worst times alone after the loss of a spouse, my friend Ken would spend Wednesday nights with me. He worked in Dallas but lived out of town, and one night a week he stayed with me. It was a wonderful gift to come home from work and have someone else in the house. We didn’t do anything special; he was just there with me.
Years earlier as kids on a sleepover, we sat down at an early-model computer to play a game that Ken's dad brought home from his technology job. It was called "Adventure" and was very rudimentary; no graphics, just typing words and getting responses. The goal was to enter a cave and bump around in the dark gathering supplies and treasure while watching out for a thieving troll. We didn't realize then that we were gathering friendship along with light, water and food.
I bet that kid sitting next to me at the computer store will grow up to be just such a friend. He’s already learning how to gather supplies. The next step will be learning how to share them with someone who's facing dragons.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015 (WBC)
Memory highway
If you watch network TV at all then you’ve probably seen the State of Oklahoma’s ad campaign touting all the wonderful things you can see and do on “Adventure Highway.” They’re talking about Interstate 35, which runs north and south through the state. It’s a beautiful ad and it does look enticing, although they don’t mention the unintentional adventures you might encounter in the form of rockslides and tornadoes depending on where you are and the season.
A few weeks ago I took a road trip to South Texas on what I’ve come to regard as a “memory highway.” It’s the 200-mile stretch of US 77 from the infamous traffic circle in Waco to Victoria. I’ve made the drive hundreds of times and I know the road well. It’s mostly a two-lane blacktop connecting small towns – some bland, some picturesque – like Rosebud, Cameron, Schulenburg and Halletsville.
The sweet spot of the drive is the 20 miles between Giddings and LaGrange. There, the road rises and falls through a forested landscape dotted with pine trees among the more prevalent oaks and pecans. They are part of the Lost Pines Forest that stands almost 100 miles separated from the East Texas Piney Woods.
It’s a beautiful stretch of highway, and one filled with memories. Like the tiered roadside park on a wooded hillside south of Lost Pines Christian Camp that for years was a favorite place to stop, get out of the car, and take a short break. You could climb the hill, breathe in the fresh smell of pines, and replace the buzz of the highway with the soft sound of wind rustling in the branches above. Sadly, the park was closed some years ago. The picnic tables are gone, the hillside is overgrown, and the entrance is blocked by grim concrete barriers.
I also miss the old iron truss bridge spanning the Colorado River in LaGrange. It felt so narrow that I unconsciously pulled my elbows to my side when crossing it as if that would help me squeeze through. Gone too are the stone walls that were all that might keep you from hurtling off the switchbacks down into the river on the south end of town. They’ve been replaced by more sturdy but less attractive walls.
In Lexington there is a gas station and grocery store that has always been a good midway stop for fuel and a beverage. I stopped there on this recent trip and recalled a time when I went inside to pay and the attendant looked out the window and asked, “Should I call the fire department?” I looked over my shoulder and saw the blue smoke billowing from under the hood. “No, it’s just an oil leak.”
Often I would make the trip on Friday nights and would see whole towns turned out to cheer teams such as the Giddings Buffalos or Lexington Eagles. And then I would plunge back into the darkness save for the oddly reassuring glow from a gas flare at an oil collecting station. Further down the highway I might encounter lines of cars leaving a dance at a Knights of Columbus Hall. And come December, there was no finer sight in the wee hours than the Christmas lights stretching in every direction from the top of the county courthouse in Halletsville.
Those memories may seem mundane, but each one is a strand from a larger piece of the fabric of my life story. That roadside park? I had a Labrador Retriever named Blackie and the park was the perfect place to let her stretch and take care of business. She was a smart, sweet dog and a good traveling companion for a dozen years. As she grew up she forced me to trade in a small sedan for an SUV and that’s all I’ve driven ever since.
As for making the trip at night, I was just starting my career at the Waco newspaper and I couldn’t leave town until after the 8 p.m. deadline – sometimes later if covering the police beat. Often, I would drive down through rural counties where earlier that evening I had been on the phone with police and sheriff departments. Seeing those “Friday night lights” always brought memories of my own nights at the high school stadium playing in the marching band.
And why was I driving 200 miles in a car that leaked oil? Because that newspaper job paid just $170 a week and it was hard to hold onto enough cash to pay for the big fix that was needed. That was my first car – a ’79 Malibu Classic, a gift from my parents before my junior year in college – and she’ll always be my favorite.
My memory highway is no adventure highway, but it’s part of who I am. I don’t drive it as often as I once did, but when I do I’m always refreshed by the memories that come at every turn in the road.
Each of us has something like this – if not a highway, then a street or a corner of a neighborhood that holds memories of events that helped shape us. It’s good to take a drive or a walk through those places from time to time to remember where we came from. As the saying goes: knowing where you’ve been helps you know where you’re going.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015 (WBC)
From sole to soul
The floor was cool and firm, and I could feel the music through the sole of my foot. Jeff Brummel was playing the Widor “Toccata” on the organ as the final statement of worship at the memorial service for Teresa Newtown, and I eased the shoe off my left foot so I could feel the heavenly vibrations.
It is a tradition that started four years ago at our wedding. The pastor had just pronounced LeAnn and me, and we walked up the aisle and entered the narthex just as Jeff launched into the Widor “Toccata.” With that glorious music holding the congregation in place, our souls breathed a big sigh of relief, and one of our family pulled her shoes off to give her soles some relief as well. It was a delightful moment that was caught by our photographer but also caught by our hearts.
I remembered it the next time we heard Jeff play the “Toccata” in church and I couldn’t resist easing a shoe off my foot and making sure LeAnn saw it. I've done it every time since then, and that included this past Sunday afternoon at Teresa’s service. Some might think that was disrespectful considering the occasion, but for me it has become an act of joyful worship, even in the midst of grief.
The “Toccata” has a way of almost lifting you out of your seat, and in my thinking it is akin to what the coming of the Holy Spirit must have felt like at Pentecost. You want to stand up, extend your arms, and let it touch every part of your being. All the more so when you are praising God for the life of someone as beloved as Teresa.
We still appreciate decorum and reverence at Wilshire Baptist Church and so I will never stand up in the middle of the “Toccata.” It’s enough to close my eyes, quietly slip off a shoe, put my foot on the floor, and let the music of heaven rise up through my sole and rattle my bones.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015 (WBC)
Backpacks, boats and hands
A highlight of worship this Sunday at Wilshire will be the annual Blessing of the Backpacks, where school children are invited to bring their backpacks and book bags to the front of the church for a special litany and prayer. The kids may not realize it, but it’s actually a blessing for them; the backpacks just represent the journey of learning and growing they are starting. They’ll be joined at the chancel by teachers who guide them on this journey.
But what about the rest of us? What about those of us who carry briefcases and toolboxes, who work with pens and keyboards, who wear coveralls and aprons, who wield scalpels and hammers? What about the work we do that sometimes seems small and insignificant but nonetheless may have the power to change lives through the sharing of God’s love and mercy. Is there a time of blessing for us too?
There’s an age-old tradition in port cities called the Blessing of the Fleet, where ships and their crews are blessed before going out to sea for the annual catch. One such blessing, said to be used in Destin, Florida, goes like this:
“Most gracious Lord, who numbered among your apostles the fishermen Peter, Andrew, James and John, we pray you to consecrate this boat to righteous work in your name. Guide the captain at her helm. So prosper her voyages that an honest living may be made. Watch over her passengers and crew and bring them to a safe return. And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be upon this vessel and all who come aboard, this day and forever. Amen”
It’s a beautiful prayer but not so fitting for workers in a landlocked city. And, it would be logistically impossible to have a blessing service for all the varied ways that we work and make a living today. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done or can’t be done in some form or fashion – perhaps alone, with coworkers, or with friends in the same field.
There are many fine prayers of blessing over the work you do that can be found on the internet. Following is one I found that was written by Diann Neu, a liturgist and therapist working in Maryland. I like it because it focuses on the one thing that we all have in common: our hands. You might consider praying this or a similar prayer in the coming days. Your work year may not be starting alongside the school year, but there’s never a bad time to pause a moment and ask for God’s blessings over the work you do, no matter what it may be.
Prayer of Blessing the Work of Our Hands
Blessed be the works of your hands,
O Holy One.
Blessed be these hands that have touched life.
Blessed be these hands that have nurtured creativity.
Blessed be these hands that have held pain.
Blessed be these hands that have embraced with passion.
Blessed be these hands that have tended gardens.
Blessed be these hands that have closed in anger.
Blessed be these hands that have planted new seeds.
Blessed be these hands that have harvested ripe fields.
Blessed be these hands that have cleaned, washed, mopped, scrubbed.
Blessed be these hands that have become knotty with age.
Blessed be these hands that are wrinkled and scarred from doing justice.
Blessed be these hands that have reached out and been received.
Blessed be these hands that hold the promise of the future.
Blessed be the works of your hands,
O Holy One.
Prayer by Diann Neu, D. Min, from Imaging the Word: An Arts and Lectionary Resource, Volume 1, 1994.
Tuesday, August 11, 2015 (WBC)
Equal hope
“Faith, hope and love . . . but the greatest of these is love.” That scripture is a longstanding staple of weddings – it was at ours – and the emphasis is always on love. We love to talk about love, but I think hope deserves more attention than it gets.
Hope has been on my mind ever since I finished reading Harper Lee’s new novel, “Go Set a Watchman.” It’s Lee's first and only book since “To Kill A Mockingbird.” The backstory is that Lee wrote “Watchman” first in the late 1950s, her editor suggested a different angle, so it was set aside and she wrote “Mockingbird,” which was published in 1960 to international acclaim.
I’ve read both books and I like “Watchman,” though not as much as “Mockingbird.” Some critics have called it, and I paraphrase, “a first draft that should never have been published,” but I have no issue with the writing. The story, which takes place 20 years after “Mockingbird,” is short on action, but I like good characters and well-described locations and “Watchman” is thick with that. And there are even some great flashbacks to Scout, Jem and Dill, the children we loved in “Mockingbird.” My biggest problem with “Watchman” is that Lee and her editors did not stay true to the storyline, and as a result, the characters are incomplete. They are missing the profound impact of hope – the lack of hope, that is.
Quick review: In “To Kill A Mockingbird,” attorney Atticus Finch defends Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. Tom is clearly innocent but is found guilty. Atticus promises to appeal, but Tom has no hope that an appeal will succeed. He flees captivity and is killed. Anyone who has read the book or seen the movie recalls how devastating that is to everyone, including Atticus. We leave that story believing that Atticus, already a good man, is forever changed by what has happened. We believe that he will never allow something so tragic to happen again in his town and on his watch.
In “Watchman,” that trial is mentioned only in passing, and the big surprise is that it had a different outcome: Robinson was acquitted and presumably lived out his life in peace. Meanwhile, Atticus has become a racist, although in an oddly benevolent way. He believes “the Negroes” can’t be handed all of their freedoms at once; they still need time to become fully mature members of society. But this version of Atticus never experienced the tragic death of Tom Robinson. He never witnessed firsthand the injustice of Tom’s total lack of hope. If he had, he likely would have moved forward in life with an understanding that “equal rights” is not just about equal opportunity and equal access; it’s about equal dignity, respect, honor, and most notably, hope.
I believe much of the racial and class unrest in our society today is the result of that disconnect. People are allowed equal opportunity, but they are still held apart as separate and different. If not in practice, then in thinking and attitude. We want people to have what we have, but we want them to have it over there – out of the way, out of sight even. Equal but separate. The problem is that separate is not equal. Separate implies a withholding of respect and honor, and that breeds a loss of dignity and hope in the ones held separate.
In Christian life we talk a lot about hope – the hope we find in Christ for eternal life beyond this life, and the hope for lasting peace in that future place. But Christ himself gave people cause for hope in the present day through food and shelter, and the dignity that comes with true equality and respect. As his followers, we should give hope freely with whatever else we share with our neighbors. Without hope, those others gifts are lacking.
Tuesday, August 4, 2015 (WBC)
Good to remember
“I’m gonna go back and wring his neck.”
That’s what an AC serviceman said after he asked if the previous technician had done a thorough Freon leak test and I said I didn’t believe he had. The serviceman is 57, and the man he was complaining about is probably all of 25. “I’m disappointed because I’m the one who brought him in,” he continued.
“Go easy on him,” I said. “He’s just a kid and he’s just starting out. He’ll come along.”
No doubt this man made some mistakes early in his career too and he learned over time what to look for and what it means to be thorough. I know I certainly made some mistakes early on. The difference may be that I still remember them.
I recall a few times at my first newspaper job when I turned in a story and the editor called me to his desk. After a short discussion, I walked back to my own desk red-faced because I had failed in my reporting to ask some obvious and often key questions. My face would flush again when I had to make another call and get the answers to the missing questions. After the embarrassment of going through that a few times, I learned to go to an interview with a thorough list of questions covering every possible facet of the topic.
No doubt the AC man’s young colleague will learn quickly from his mistakes and hopefully he won’t get his neck wrung too much, even if just verbally. And hopefully I’ll remember again my own rough start the next time a young waitress forgets to bring the silverware or a first-time clerk gets lost operating the cash register.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015 (WBC)
Failure . . . and other success stories
“What is rejection but the mark of striving.”
That was a pearl of wisdom offered by one of the authors speaking this past weekend at the DFW Writers Conference. I don’t know if that was original out of his mouth or if he was quoting someone else, but for me it became an unofficial theme for the weekend. Much of the two-day conference at the Wyly Theatre focused on how difficult it is to get published, and strategies that one might use to wiggle their way through a crack in the machinery and out into the light of success.
But first there is the striving, and that is always accompanied by failure. As another author put it, “If you’ve been humbled, you’ve made progress.” He wasn’t speaking from a place of despair. Rather, he was stressing the importance of the journey and not the destination. Other speakers said much the same thing, adding that the goal should never be fame or fortune but the creating and the opportunity to share an idea or a story even if with just one person.
These authors provided a much-needed counterweight to the agents and editors who made clear the difficulty of anyone in the room becoming the next Harper Lee, John Grisham or Stephen King. Even if someone is a great writer, the book market is so segmented and overwhelmed with product today that success can be measured in hundreds rather than thousands of books sold.
At one point I thought, “What the heck am I doing here? I should go home and spend my time on something more productive?” But those words about rejection and striving kept coming back to me, and I realized that I’ve just barely begun to strive. What’s more, there was a palpable energy among the writers at the conference – a feeling that you really do have to write because you love it and not worry about how many people might read something. It’s the creating and sharing – and not the selling – that is most important.
I’m writing about writing here, but this really is about anything we attempt that is difficult but is nonetheless worthwhile and beneficial. And it’s applicable to individuals, groups, businesses, or even churches. We can try things and we might succeed or we might fail. But the important thing is that we try, and we don’t measure success by the numbers of people touched but rather just by the touching of people.
The closing event at the conference was the “Pitch Letter Gong Show,” where book pitch letters written by authors were read out loud, anonymously, and a panel of agents and editors listened until they heard something they didn’t like and they struck a gong. Three gongs and the letter was dead and then they told what they didn’t like. It was daunting, it was instructive, and it was hilarious. The room was packed with people wanting to learn about success by understanding what fails. Only one letter got read all the way through, prompting two agents to shout to the crowd, “If this is yours, I want it.”
I didn’t get gonged because I was too scared to put a pitch letter in the stack. But one of the letters I recognized, because during lunch the day before I chatted with the woman whose book it described. Her letter got a good read but was ultimately gonged. Still, she tried and no doubt learned from her failure. As we ate lunch and talked I noticed her walking cane. She told me she has multiple sclerosis and it makes getting around difficult, but not so much to risk not coming and missing a chance to fail in public.
I have a lot to learn about striving and failing.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015 (WBC)
Benchmarks
A while back I was introduced by a friend to another man, and the friend said, “Jeff is my benchmark. He lost his wife to cancer about seven years ago, and he has remarried. I see him and see that there is hope.” My friend is on the journey I’ve been on; he’s just a few mile markers back.
I don’t feel comfortable in the benchmark role, but I do understand the desire. When I was a little more than a year into being alone and starting to feel alive again, I began looking for benchmarks too. I wanted to know where I was on the grief map, and I wanted to know if it was OK to feel OK again. So I started looking for benchmarks and I found them to be inconsistent and sometimes extreme. I met people who had lost their spouse years ago, had never remarried,and who vowed to never do so. And I met people who had married within a year or even just months of their loss.
With benchmarks so varied and even scary, I decided to quit looking for them. I just wanted to live one step at a time, one day at a time. I didn’t put any pressure on myself as to what the future might look like, and I didn’t ask anything specific from God. I wanted to be content and at peace, whether alone or with someone, and so all I prayed was, “Thy will be done.” That is the only prayer that makes any sense to me.
I’m writing this 11 days after my anniversary with LeAnn, and 10 days before the anniversary of Debra’s death. Those events came three years apart, of course, but it’s a narrow gate I walk through on the calendar every year. The close proximity tends to heighten my emotions about both. It also reminds me that life brings both joy and sorrow, and often the two are connected by events.
For the record, I believe my friend’s notion of me as a benchmark of “hope” is not just about me having found love again, although that’s the wonderful way it worked out. I believe his hope is for contentment and peace, as it was for me. And I believe he knows that God is the only reliable source for that. God knows when we are ready for change and when we need more time. God knows the way and makes the connections.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015 (WBC)
Checking the wheel
Have you checked your wheel recently? Not the squeaky one that is always getting attention, but the strong silent wheel that keeps turning and turning, even when it is falling apart.
Before the first lawn mow of the season, I looked at the mower and had forgotten that the front left wheel was falling apart. It’s the wheel on the opposite side of the grass catcher. It’s the wheel that gets the most abuse, the wheel that is always riding on the pavement or rubbing against the sidewalk and the metal landscape edging. It’s the wheel that I push the deepest under the shrubs where it bumps into branches and rocks. I call it the lead wheel because the other three follow it.
My lead wheel had definitely done its job. The last time I mowed in the fall, a long piece of tread had begun to peel off and flopped around as I mowed. It made the going bumpy, but I kept pushing it and it kept going. But now it was worn out, so I pulled it off the mower and took it down the street to the lawnmower shop. The shop owner looked at the wheel, thought a moment, and then led me out back to a barrel where he had a bunch of salvaged wheels floating in water. He reached in and pulled out an exact match. He dried it off with a rag and handed it to me. “Here ya go. That’ll be $2.”
So, have you checked your lead wheel recently? Not the wheel on the lawnmower or car, but that person you know that is doing so much and is on the brink of falling apart but nobody is noticing or everybody is assuming that they are alright.
I’ve known many people like this, and I know some now. You often find them among caregivers or new widows or widowers who have helped a loved one get through their last days to the point of total exhaustion. They do it out of selfless love, dedication and commitment. I was in the presence of one recently, and I hope he gets some well-deserved rest and rejuvenation.
But not replacement. These wheels can’t be replaced. That’s why we need to keep an eye out for them and offer help and support before they wear themselves out.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015 (WBC)
Bushels of blessings
If you haven’t been to Ham Orchards just a few miles east of downtown Terrell on U.S. 80, then you’ve missed a real treat. We try to go there a couple of times every summer, and a visit usually includes a BBQ sandwich under the tin-top pavilion, a stop inside the shop to buy peaches picked that morning from the orchard and some other produce from nearby including squash and watermelons, and then some homemade peach ice cream. A couple of times we’ve picked blackberries, but the peaches are the main draw, and the varieties change through the summer. It’s a big operation and with lots of friendly high school students working the counters, stocking the shelves, and carrying boxes of produce to cars.
We’ve been going to Ham for a number of years now, and we stopped there two weeks ago on our way out of town on a road trip to Louisiana. We probably would have stopped there again coming home, but we took a different route and had a very different experience.
Just outside of Gilmer on our way to Winnsboro to visit former Wilshire member Conrad Wolfman, we passed a little produce stand in front of a house and a sign that said “Peaches,” so we made a U-turn on the rural highway and went back. It was late on a Saturday afternoon and we were surprised to find anybody there, but as we got out of the car we were greeted by an entire family: a couple that looked to be in their 30s, their two young children, and what was probably one of the couple’s parents.
Sitting up on a table under a canopy were baskets of small but good-looking peaches. We eyed a half-bushel but settled for a quarter – enough to enjoy ourselves and to share with our parents and neighbors. As they bagged them up we got to talking and learned that this was a new family business. Just four years earlier they planted 800 peach trees on eight acres. They had a few peaches last year, but now in this fourth year they were harvesting and selling their first real crop.
As the younger couple told their story, I saw in their sunburned faces the fatigue from long days of work but also a glint of hope and expectation that the work would pay off. The children were shy and polite with eyes that expressed wonder and a little bit of worry about their mom and dad’s big dream. And in the eyes and smiles of the older parents I saw the sparkle of joy in the doing and faith in the knowing that pulling together as a family was going to be a success and was already delivering bushels of blessings.
Thinking about it now I realize that four years ago when that family was planting their peach trees, LeAnn and I were planting the seeds of a life together. While many of our friends have large Ham-sized marriages with bushels of children and grandchildren and baskets of memories and stories to tell, we started out late in life and we’ll never be that big. We’re more like that little family on the hillside outside of Gilmer. Our trees are new, but we’ve worked at it together, we’ve put everything we’ve got into it, trusted God with the soil and the weather, and we’re giving thanks for abundant blessings.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015 (WBC)
Cleanup at 901
LeAnn and I took a few days off last week for a road trip, and when the mail finally caught up with us on Monday we were frustrated to find a Code Compliance letter in with all the usual junk mail. Frustrated because we work really hard to keep our property in top shape.
Still, there was the letter highlighting two things that needed attention right away: house numbers on the back of our property, and trimming trees and brush in the alley to city standards of no more than a foot out from the property line and at least 14 feet clearance above.
Keep in mind that our alley is of no real use because in our neighborhood all of our trash pickup is out front, and all our driveways and garages are out front, or in our case, on the side street. What’s more, our alley isn’t even paved. That means every week when I mow the yard, I mow the alley too – keeping clean a byway that nobody uses.
Still, we complied and in fact the tree and brush trimming prompted us to go ahead and do some work in the back yard and alley that we’ve said we needed to do. We cleared out some thorny vines that were crawling up the trees and choking out the camellias and the leatherleaf mahonias. And we cleaned up tree limbs that were hanging almost head high over the back yard. For the city-required tree work in the alley we flagged down a crew that was working at a neighbor’s house. So now the alley is looking good and tidy and we’ll go get some numbers to put on a sign in the alley to declare to nobody in particular that, yes, this is 901.
All this cleanup at 901 has taken place in the midst of a national brush clearing of sorts. In the wake of the horrific church massacre in Charleston, states and communities and neighborhoods mostly across the South have been looking at the brush and briars of history and considering what needs to be cleared out: Confederate flags, monuments to fallen rebel soldiers, other reminders of a time in our nation’s history when not all people had equal rights under the law.
As it happened, we got a big taste of this history while on vacation last week. Weeks ago we blocked out a few days and decided to visit Natchitoches, Louisiana, not knowing we would be touring old plantations in the aftermath of the Charleston shootings. But that’s what we were doing on Wednesday, led by two excellent tour guides. One was a young black woman working through the Historically Black Colleges & Universities Initiative, a program of the National Parks Service; the other was a young white woman who has studied drama at Yale. Both were well versed and engaging as they shared the history of the plantations and the agrarian economy of the region in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
From what I could tell, neither one editorialized or embellished. They both offered a straightforward telling of history. But as we walked and listened, I did wonder what thoughts and personal experiences they might be holding back behind the studied scripts they were following and the professionalism they were practicing. I can imagine that the black woman has endured her share of racism. And a white female Southerner at an Ivy League school in Connecticut might very well be subjected to slights and shames. I don't know.
Remove flags, take down monuments and statues, do all of that and more if you wish. That might change some attitudes and turn some hearts, or it might be akin to putting house numbers in an alley that nobody walks. It seems to me the real brush that needs to be cleared out is ignorance, intolerance, poverty, greed, and prejudice of all types. These are the thorns that are hurting our nation and need our attention – including here at 901.
Tuesday, June 23, 2015 (WBC)
Stepping stones and bridges
“Looks like we need to put down a stepping stone for the postman.”
I said that Saturday after watching the postman jump over the peninsula of our flowerbed to cut across the lawn to the next house. Instead of walking down the front walk, he has made his own way and is determined to follow it, even when the zinnias have grown waist high.
People will go where they need to go, and we can block them, we can live and let live, or we can try to make the way easier.
For a brief moment I had it in my mind to block the postman – to create a barrier that would force him back onto the sidewalk where I wanted him – but in the end that seemed heavy handed and pointless. He wasn’t really hurting anything, and who knows how many similar shortcuts he takes during the day that help him get to our mailbox and on through his route more quickly.
I was making that analysis in my head while sweeping the twigs, feathers and dried bird droppings off the front porch. Earlier in the spring I pursued every imaginable strategy to keep doves from nesting in our hanging fern baskets. The doves responded by moving from basket to basket until they wore me down and I gave up. In the end they did no real harm, and in fact we got to witness the miracle of two hatchlings grow up under their mothers’ wings and fly away. Next year it will be live and let live.
Sometimes it is patient waiting that creates the best way to go. In writing an article about a new quadrangle on a college campus, I was surprised to learn that grass would be planted but no sidewalks would be laid between the buildings initially. The landscape architect explained that many such places are crisscrossed with an ugly web of sidewalks – the ones designed by the planners, and the ones covering the ruts created by students. So for this project they decided to wait and let the students’ natural walking patterns determine where the sidewalks should be.
I was sweeping and thinking about all of that on the Saturday morning after spending several days at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s General Assembly in Dallas. The theme had been “Building Bridges,” and the call was made to cross out of our comfort zones and go to people where they are, helping them and loving them in the context of their own cultures and experiences rather than dragging them over the bridges to our way of being.
It’s a beautiful vision of ministry and mission, and yet the old mindset persists. On Thursday afternoon at CBF, LeAnn and I were volunteering at the registration desk when I saw a woman in a saggy T-shirt and tattered shorts coming through the doors. Her face was sunburned and weathered, and she carried a large plastic bag seemingly bulging with everything she owned. “Here comes a homeless woman,” I whispered. And behind that whisper, I thought, “She doesn’t belong here; this isn’t for her.”
But that is absurd; the work of the church is definitely for her, and she bravely crossed the bridge to come be with us. In fact, she told the volunteer at the next registration station that she was on her way to the Stew Pot community resource center when God told her to stop at the hotel and come inside. She didn’t just belong there; she was invited.
The volunteer welcomed her, registered her, gave her a tote bag with all the usual stuff, and told her to have a great day. We didn’t see her again. She might have attended a seminar or a worship service, or she might have just enjoyed a clean restroom and a cool place to rest for a while. Like the postman and the doves and the students crossing the quadrangle, she was free to choose her own path, and it was our duty and privilege to accept her as she was and help her if we could.
Later, riding home on a crowded DART train after the last CBF event, I watched in admiration as our friend Gayle Lawson chatted up a young girl who had been to the Dallas Museum of Art with her father. Their talk was easy and fun, punctuated with smiles and laughter. Two total strangers creating a brief bridge of friendship together – as natural as jumping over flowerbeds or meandering across a green quad.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015 (WBC)
Family histories
Every family has a date that looms large in their history, and today is that day in the family to which I was born. It was 59 years ago today that my parents were married; that’s when the family officially started. But there’s a double-dip of family history today because it also is my mother’s birthday. Without her, there would have been no marriage, no children, no family at all.
But wait, there’s even more: A few weeks before my parents married, my father graduated from Baylor and was commissioned into the U.S. Air Force. Which meant that for the next three years the government would determine where this new couple would live, and where their two sons would be born: my brother in Houston and me in Montana. Throw in the facts that my parents married on the day before Father’s Day, and my brother was born a year and a day after that, and you can understand why I spend a lot of time at Hallmark every June.
Of course there is some folklore woven into this family history. Like the fact that my parents didn’t know each other but a few months before becoming engaged. And my mother did not give my father a firm “yes” right away. And the story that my grandfather dropped to his knees in prayer when he learned of their engagement, distressed that his daughter would not finish college first. It all sounds rather shaky to me, but it doesn’t change the outcome – that they created a loving relationship and family that has spanned the decades and withstood many tough tests.
Communities have histories, of course, and yesterday our neighborhood celebrated the installation of signs that state: “Embree: Est. 1886.” The signs acknowledge that our neighborhood was the heart of what once was the Town of Embree, which was incorporated in 1886 and disincorporated in 1891 to become the new town of Garland.
Earlier this year we printed a walking tour guide that not only told that story but highlighted some of the older homes on our streets. As with families, community histories contain ample portions of folklore, and a local historian took exception to some of the claims made by homeowners. He may be correct in some cases, but that doesn’t change the bigger story: That we are the beneficiaries of the hard work and spirit of those who came before us and created this place we call home.
Our faith has a history, too, built on events and core beliefs and then overlaid with ideas that may be truth and may be folklore. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which holds its annual general assembly in Dallas this week, was formed more than 20 years ago out of disagreements within the larger Southern Baptist community about some of these ideas. While the knit picking was often painful and sometimes ugly, the central story never changed: “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.”
It’s that story – more than our family tree or street address – that binds us together. If we keep that in focus, our future can outshine our history.
Tuesday, June 9, 2015 (WBC)
Extra Innings
If I seem a little addled today, it’s because we stayed up past 1 a.m. watching TCU and Texas A&M play for a chance to go to the College World Series. I’m not that big of a baseball fan, and I’m neither a Horned Frog nor an Aggie, but we turned it on just before the ten o’clock news and we couldn’t turn it off. It was a compelling game and became even more so as it dragged on past the ninth inning and on through the 16th.
Along the way there was drama with bases loaded for the win but runners left stranded, batters hit by wild pitches, and pitchers hit by line drives. There were missed opportunities and almosts and what-ifs. There also was humor as players and fans alike tried to put the mojo on their respective teams. At one point a player on the TCU bench was wearing every purple cap they could find in hopes of breaking the tie with the tallest rally cap ever. But that didn’t work and the players had to retrieve their caps and take the field for another half inning, and then several more.
In the end, the game was not won with any kind of voodoo or heroics. There was no giant Roy Hobbs home run into the lights and the raining down of sparks as in “The Natural”; no miracle catch at the top of the outfield wall; no sizzling fastball that “struck’em out swinging.” It ended with the flubbed fielding of a routine ground ball at third base, and a runner from second who ignored his coach’s stop sign at third and raced to home plate where the catcher mishandled the throw.
The game was won through persistence, not giving up, fighting against fatigue, and just playing the game the way it was meant to be played: pitch, swing, hit, catch, run, score. TCU won but it could have just as easily been A&M. They didn’t win because they were better; they won just because . . . they won.
Few things in life are settled with magic or heroics. They’re usually resolved by playing out the situation as it was meant to be played; using the skills we’ve developed and practiced; wielding the tools and resources available. Sometimes it will happen as planned, and sometimes it will require extra innings. And as hard as we try, sometimes we’ll win, and sometimes we’ll lose. But always, there will be lessons and memories to go around.
Tuesday, June 2, 2015 (WBC)
Rainy days
The irony couldn’t have been greater: driving through another day of record rainfall in a month of record-setting rainfall to attend a class at the Dallas Arboretum titled “Good to the Last Drop – Rainwater Harvesting.” They might as well have changed the title to “Riding the Waves – Ark Building.” It would have been much more appropriate and useful.
Still, we went on Saturday morning and came home with new knowledge and two rain barrels that we will attach to our downspouts. We didn’t do that right away because, continuing the irony, it was raining too hard and the lightning was too fierce for comfort. But we will connect them before the next round of showers because in a few weeks it will be hot as a branding iron and dry as a bone. We'll be glad then that we are able to water the thirsty flowers and vegetables without depleting the still-uncertain water supply and without paying the city for the privilege. We'll be glad that we took the time on a stormy, rainy day in May to invest some time in something we didn’t think we’d ever need.
There’s a lot of life that feels like building rain barrels in thunderstorms: buying life insurance, drafting a will, setting money aside for college, stockpiling crackers and batteries, even praying and going to church. We feel like everything is going our way and there’s nothing but clear skies and smooth sailing ahead. But bad things happen – or life simply moves more quickly than we imagined – and situations can go from bad to worse if we didn’t do what seemed foolish or unnecessary at the time.
During a conversation over lunch recently a friend made random mention of Honey Island. He knows of that tiny town in Southeast Texas from his travels. I said nothing, but I know the place too: A cutoff to that town is where decades ago a car pulled out onto the highway and caused the wreck that took my sister’s life. The mention of Honey Island brought back memories of broken hearts and shattered dreams, but also of how our family had stocked up on faith and faithful friends who got us through nights of unending tears and days of dry, barren emotions. We came through it stronger, wiser, and in time, more faithful.
Faith, like a rain barrel, isn’t for today when we’re wading deep in prosperity and opportunity. It’s for tomorrow, next month or next year, when there’s not a drop of hope to be found anywhere. It’s for the dry days when our spirit thirsts.
Faith is also for sharing. Something we learned about rain barrels attached to gutter downspouts is that they fill up remarkably fast. The overflow usually is diverted out into the yard or channeled back into the storm water system. But another option is to link more barrels and harvest more rain water for our own use or for sharing with others. That’s true with faith as well. The tears we cry and the lessons learned not only make us stronger, but we can collect them and share them with others who are spiritually dry.
And, if I can squeeze just one more drop out of the metaphor: Natural rain water is better for plants because it doesn’t have the chemicals found in city tap water – chemicals that burn the tips of green plants and ruin the flavor of vegetables. Likewise, sharing empathy and experience collected through our own journey is more nourishing than Bible-thumping proselytizing.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015 (WBC)
The personal touch
As I begin these writings each week, I’m confronted and challenged by a message I’ve typed to myself at the top of the Word document that I always go to. I’ve even highlighted it in bright blue so I won’t miss it. The message is simple: KEEP IT PERSONAL.
The message is a reminder that when I share something from my own life rather than try to wax theological and sound like the seminarian that I am not, the message is better received. You tell me so in Facebook “likes” or comments, and even in the hallways at church. The latter is very satisfying because it is, well, personal.
I think that same message, KEEP IT PERSONAL, if applied to almost any endeavor, will automatically improve the outcome. It definitely makes it more worthwhile and more memorable, and that often prompts a repeat.
Here’s a case in point by way of a personal story: I was saddened in recent days to learn of the passing of Wilshire’s Mozelle Stewart. I didn’t know Mozelle well at all, but I did know that she was smart, charming, funny, patient, always smiling and eternally optimistic. I only know this because I took a chance on a small personal touch when I volunteered to drive Mozelle and several other women to Wilshire on Wednesdays for the noon meal and Bible Study.
My first impression of Mozelle – and one of my favorite memories of the entire experience – was forged on the first day I drove. I’d picked everyone up at the two locations, gotten them all buckled in and their walkers stowed, and rolled out of C.C. Young and up to Northwest Highway where the van shuddered and then shut down. It was close to 100 degrees outside, horribly humid, and the air conditioning had been running on high. There was no mistaking the problem: the battery had died.
Between calling the church for help, lowering the windows to get a breeze going, and jumping outside to wave the other cars around us, I fought back my panic and embarrassment. I also decided in my own mind that this was too much responsibility and I wouldn’t subject myself to it again. Forget the personal touch; I can help keep the buses running by writing a check.
But it didn’t work out that way. Mozelle and the women calmed my fears by assuring me that they were okay and that everything was going to be fine. Help came, we got the bus started, and the women got to church on time. On the way back afterwards, they were the ones apologizing to me for the inconvenience. All of them thanked me as they got off the bus, and I can still hear Mozelle saying, “We hope you weren’t too discouraged. We hope you’ll come back.”
It was that message – their personal touch – that gave me the confidence to give it another try and to keep coming back for almost two years. A lot of what we do as a church does require financial support, but there’s also a great need for people willing to help keep it personal.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015 (WBC)
Gratitude shared
Our niece and her fellow SMU biology graduates were told that they would be given a single red rose as they crossed the stage. After the ceremony, they were to give the rose to someone they wanted to thank for helping them cross the finish line.
“This will be the first hard decision you have to make as a graduate,” the department chairman said with a sly grin. The audience and the graduates chuckled, too, because everyone understood the absurdity of the assignment. With 50 graduates, 50 roses and probably 500 people in the audience, you didn’t need a degree in math to know there could only be 10 percent coverage.
Some years ago when my nephews graduated from their small town high school, there were just six graduates in their classes. The tradition in their ceremonies was a 10-minute period in which all the graduates roamed the auditorium delivering roses and hugs to whoever they wished. With plenty of time and dozens of roses, it was an easy task to blanket family, friends and faculty with appreciation.
That was high school. The bar is raised higher at university, and that was the case at SMU on Saturday afternoon. But by the time the ceremony was over and we all were waiting outside for pictures, our niece had solved the problem as perhaps only a dual biology/chemistry major would: She broke her rose down to its primary elements. She didn’t come outside with a single long-stem rose in her hand. Instead, she carried a stack of carefully peeled rose petals. And one-by-one, she passed them out to her parents, brother, cousins, grandmother, good friend, uncles, aunts. One rose shared by eleven of us.
Looking at the keepsake sitting on the desktop in front of me, I marvel at the beauty of nature and the imagination of a young lady who found a way to say thank you by tapping into the miracle of her mind and the generosity in her heart.
The rose petal already is shriveling and will crumble before long, but love and gratitude will continue on.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015 (WBC)
Baptisms
The soft splash and gurgling sounded like someone wading into a baptistry as the man stepped down into the crawl space under our house. We had an inch and a half of rain the night before, and when the sump pump failed, we had six inches of water under our floors. We joked that perhaps we should stock it with koi fish, but really we just wanted the water gone.
So a man more knowledgeable than I waded in, assessed the situation, and fixed the problem. He also was more brave than I because I don’t do plumbing or electrical work. I’ve tried my hand at minor plumbing; once a simple faucet fix at an old house escalated into a broken pipe and the need for a backhoe in the alley. And electrical work, if not done right, can have shocking results. Add six inches of water, and, well, no thanks.
So we called in a pro and he took care of us quickly and efficiently. I can tell you that he is not as educated as I, but that doesn’t mean he is less intelligent. We all have our interests, our specialties, our talents, our callings. Some are called to minister and baptize, and some are called to wade into other waters.
Sometimes our callings are discovered in school, sometimes by accident, sometimes during baptisms of fire. Often, it’s a mixture of these. In my case, the knowledge of what I could do came one summer when I was assigned to be the scribe for a week-long Boy Scout leadership camp. I’d never done anything like that before, but I jumped into the challenge with both feet. Instead of just keeping logs of events and people as was the expectation, I wrote a narrative of the week and got a good taste of what I’ve been doing ever since.
We’re now entering that season of graduation ceremonies that has many people considering their callings. High school seniors are taking a next big step toward discernment and preparation. Many college graduates are stepping into doing what they’ve been studying to do. Newly empty-nested parents may be ready to review and update their own calling, because callings don’t always last a lifetime; they can change as we continue to grow and learn.
At the Baptist church where I grew up, it was not unusual to see people of all ages come down to the front at the end of a Sunday service, not to join the church or declare their faith, but to “rededicate” their lives. It was a way of saying they had found a new track, a new purpose, a new calling. They weren’t asking to be baptized, but in many ways that’s exactly what was happening – they were declaring their baptism into a fresh new calling in life.
Perhaps a key to contentment is to seek excellence in whatever we are called to do, and when the spirit nudges, to be open to new callings and baptisms – whether wet or dry.
Tuesday, May 6, 2015 (WBC)
The time is now
The 2015 NFL Draft ended just a few days ago, and today Sports Illustrated magazine posted a 2016 mock draft. Really? Yes, really. No matter that the athletes just drafted have not yet packed their bags and moved to their new homes. We’re already rushing to sort through the prospects for 2016.
Likewise, political pundits are already handicapping the candidates in the 2016 elections at every level. No matter that there is important, life-impacting legislation that needs to be debated and decided right now by the people who currently hold those offices.
At Wilshire there was a phrase that popped up a few times in sermons and blog posts during Lent: “Fast on the past, feast on the present.” The message was to live fully in the present; to be present to the life we have right now and the people we share our lives with. While we can pay homage to the past and certainly learn from the past, we’re missing the blessings of today if we are constantly reliving our yesterdays – whether that is basking in our successes or wallowing in our failures.
As for the future, some amount of planning is always good. But to leap or rush or hurdle over the present to live in the future? First of all, it really can’t be done because the needs of the present have to be attended to in the present even if we are projecting ourselves out on the horizon somewhere. But more important, it’s a waste of God’s blessings today, whether they come in the form of great joys, difficult trials or ordinary moments.
I’m tempted to roll out Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 – or cue up The Byrd’s “Turn, Turn, Turn” – which speak of there being a time for everything. Implied in that well-known scripture and song is the truth that none of the things that there is a time for can be experienced in the future or the past. They can only be experienced in the “now” in which they happen. If the time to plant is now, then you have to wait for the time to harvest. You can’t jump ahead. If you try to rush the harvest, you miss the special “now” time of nurture and waiting, and you ultimately stunt the growth and the bounty of the future you desire.
So, let’s tap the brakes a little and slow down the rush toward tomorrow. It will be here in just a few hours, which is soon enough don’t you think? There’s plenty right now to do and see and cry and laugh about and thank God for.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015 (WBC)
Enlightened by lightning
Driving across Central Texas in the dark on Friday night, we watched in awe as lightning danced across the northeastern sky. We were following the storm that had just blown through Waco, and the lightning came in little spots, giant sheets and jagged bolts that darted from cloud to ground and cloud to cloud. With classical music playing on the stereo, it was almost like one of those choreographed fireworks shows. But instead it was an amazing display of God’s power and caring, because the lightning was part of a storm that watered the earth, fed the plants and filled the lakes, which in turn provide the water we drink.
We watched it all as we drove home from a tenth anniversary celebration for the Baylor University School of Social Work. LeAnn is a new member of the school’s board of advocates, and the night’s banquet was the culmination of a full day of meetings for the board. The highlight of the event was the announcement that the school has been named the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work in honor of the dynamic woman who breathed it into being and led it through its first decade.
I was just a first-time guest at the banquet and don’t have the intimate knowledge of the school, but there was no mistaking that great things are happening as a result of Diana Garland’s vision of putting Christ back into social work. What’s more, the 500-plus people that gathered were a strong reminder that social work and ministry can be one in the same and can be practiced from a variety of backgrounds – from the pulpit to the pews, from the church to the government agency, from missionaries to business people. All can be called to share God’s love and tender mercy, because all are implanted with God’s love and caring.
Diana Garland said it this way on Friday night: “All this school has accomplished has been because God has bound us together, magnifying our strengths and shining through our weaknesses.”
We often talk about “catching lightning in a bottle,” which means trying to do something amazing or difficult, or trying to repeat a success that was unusual or special. But in the fifth chapter of Matthew, Jesus talks about just doing what comes natural with our light: “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.” That’s about being who you are and doing what you are created to do. A city on a hill can’t help but be seen; a candle is intended to be placed on a lampstand.
And when we do God’s work by simply being who we are together, the results can be remarkable. In a new book titled Powers of Two, Joshua Wolf Shenk explores the creative magic that happens when two or more people work together. In a recent interview, he said:
“The power of two is the dynamic of exchange and challenge and inspiration and sometimes competition that drives creativity. It’s behind every story of creative achievement that I know of, but it’s largely unrecognized because we are so enthralled with the myth of the lone genius and this idea of immaculate creation: that masterpieces are born within the mind.”
Diana Garland speaks of this too: “We have achieved far more than any group of people could have humanly done alone, and most certainly not due to any one person’s leadership.”
As we drove home Friday night, we were reminded of these ideas as we watched the lightning show. We saw how God’s power and love isn’t bottled up but instead is splashed across the sky. We can do the same, and if we work together, God can magnify his light shining through us.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015 (WBC)
Unstoppable
At lunch recently my lifelong best friend told me that by summer’s end he will be a grandfather. He shared the news by showing me a picture on his iPhone of his son and daughter-in-law who were beaming above a sonogram image of the child that is coming. It’s wonderful news, exciting news, and I’m happy and proud for them all. And I’m thrown off kilter, too.
I don’t know why this tweaks me like it does. Other friends have had grandchildren. My brother has grandchildren. There’s nothing unusual or unexpected about it. It’s supposed to happen that way. Perhaps because I have no children and haven’t experienced the natural progression of life in which children grow up and have children of their own, I still carry a mental backpack full of souvenirs from my own childhood.
Case in point: As I looked across the table at my friend, I still saw the seventh grader that I hung out with. Sure, we dreamed out loud about life and love and what it might be like to have families of our own some day, but then we’d forget about it all and go ride bikes somewhere. All of that adult stuff was for another day. Except that it wasn’t. The dusty gravel roads we used to ride out across are now six-lane boulevards leading to neighborhoods, schools and shopping centers – just as our faces are lined by love, marriage, careers, joy, heartbreak, and in his case, children and now grandchildren.
This unstoppable movement of life from birth to childhood, youth, adulthood, mid-life and on is more than I can comprehend at times. In my school books I’d see pictures of old gray haired men – Albert Einstein, Carl Sandburg, Winston Churchill, Walt Whitman, Henry Ford – and it seemed to me they had lived for centuries and they had the resumes and accomplishments to prove it. But now I understand that their own lives, as full and historic as they were, were just as swift and brief as any of our ordinary lives. Their likeness might be frozen forever in the pages of books, but their days were but a blink of the eye in the grand scheme of things.
So, all I can do – all any of us can do – is trust it all to God. There’s certainly no way we can make time stand still. The older and wiser among us would tell us we shouldn’t want time to stand still. And I think that is because God builds into us a knowledge and wisdom that grows as we need it.
As I was talking with my friend, I said that I wished I had started some of this writing business 20 years ago, but then I quickly reasoned that 20 years ago I didn’t know anything worth writing about. I think God designed our lives to be that way: to live, play and learn in our early years; work, create and build in our middle years; and reflect, share and teach in our later years. I think that is why our marvel at a young person who seems wise beyond their years is often tinged with some sadness for their loss of innocence and playfulness too soon. And I also suspect that is why most people I have known over age 80 do not regret the past. I believe God turns those pages for us in preparation for the next big adventure.
Still, I wish that I could slow things down just a little, but my friend won’t let me. Just yesterday on Facebook he celebrated his son’s and father-to-be’s 28th birthday. Darn, I thought I was just 28 myself.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015 (WBC)
Feet on the ground
St. Francis is looking a little puny these days. The purple irises we planted at his feet are towering over him and he looks like the little kid at the parade who is trying to see through the legs of the grownups.
This isn’t the white concrete St. Francis statue I wrote about once in this blog that had a squirrel sitting on his head. This is a taller, terra cotta version from Santa Fe. He had an identical twin that we sent to live in South Texas but was bumped and broken in a driveway accident. Life is not easy for a saint.
Perhaps I should put this one on a pedestal so he can be better seen by those who drive by. After all, that’s what we often do with our saints: We put them on pedestals. Whether they are the canonized saints of the church or just the good people we appreciate and admire, we have a tendency to want to raise them up above the rest. In some traditions that includes naming a church after them – from a St. Paul’s Cathedral on down to a Davidson Memorial Bible Fellowship or some such place. Or sometimes we at least honor them with a wing or a building, such as McIver Chapel and James Gallery at Wilshire – places of worship and fellowship named for men who led us wonderfully in those endeavors.
That keeps them in our memory, which is a good thing, but it may elevate them more than they desire. Most of the saints I have known have been uncomfortable with attention and adoration. They’ve preferred to work hard and keep a low profile, letting others take the credit – and most certainly giving all the honor and glory to their God. Like our terra cotta Francis, they’ve not minded being overshadowed by the tall, showy flowers. But, they’ve not hidden from responsibility or commitment. Like the saints of old that we depict in our backyard art, they’ve stood tall and strong through the sun-scorched days and the cold stormy nights. That, more than their good works, is what makes them saints.
So, on second thought, I’ll just leave St. Francis with his feet flat on the ground, behind the purple irises. That seems appropriate for the likeness of a man who shook off cultural affluence to pursue spiritual wealth. And from the viewpoint of our terra cotta Francis, looking through the big purple blooms, wealth and poverty depend on your perspective.
Tuesday, April 7, 2015 (WBC)
God’s bracket
Whew, we’re almost done with another season of March Madness. The men’s NCAA championship game on Monday night was terrific – two great teams playing great, competitive basketball – and the women will finish Tuesday night. And hopefully nobody will have gone truly mad, although there have been plenty of crazy quotes.
Such as: “The man upstairs has been with us, and he’s going to see us through.” That’s what the head coach of a women’s team said in a post-game interview last week after they won their way into the next level of their bracket. When I heard it I snorted out loud: “No . . . God doesn’t care who wins a basketball game. God doesn’t have a bracket.”
I’m sorry, but I get so tired of hearing athletes and coaches claim that God is in their corner, on their side, in their huddle, on their bench. I don’t believe it’s in God’s nature to take sides – in sports, in business, in war. But that’s not to say that God doesn’t care. And that’s certainly not to say that God isn’t present. God cares for us and is with us more than we can imagine and certainly more than we deserve.
If God did have a bracket, it wouldn’t be one that keeps narrowing the field; instead, it would keep expanding the field. That’s because everyone is a top seed, everyone is a contender, everyone can go all the way.
How do I know? Because it is when I’ve been the biggest loser, when I’ve been flat on my back, when I’ve been sulking on the bench that I’ve felt God’s presence the most. Not saying, “Get back out there and win,” and certainly not promising a win, but instead reassuring that I’m not finished and that God is not finished with me.
Through God we all win, but not in a superficial, championship way. We win with a life that has meaning, a way of living together that celebrates the best of us. We win with a hope for the future.
In fairness to that coach, let me offer another interpretation of what she said: Indeed, God is with us, and God will see us through, but that doesn’t mean God will help us win. It means God will give us the strength to endure and keep going, even if we have lost in a human way.
For the record, that coach’s team didn’t make it to the championship; they’ll be watching like everyone else. They won’t win the trophy, but they still are winners.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Dirty feet and all
“A new command I give you: Love one another.” That is the maundy – the commandment – that Jesus gave his disciples in the upper room on that last night together. It seems so simple, so logical, so natural, and yet it is perhaps the hardest commandment to keep. For me, anyway.
It’s easy to like someone, to put up with, to endure, to tolerate, to accept even if just grudgingly. But to love unconditionally, unwaveringly, unhindered, unbridled? Without qualifiers, without conditions, without “yes, but . . .”? That is truly difficult; perhaps even impossible.
My thought process often is, “Yes, I love that person, but I do expect him to shape up and be who I think he should be. I will put up with him until then. My love can carry me through this uncomfortable, difficult transition period until he becomes the person that I find more acceptable.”
But Jesus had no such qualifiers or stipulations. In fact, he gave the commandment and added, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another,” and he said all of that right after washing his disciples’ feet. This is usually explained as an act of generosity and hospitality, but what I see and hear Jesus saying is, “Love one another – dirty feet and all.” Replace “dirty feet” with whatever it is about someone that keeps you from loving them unconditionally and you get the idea.
For me, the darkness of Maundy Thursday is not the fading of the light in the church, the snuffing of the candles, the exit into the symbolic silence before Easter. Rather, it is the hardness in my heart that keeps me from loving people with dirty feet.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015 (WBC)
Pictures of real life
On a recent clear night the crescent Moon and Venus were absolutely brilliant, leading a friend on Facebook to say, “It is beautiful but my Nikon said ‘Too dark. Stop trying.’” To which I would add: Just enjoy the beauty that you see and burn it into your memory – the one that is in your soul and not on your computer drive.
There was a time in my life when I looked at the world through a camera lens. It started in college where my degree in journalism required several photography courses. I bought a good all-around camera – remember the Canon AE1? – and I spent much of the next decade looking at the world through a camera lens.
I loved taking pictures, but I began to notice some creeping anxiety in the process. I would go on a trip and become distracted about “getting the shot.” I’d look at a building or a garden or a landscape and think about framing it in the viewfinder rather than just experiencing it and enjoying it. And back in the day when we still used film, I worried not only about getting the shot but about having enough film on hand to get the next shot. And that, of course, had me looking for the familiar yellow Kodak symbol in shop windows.
That all changed when my camera was stolen and I didn’t replace it. I started using my eyes, and I quickly found that vacations and events were more enjoyable, more restful, more memorable. I began capturing moments and experiencing life with my heart and not just my camera.
Photography has changed since then. It has become easier “to capture the moment” with digital technology and then relive it immediately and share it or even edit it or reshoot it on the spot. For me, snapshots are still OK for capturing quick moments with people, but I am all done with trying to capture and freeze the infinite grandeur and beauty of nature for viewing at another time.
But even a snapshot can’t adequately capture a taste, a smell, a sound, a touch. I can look at a picture and recall that I was there, but it is the heart that remembers what being there meant. A case in point: My parents recently gave me a little black-and-white photo of me and my siblings sitting on the sofa with my grandparents. LeAnn asked if I remember that day. I don’t, but I remember what it felt like. I remember the fun of going to see my grandparents, I remember their voices, I remember their love. The photo will fade, but those feelings will last forever.
There is something of this in the Easter story. God wasn’t content to view his creation second hand, like digging through a box of snapshots or scrolling through endless digital files. God wanted to live life for real, as we do. God wanted to experience our joys and sorrows for real, as we do. God wanted to suffer the fear and pain of death for real, as we do. And in the end – or is it just the beginning? – God wanted keep us with him forever. Not just in a picture, but in real life.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Living water, bread of life (WBC)
Did you know that Sunday was World Water Day? I didn’t, but I’ve learned that the day was first designated by the United Nations in 1993 to bring attention to the importance of protecting water resources and meeting the needs of so much of the global population that doesn’t have water enough for irrigation or for safe drinking and cooking.
I don't know if it is just a coincidence that World Water Day falls during Lent, but I like the placement. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is quoted, “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” Jesus came to the world as living water and to share that living water. On one level that water is his sacrifice on the cross that bought for us a way to eternal life. But on another level, it speaks to how Jesus came to show us a better way to live with each other on this side of eternity – to establish God’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” And bringing pure, clean, life-sustaining water to impoverished people is a wonderful way to share Christ’s living water both literally and spiritually.
Likewise, we often refer to Jesus as “the bread of life,” as again in John, he said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Just as with World Water Day, that implies more than just offering a soul-lifting slice of spiritual bread on Sunday morning.
I was sitting at a fast food restaurant one day and watched as a bedraggled man walked down off the highway, asked for a cup of water at the counter, and sat at a table. He soon was joined by two young men who opened their Bibles and began talking to him. I strained to listen and heard the usual phrases of Christian witnessing. The man did not say anything but eventually got up and walked back out to the highway. I don’t know his story, but my guess is he would have benefitted more in that moment from some real bread – a burger and fries, perhaps – and not just spiritual bread.
By the way, I didn’t offer to feed the man either. My eavesdropping was of even less help than an open Bible, but it did convict me and I’ve tried ever since then to do more than just watch or preach.
Yes, Jesus saves us spiritually, but he also calls us to help save our flesh and blood brothers and sisters with real food and water – and shelter, education, medicine, and the list goes on. He asks us to share out of our abundance and not just try to pray or preach people into health and prosperity.
As we use this time of Lent to examine ourselves and what Christ has done for us, we’d be failing if we didn’t also take a hard look at what Christ wants to do for others through us.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015 (WBC)
Enough already
The picture on Facebook was gaudy and enticing: A hand gripping a large roll of cash and an urgent plea to forward the photo with the message: “In the next 24 hours God will bless you with plenty of money.”
Oh, where do we begin with all the wrong-headed assumptions here?
“Plenty of money” is enough. – Sorry, but plenty is never enough. When you have some, you want more. And when you have more, you want much more. Yes, I know from experience that getting your head above water is a good thing, and we should strive to help others reach that level of comfort and security. But waving the carrot of wealth feeds nothing but our worst inner longings.
Money is a blessing. – I’ve fantasized about what I would do if I had more money. I’ve thought about how I might feel blessed by having more, and how I could bless others by sharing “the much more” that I might have. But to be honest, I haven’t always had a good attitude about sharing, so it’s good for God to continue to work with me on sharing what I have at a manageable level.
God wants to bless you with money. – This idea is as old as civilization, and there’s just no proof that God wants us to be wealthy. People who say God wants to bless us with wealth are as wrong about the nature of God as the people who kill in the name of God. God has the power to kill the wicked and to financially reward the righteous, and the fact that God doesn’t do either one with any consistency tells me that retribution and wealth aren’t the goals of this life or of God’s kingdom.
The only currency God cares about is relationships, which we can have and have abundantly whether we are rich or poor. There is no entry fee to love one another and to live abundantly in relationship with each other and with God. And there isn’t any financial reward for that lifestyle either. There’s only the grace and peace of knowing that we have loved and that we are loved.
Instead of a picture of a hand holding a wad of cash, how about a picture of a hand holding another hand with the message: “God will bless you always for loving each other.”
Monday, March 16, 2015
Abide with me
As I left the house to run an errand, I plugged my iPhone into the car and as usual I heard the first notes of “Abide With Me.” That’s because the device always begins playing my 900 stored songs in alphabetical order. I usually skip over “Abide With Me,” but this time I let it play.
“Abide With Me” hasn’t always been the first song in my iPhone. I added it on purpose to avoid the embarrassment of having “The Acid Queen” pop up first. That song is from the rock opera “Tommy,” and I have most of that album on my iPhone. It’s a relic of the ’70s that I happen to like, in part because it has a hint of a messianic story line. I’d delete that song, but I’m a hoarder of music. Still, I couldn’t abide the name of that song popping up on my dashboard every time I plug in my phone, so I downloaded a vocal arrangement of “Abide With Me” by Irish singer Hayley Westenra.
This version of “Abide With Me” has its own irritation: The first over-long vocal note sounds like a siren. Once with Steve Conner in the car, I plugged in my phone and he jerked his head around and asked, “Where’s the ambulance?!”
Most of the time when I hear that sound I skip past “Abide With Me” to find something more current and trendy, or something that has been rattling around inside my head. Sometimes I just touch the Random button on my dashboard and take whatever comes.
But this time, as I turned a corner and faced the sunset for the first time in more than a week, I decided to let Hayley have her say:
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.
It was good to abide in that song for a change. And in listening to it, to abide for a moment in the presence of the Lord.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Mowing in the rain
I’ve been working inside all morning, looking out occasionally at the latest wave of rain. I’d enjoy the sound of raindrops on the roof and windows, except that someone has been mowing all morning long – in the rain. Earlier today the sound was coming from the church across the way; they always mow on Friday, rain or shine. And then in the late morning it was a neighbor nearby.
Hearing the groan of the lawn mowers puts me a little on edge because I need to get out there and do the same. The winter weeds have gone crazy with all the recent moisture and the yard is looking shaggy, and I’m not a shaggy yard guy. And I’m anxious to get out and crank up the mower and make sure it is running and ready for the long months ahead. On top of that, I could definitely use the exercise. I don’t do the gym – I just don’t.
But I also don’t mow when it is raining or even just when the grass is wet. The wet grass comes out of the side of the mower in clumps and it gets caked under the housing and all over the blade. The mower wheels push down ruts of grass that don’t get cut and that later pop up in long lines like punk haircuts. The wheels get muddy and that creates muddy trails on the sidewalk, and whatever grass hits the pavement can’t be swept up. There’s just nothing good about mowing when it is wet.
Our spiritual lives are much the same. We all have opinions and preferences on how to go about it. Some of us are sticklers for practices and schedules and we won’t be thrown off by changes in the weather. Some of us hold back and wait for optimal conditions. Some of us are in need of some “spiritual exercise” and just need to get out there and do it.
There’s no right or wrong way to approach the spiritual life, as long as you do approach it in some way. Lent is a good time to set aside some time to be quiet, reflect, pray, listen. You can do that sitting in a warm corner of the house, or you can even do it out in the rain.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
No holy whack-a-mole
“Here’s my definition of life: You face a bunch of problems and you have to deal with them one after the other. So just go take care of it!”
We were sitting at a restaurant eating dinner and that is what the young man told the young girl in the next booth. She was dealing with some kind of relationship issue, and he was telling her to stop stalling, confront it, and deal with it. He was adamant. He raised his voice. He used foul language. “Don’t worry about the pain because when you are finished with that problem there will be another and then another. Don’t let them stack up. Just knock’em down.”
Okay, I’m paraphrasing and embellishing, but that was the spirit of what he was saying. There was some wisdom in his general advice – to not let things get out of hand but go and face them and deal with them. And it is true that when this problem is resolved, there will be others. But there was some youthful naivety too. You can’t just bull your way through life. You can’t play whack-a-mole with every problem that pops up. Especially not with people. There are so many nuances, so many variables, so many repercussions. The best thing you can do is at least start a conversation.
I’m glad God doesn’t play whack-a-mole with us. I’m glad God wants to have a conversation instead. God is always listening. We have to put down our mallet, be quiet, and start the conversation. And then we have to be quiet and listen, too.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015 (WBC)
True colors
Monday afternoon, while getting ready to go to the Big 12 Women’s Basketball Tournament, I had to make a fashion decision: Wear an official Baylor sweatshirt or T-shirt, wear a regular green shirt but unmarked, or just wear one of my usual shirts, most of which are some shade of blue. I chose to wear an unmarked green shirt because it was comfortable and warm. And I reasoned that with much of the crowd wearing burnt orange, people would know by my plain green shirt who I represent.
Years ago I wrote a memoir for the founder of a large Dallas business and was intrigued that he did not want his company to be known as a “Christian business.” He was a devout man and had surrounded himself with colleagues of similar character and beliefs, but when some in the business wanted to make an official statement of Christian values, he said no. There were practical reasons: He didn’t want to be labeled a hypocrite if someone made a mistake, or if the company had to make an honest but tough decision. He also didn’t want to use Christ as a marketing ploy as some businesses have done. But more than anything else, he just wanted his company’s actions to speak for them rather than some official banner.
Wilshire’s Bill O’Brien says that while doing mission work among Muslims in Indonesia, he learned to describe himself as a “Christ follower” and not a Christian. The Muslims understand who Christ is and they respect him as a great prophet. But Christians? Well, they hear us say that America is a “Christian nation” and then they see our television shows and movies laden with violence, greed and immorality and they draw understandably negative conclusions.
Which all goes to say that having the official colors, logos and mottos doesn’t say as much as how you live and how you treat people – whether doing business with them, ministering to them, or just being their neighbor. In fact, you can learn more about someone – who they are, what they need, how you can be better neighbors – by listening to them than you can by telling them who you are or waving your colorful flag in their face.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Tabernacle people
This morning in a wonderful, thoughtful message, Britt Carlson challenged us to be “tabernacle people” rather than “temple people” – to carry God with us into the world and not just keep God housed in the church.
Sitting in the Wilshire Wind Symphony, below the chancel with my back to the pulpit, I heard the message with my eyes looking at the congregation. From that position, it wasn’t hard to look past the church people and let my mind wander up the aisles and out the back doors into the city. It was a helpful perspective.
It also was helpful to have my back to the pulpit and the worship leaders. Because to be tabernacle people, you have to believe that you are equally called to bear witness in the world.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Elephants in the room
Did you hear the news? After 145 years, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is retiring its elephant act.
The reason depends on who you listen to. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) says it applied pressure long enough and hard enough to shake the family-owned business into doing the right thing for its herd of Asian elephants. The family says PETA wasn’t a factor. They say they just resolved what has been years of internal discussions. Apparently the “elephant in the room” has been the elephants in the room.
I won’t get into the arguments about whether the elephants were mistreated as performers, except that I’ve read about the sharp bull hooks used to prod them into action, which sounds pretty rough. Some say the elephants don’t like the crowd noise, bright lights and music, but it’s a known fact that elephants are extremely social animals and are adept at remembering specific humans.
When I worked in downtown Fort Worth, it was an annual tradition to stand at our high-rise windows and watch the Ringling Bros. elephants walk from the train to the convention center. We do the same thing on Saturday mornings in the fall as our college football teams walk from the bus to the stadium. It’s all good fun, right?
Harmful or not, the circus is retiring the elephant act. It has become a distraction and in fact a limiting factor because a growing number of city-owned arenas are saying no to elephants and the techniques for handling them. By 2018, all of Ringling Bros.’ 13 performing elephants will have joined 29 others at the company’s 200-acre Center for Elephant Conservation in Florida.
So, here is the question for Lent. (Really? Yes, really): What elephants are we keeping, acceptable or not, that we need to retire – because they are hurting us (or we are hurting them?), or they are taking up space in our lives and our schedules. It might be an addiction that is hurting our health and harming our family, or an otherwise innocuous habit that has become an obsession and is absorbing our time or resources. Or it might just be holding on to something from the past that we don’t really need any longer.
Lent is often thought of as a time for giving up things, primarily for the purpose of clearing the mind and heart for the spiritual journey to Easter. But some use the time to make a commitment to long-term letting go, and in doing so creating room and energy for new things – better things.
Retiring elephants to the conservation center is a great move for the elephants and for Ringling Bros. Without elephants, the circus will create time and space for new ways to entertain, delight and amaze.
And without ___________ (fill in the blank), we can do the same.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
In whatever season
It’s interesting the way we’ve boxed Advent and Christmas into wintertime and Lent and Easter into spring. It seems we want our Jesus to be born on a dark cold night and to rise on a bright warm day; to come into this world under the harshest of human conditions, and to return in an explosion of heavenly glory. But the weather doesn’t always cooperate. Here in North Texas, it was relatively mild during Advent; not once did it dip below freezing, and we enjoyed many days in the 60s. And today, on the 16th day of Lent, it is 25 degrees with four inches of snow and ice on the ground. We’re supposed to be walking through the quiet, thoughtful, prayerful days of Lent, but we just finished an invigorating trudge to the city park, ankle deep in snow, where families were sledding under a clear, sunny sky. We came home and LeAnn made a snowman, while I went inside to work on taxes.
It’s all mixed up, and that’s OK, because Christmas and Easter don’t belong to a season. They belong to the heart – in whatever season the heart is in.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Beware of formulas
In the past year I’ve submitted some of my short fiction and essays to journals that have periodic competitions and claim to have the eyes and ears of agents and publishers. I’ve not won any prizes, not gained any contacts, but I’ve received a blizzard of emails offering seminars on how to whip my writing into shape.
Some of the offerings are rather broad – “Sixty Days to a Bestseller” and “Fundamentals of Fiction” – while others are very specific: “Creating Memorable Characters,” “Plot Perfect Boot Camp” and “Conflict and Suspense.” Some seem to offer tried-and-true formulas, such as “Build Your Novel Scene by Scene” and “Story Mapping and Pacing.” There are even courses on specific genres: paranormal, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, thriller. And this just in today: “Essentials of Romance Writing.” It must be good because the instructor’s last name is Valentine. Seriously.
I also receive email blogs about writing, and every now and then there is something helpful – if not something new, then something that confirms a belief. Under the heading of “How long should novel chapters be?” I read this advice: “There are no hard-and-fast rules on how long or short a chapter needs to be. It could be three pages. It could be 22. It could be 40. You shouldn’t set manuscript guidelines for yourself on chapter length.” And there it is: The formula for chapters is that there is no formula.
Formulas are critical in many areas of life. Coca-Cola and Pfizer have made fortunes based on strict chemical formulas. The relative safety of modern flight is governed by aerodynamic formulas. Formulas are fine if you want consistency and look-alike products – whether they be soft drinks, drugs, movies or, yes, books.
I’m skeptical about formulas for writing, and even more so about formulas for life, love and faith. (And don’t get me started on formulaic books that provide formulas on life, love and faith.) The variables are too many and the desired results are equally so. None of us are the same, and none of us want the same thing.
Perhaps that is why Jesus didn’t come on the scene with formulas for better living. He didn’t prescribe what to sacrifice, how many candles to light, what scriptures to read or hymns to sing, who to congregate with. He simply said, “Love one another.” He didn’t say what that love was to look like; he just said, “Love one another.”
And that, like a good book, leaves plenty of room for conflict and suspense, laughter and romance, interesting characters and wild plot twists.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015 (WBC)
Music and other life adventures
Apparently we are at that time of the year when fifth graders get to choose their band instruments. It’s a big decision, fraught with implications for the student and the parent both now and potentially for the rest of their lives. It can bring noise and chaos in the home and long days at school for the next seven years. It can also cultivate a lifelong love of music, and with a lot of hard work and a large dose of natural talent, it can lead to a wonderful career as a performer, composer or teacher.
I’m the first to admit that I am not a musician. I can play music, but a musician MUST play music. They cannot NOT play music. It is who they are; it is what God made them to be. Still, God gave me a love of music, and music has been an important part of my journey.
I remember vividly the day I chose my instrument – because I didn’t really get to choose. I had braces on my teeth, and Tommy Guilbert, the assistant band director at Pearce High School who would be my teacher at Canyon Creek Elementary, said the only good choice for me was the flute. It would be easier on my mouth and a good place to start.
And so for $100 we bought a student-grade Armstrong flute. I was too young to appreciate the fact that I was the only boy among the girls. Instead, I was self-conscious and nervous whether sitting through a chair challenge or simply just walking to school with the little purse-like flute case in my hand. Still, I endured and learned how to play and ultimately learned that I love music.
My world changed in the seventh grade when my braces came off and I decided it was time to make a switch. I went to Pat Arsers, the director at North Junior High, and said, “Whataya got?” He said, “We have a baritone sax that nobody plays. You blow it differently but the fingerings are the same.” I looked at the beat-up brass beast laying in the huge red velvet case and said, “I’m in.” He put me in a practice room for a week and when I came back out, I sat with the saxes. A real man among men – and a few girls. And that’s what I’ve played ever since. Never played the alto or the tenor; just the baritone.
Except for the extreme weight difference – lugging it around or marching in high school – I’ve never regretted the change. The flute got me started in instrumental music, but the baritone sax kept me interested and gave me so much more. It gave me my best friends in high school and beyond, and after a 25-year hiatus, it gave me a seat in the sax section of the Wilshire Winds. And that put me right behind the flutes and LeAnn. Love and marriage were the ultimate prize, but LeAnn also is the one who encouraged me to stretch beyond my career as a communicator and become what I really am, which is a writer.
We’re not all made to be musicians. We are made to be who God made us to be, and we become that when we do what we love to do. It may be music, or it may be something with math or science or working with people in fields ranging from teaching and social work to medicine and ministry.
So, to my young friends and their parents who are choosing band instruments this week: No pressure. Just opportunities.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015 (WBC)
Mountains and valleys
Laying on a cot Sunday morning in the James Gallery during Wilshire’s periodic blood drive, I looked up and found that I was resting between two of the large paintings in that great room. One depicts a sunny garden wedding celebration and the other a gray deathbed scene. As I looked at the two paintings, the portable stereo brought by the technicians from Carter BloodCare was playing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”
The song is a love anthem from 1970 with Diana Ross belting out the chorus with its less-than-poetic grammar:
Ain’t no mountain high enough,
Ain’t no valley low enough,
Ain’t no river wide enough,
To keep me from you.
Pop lyrics for sure, and if there wasn’t a tube hanging out of my arm, I might have raised my hands and swayed. But as I listened to the song about mountains and valleys, while viewing those scenes of joy and sorrow, I was reminded of Paul’s more poetic words from the Book of Romans: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
In the past seven years I’ve lived in both those painted scenes. I’ve hung my head in the sorrowful valley, and I've stood on the mountaintop hand-in-hand with new love. In fact, when LeAnn and I had our wedding rehearsal luncheon a few years ago, it was in that room with those paintings as the backdrop.
It’s been valleys and mountains, demons and angels, death and life. But the truth is that most of us spend most of our days on the slopes and terraces between the mountains and valleys, the celebrations and the sorrow. We’re on our way up or on our way down.
Or, we’re resting on a ledge trying to map out the next part of the journey with the mountaintop our preferred destination. These places of rest and preparation are also depicted in paintings in the James Gallery: a family dedication, a baptism. But the largest painting in that room encompasses both pop song lyrics and Paul’s letter of hope. It is a scene of a Lord’s Supper table, with people of all ages gathered at the bread and the cup representing God’s gift through Christ’s sacrifice.
That scene is God’s love song to us – God’s assurance that nothing can separate us from his love. It is our resting place between the mountains and valleys, the angels and demons. It is where we stand between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, and if we’re willing, every day of our life.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015 (WBC)
Icons and ashes
When the appliance repair man pulled a small lump of debris out of the washing machine filter, I sorted through it and found that it was mostly just lint, along with a nickel, a penny, and a piece of corroded metal about the size of a quarter. The latter had a four-leaf shape and seemed to be etched with images, so I got my photographer’s loupe and gave it a closer look. Sure enough, each of the leaves bore an image: Jesus, Mary, Saint Joseph and Saint Christopher. In the middle was a dove.
What I found was one of the many religious medals that my late wife Debra carried in her pocket during her lifetime as a devout Catholic. Finding it brought reminders of a faith that was stronger than most, and it raised thoughts about icons and spiritual practices.
Growing up in the Baptist church, I didn’t have much exposure to religious symbolism. Historically, Baptists have shied away from visual symbols in our worship spaces. We don’t want anything to come between us and God – or to become an object of worship in itself, as is the common misconception.
I learned from Debra that these symbols and icons are not objects of worship. Seeing them and touching them helps focus our thoughts on Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I know the medal I found was lost during the height of Debra’s illness. And I know it was a touchstone that led to prayer and trust, and not a lucky charm to ward off death.
Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, and I appreciate how Wilshire is among Baptist churches that have embraced the practice of rubbing ashes on the forehead. There is no magic or medicine in the doing; there is only reflection and remembrance. The ashes represent the dust from which we come and the dust to which we return. And etched on our forehead in the shape of a cross, the ashes remind us of Christ’s sacrifice that turned dust into life.
If you have not participated in this tradition, consider letting go of your inhibitions to be marked with this wearable icon. Feel the cross being etched on your skin, touch the mark as it becomes dry and rough, see the cross when you look at yourself in the mirror. Every time you become aware of that presence, focus on what Christ’s sacrifice means to you.
As for the little medal I found, the more I held it the more it crumbled. Like ashes, it reminded me of the brevity of this life and the faith that there is more to come. Rather than toss it into a wastebasket, I buried it at the base of the new camellia bushes we are nursing through the winter. There’s no spiritual magic in that – I’m not expecting huge blossoms next winter – but I’m thinking the iron in the medal might provide some welcome fertilizer as the plant grows. And that is what ashes and icons can do: nurture our spiritual growth.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015 (WBC)
Forgive and forget?
I’ve been struggling this week with what to make of the news that Brian Williams, respected anchorman of the NBC Nightly News, admitted to fabricating a dramatic story that a military helicopter he was riding in was hit by rocket propelled grenades over Iraq in 2003. I’ve been trying to decide how much I care about it, and if I do care, how to forgive.
I care on a professional level because I went to journalism school where lying or even just subtle embellishment was definitely not taught. We called ourselves “reporters” and not the more pompous sounding “journalists” because the job was to gather information and report it. And the report never had the word “I” in it, unless quoting someone else.
I can’t say that I’m particularly surprised that Williams made up a story. News people have been telling “stories” forever. We see it every time a reporter stands in a puddle and tells us “it is the worst flood in decades,” or reports from the center of “a riot” that is really just a dozen people mugging for the cameras. Conflict sells, and being in the center of it can boost a career.
From a consumer perspective, I’m not too bothered about what Williams did because I don’t watch his broadcast. Still, I hurt for him. I’ve seen him on other shows and have read about him and he seems to be a genuinely humble, decent man. He’s always likable, down to earth and entertaining on the talk show sofas.
Alva Noë, a philosopher at UC Berkeley, says these appearances away from the anchor desk are part of the problem: “The news shouldn’t be entertainment. It shouldn’t be fun. We shouldn’t be asking Brian Williams or other journalists about their experiences during an invasion or other reporting. The people who report the news shouldn’t be the news. And they shouldn’t be entertainers. We should ask more of ourselves.”
And what should we ask of ourselves in the aftermath? Williams has apologized and taken himself off the air, but will that be enough? And more seriously, what about his family, friends and colleagues? They have to decide if they can trust him, and if they can forgive him. Is his sin too big and too public to forgive?
The rub is stated this way on a little sign on the wall at a local restaurant: “I’ll forgive one of your sins if you’ll forgive one of mine.” And another favorite: “Don’t judge me because I sin differently than you.”
I like what Anne Lamott wrote about it this week: “We are gigantically flawed. Oh, my God, such screw-ups. We can be such total asshats. And if you’re in the public eye, like Brian Williams, or in the public baby toe, like me, it goes viral.”
So what do we do? The Bible tells us that Jesus forgave people and moved on. It doesn’t say what the other people did who had to continue living with the reformed sinner. And that’s the tricky thing about forgiveness: It puts the pressure on those who have been hurt or offended. The sinner can quit sinning, but the rest of us have to decide if that is payment enough. Can we really forgive and forget?
Last question: Should Williams be allowed back behind the anchor desk, or does he need to do something new? Sometimes that works out well: Charles Colson went from politics to prison to ministry. That’s a pretty good career arc.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015 (WBC)
Homecoming
Sitting in a pew on the left side of the Sanctuary and looking up toward the pulpit, choir loft and baptistry, the years rolled away and I could see the faces and hear the voices that helped shape my faith and my life.
On several occasions over the past year I had told LeAnn that I wished I could go back and visit the church I grew up in – to see what had changed but also to remember. Through some connections and persuasion, LeAnn made it happen last Friday morning as a birthday surprise. This was no simple task, because while the church building is still there, the congregation I grew up in moved away in 1986. Gaining access was akin to walking up to a house, ringing the doorbell and saying: “Hi, I used to live here. Mind if I come inside and walk around?” Thankfully, our hosts understood the call of home.
The church building I’m talking about today houses First Baptist Church of Hamilton Park, but from 1886 until the mid-1980s, the site at Greenville and Phillips was the home of First Baptist Church of Richardson. Our family joined the church in 1960 and I attended there regularly until 1977 and then during summers and holidays through college until 1981. The congregation moved a mile north to their current location in 1986.
As expected, the tour of the brick-and-mortar buildings triggered memories of flesh-and-blood people. In the Sanctuary, I recalled pastors Cloud, Landes and Fant, who not only preached from the Bible but taught me to sit still and listen. It was Landes who thrust me under the water one Sunday morning. I thought I was all grown up after that, but a few years later another pastor’s wife called out my buddy Ken and I for talking too much during the sermon.
In the choir room, I saw again Bill Green who got the best out of the youth choir with his boundless energy and charisma. In the children’s wing I remembered singing about “sunbeams” and sitting on the floor with a kind old man who helped me make people out of Play-Doh. He always had a toothpick in his pocket with which to carve smiles and wide eyes on blank faces.
In the chapel I remembered Wednesday evening prayer meetings and summer mornings where we congregated for scriptures and songs at the start of Vacation Bible School. And I remembered the sorrow of sitting there on an Easter weekend to say goodbye to my little sister who was taken from this life too soon.
Outside the chapel we stopped at the stairs leading down to The Fisherman’s Net – the youth center. Our guide said they don’t use it much and there wouldn’t be anything to see, but looking down the stairs I could almost hear bouncing ping-pong balls and old movies threading through projectors and the guitar of Billy Crockett on a Friday night. And in the middle of it all was youth minister Kenny Wood, who taught us that church had room for both reverence and humor.
We didn’t roam the upstairs hallways, but I knew that up there were the Sunday School rooms where I experienced much more than I learned: Where I received a silver dollar for memorizing all the books of the Bible in order; where teacher Bob Dietz gave me strength in the weeks after my sister died; where Ken and I learned in a tough “for credit” class that we were not destined to be Bible scholars.
The tour not only brought back these memories but reinforced for me the importance of these places and people we call church. They’re not just Sunday-only places where we go to sing, listen and receive “a dose of the ghost” to get us through another week. They’re not day cares for children and social clubs for adults. They’re lifelong schools where we keep coming to learn, grow, question, discern, stretch, test, try and fail at being who God created us to be – no matter how old we are or how much we think we already know.
Friday, January 31, 2015
Same story, second chapter
I’ve had a touch of the writer’s block recently with fragments of ideas but nothing that I’ve really believed is meaningful or noteworthy. And then I looked out and saw the camellia bushes blooming in the afternoon sunshine and I thought I might write about that – about how LeAnn and I are watching them closely, making sure they are well watered and covered from the freezing weather. But the topic seemed familiar so I looked back in my notes and discovered that a year ago this week I wrote about camellias.
With high-minded idealism, I related our planting of camellias to our relatively new life together: “By trusting God with the nurturing work and just sort of accepting the sunshine and showers, we’ve enjoyed the unexpected blooms of this life together. And every late January, as we both grow a little older together, we’ll look out at the camellias and remember God’s grace in making it so.”
Well, the true story this late January is that the camellias we planted last year did not survive. As hard as we tried, we couldn’t keep them going. Perhaps we didn’t water them enough, perhaps we didn’t cover and uncover them as we should, perhaps they were diseased when we bought them. We’ll never know for sure why the leaves fell off one by one.
But ours is a God of second chances and new opportunities, and he’s given us a spirit of persistence and determination. We’ve planted more camellias and we’re being more diligent than ever in keeping them covered when it freezes, letting them breathe when it is warm, and making sure we water them deeply. Perhaps we are learning and we’ll be more successful this time. There’s no denying that we are experiencing God’s endless grace as we work on these things together.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015 (WBC)
Outside in
Sunday evening during vespers I stepped out into the hallway for a moment and was drawn outside by the sight of the flickering candles in the chapel windows. As I stood quietly and watched the light dance on the colored diamonds of stained glass, I could also see the faint images of people inside moving up the aisles to receive communion and then returning past the windows to their seats. It was dreamlike, heavenly almost.
While I missed communion, I was glad to have that moment to myself – to see the church from the outside in, and to experience a moment of reflection and worship in a new, unexpected way.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015 (WBC)
Birthday blessings
As I was walking through the Downtown Garland square this morning on my way to the DART rail station for an appointment in Dallas, I looked around and noted how the structure and rhythm of my life has changed over the past few years. And when I consider the sources of that change, one person who always comes to mind is Estelle Slater.
Estelle, longtime Wilshire member, turns 100 on Wednesday. It’s a remarkable milestone and cause for celebration without question. It’s also good reason to give thanks for how she has shared her friendship and faith with so many of us over those years.
I first became acquainted with Estelle when I joined Wilshire in 1990. I knew of her brother Norvell from the “Hymns We Love” radio program that he hosted and produced for decades and that I grew up hearing on Sunday mornings from my father’s radio. But at Wilshire I learned how his sister Estelle was involved with that program and others and with so much more at Wilshire and in Baptist life around the world.
I got to know Estelle mostly as a church friend, but her life impacted mine in a huge way in January 2009. I was facing the new year alone as a widower, and on top of that I was turning 50. While most people would want to celebrate that landmark birthday, I wanted nothing of the sort. As it happened, a flute player that I knew in Wilshire Winds by the name of LeAnn Kite learned that my birthday was approaching. One night after rehearsal she asked, “How will you celebrate?” I said, “I won’t,” and she said, “It’s your 50th; you’ve got to celebrate.” That’s when she explained to me that she and her good friend Estelle shared the same birthday week, and because they both were single they had a longtime tradition of buying each other dinner. But now, Estelle was no longer able to go out and LeAnn missed those dinners. And since my birthday fell in that same week, she said, “Let’s buy each other dinner.”
I was hesitant because I just wasn’t in the mood, but LeAnn made the case that the dinners had been fun for her and Estelle, so I agreed. That dinner between acquaintances was the start of a friendship and eventually a love and a marriage. And along the way through LeAnn I got to know Estelle better, and she was happy for us both and especially for LeAnn. At age 95 she would tease LeAnn with, “You beat me to the altar. Do you think there’s still time for me?” and then she’d let out her famous laugh.
If not for that wonderful birthday tradition between these two lovely women, and if not for the coincidence that my own birthday fell in the same week, I wouldn't have been invited to fill Estelle’s seat at the table on a lonely January night. I wouldn’t have seen acquaintance turn to friendship and love. Wouldn’t have married LeAnn, sold my house, moved “from the city to the small town” in downtown Garland. And wouldn’t have been walking and pondering all of this on a sunny January morning.
If you know Estelle, say a prayer of thanksgiving for her life. Age and fading memory have secluded her, but I’m confident she can still feel our love through our prayers. And if you don’t know her, think about someone who has helped transform your own life in an unexpected way – directly or even as a friend of a friend – and lift a prayer of thanks for them.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015 (WBC)
The fog of the Trinity
Sunday morning in Wilshire’s Epiphany Bible study class we were talking about the early church and what they might have understood and not understood about the Trinity, and how difficult it is even today to comprehend, as the old hymn says, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”
As I listened, I recalled a similar discussion somewhere in my past where the Trinity was described as being like water – or more accurately, H20 – which can be experienced as a liquid, a solid or a vapor. Perhaps that description came to my mind in class because a half hour earlier I was driving to church with George Gagliardi, who noted how cold and wet it was and how snow would be much prettier than the cold, damp drizzle. I agreed but said that from a practical perspective snow and rain are equally beneficial to the growth and life of trees, flowers and grass.
And that is where my understanding of the Trinity rests – in the notion that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equally beneficial to who we are and what we need. The challenge, if we choose to be challenged, is in knowing which part of the Trinity we are communing with. Just as one of our local weather broadcasters likes to remind viewers that 32 degrees is the freezing point of water but also the melting point of ice, it is difficult to know where we are at any given time on the three-in-one continuum.
Christ, the Son described to us and quoted in the Gospels, set the flesh-and-blood standard for how we are to live with each other. He is the “living water” of our existence – the part of the Trinity we can most easily identify with even though the bar he set seems impossibly high.
God? I won’t say that God is cold and hard like ice – although there are some Old Testament stories that paint that picture – but if you think in terms of the solid foundations of creation, then perhaps there is a comparison to make with the solid properties of ice. And our earthly home is girded on top and bottom by caps of ice, so that image of God the creator sort of works.
Still, because I can never be as human as Christ or as godly as God, I tend to focus most of my communion with the Trinity on the Holy Spirit. Like water vapor or fog, the Spirit seems best able to fill the voids in my porous confidence, to seal and bond the cracks in my broken heart, to drift down into the dark hollows of my being and re-inflate my sagging soul. And like water vapor, the Holy Spirit can gently rinse off the layers of spiritual gunk and grime that I accumulate.
Tuesday, January 6, 2015 (WBC)
Church on the corner
“So, how is the new year going for you?”
That’s as far as I got on this first blog of 2015 when I heard a loud crash outside. I stood up to look out the upstairs window and saw two cars wedged together in the middle of the intersection.
“Idiots,” I shouted as I bounded down the stairs. “Someone ran the stop sign.”
People run the four-way stop at the corner of our property all the time. They usually just scrape the undercarriage of their car on the high hump of the pavement, but I knew it was just a matter of time before two cars met in the middle.
LeAnn heard the crash too and we both ran outside to find one of the drivers out of her car inspecting the damage, another still sitting at the steering wheel a little dazed, and drivers of two other cars who had seen the accident and had stopped to get out and help. Nobody was hurt but neither car was drivable. Phone calls were made and two policemen arrived for an official inspection.
LeAnn and I found ourselves serving as “hosts” for the event. I escorted one of the drivers to our front porch where she sat in the warm sunshine while she waited for her husband to arrive. LeAnn took a little girl riding in the other car up to the porch swing and read books with her while her mother made calls. When the policemen started pushing some of the plastic and metal debris out of the intersection with their feet, I got a broom and trash can and scooped it all up and carried it away.
As the husband of one of the drivers spoke on the phone with his insurance company, the carillon at the church nearby chimed the noon hour and then played “God Be With You Till We Meet Again” and “In the Garden.” As I listened, I realized that the whole incident had felt and now sounded like “church.” It was people helping people in a calm, caring, neighborly manner. And if you recall Christ’s commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself,” then being “the church” in the neighborhood by just being neighborly is a very real thing.
Which means my initial declaration of “idiots” was neither neighborly nor church-like. It also wasn’t true. The two drivers apparently just arrived at the same place at the same time and neither blamed the other. They both had damage, but they both were OK, and that was all that mattered.
So, back to my initial question about how your new year is going – I’m praying we’ll all be more church-like, which is to say, more neighborly, in this new year.
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
No playoff, no excitement? Not hardly!
There’s been a lot of moaning about Baylor (and TCU) being left out of the College Football Playoff. Sure, it’s disappointing and it would have been exciting to see what we could do, but nothing can take away from what the team accomplished this season – or what the fans experienced alongside them week after week through the season.
This is not me just “turning lemons into lemonade,” “putting lipstick on the pig” or one of those other mind games people play to make themselves feel better. This is me saying straight up that you can have the playoffs and even the bowl games. It’s the regular season that excites me.
Somewhere in the past I lost interest in bowl games. Maybe it was going to two Cotton Bowls and seeing Baylor get beat six years apart by Penn State and Alabama, two of the nation’s best at the time. I was truly disappointed then, but looking back on those games now, I see how completely artificial those bowl games were and still are. Sure, bowl games bring national attention to a team and help generate financial support for the athletic program and the university at large. But as a fan experience, I find that they fall flat.
The reason? Bowl games often match two teams that have no historic rivalry for the fans to hang their emotions on. Before the Cotton Bowl in 1981, Baylor had played Alabama just once before, in 1979, and they haven’t played each other since. And the 1975 Cotton Bowl was the only time that Baylor has ever played Penn State. This year’s Cotton Bowl matches Baylor with Michigan State, a team they’ve played just once – in 1968.
I’ve been to just one Baylor bowl game in this modern era: The 2010 Texas Bowl in Houston. What I remember most is that there was a monsoon outside Reliant Stadium, and that Baylor lost. That was just four years ago, but I had to look up who we got beat by and how much. It was Illinois, and I discovered that we’ve played them once before, in 1976, and we won. That means the series is split, one to one. With 34 years between those two games, there wasn’t much to get excited about in terms of rivalries.
For me, the real fun, the real action, the real excitement, the real emotion is in the regular season where intense, historic rivalries exist. That’s where the hate is real – and so is the fear and respect. Did you see the Baylor students and their signs on ESPN College Game Day beating down both Kansas State and TCU? They were loud and proud, harsh and rude, but mainly they were just having good fun based on great rivalries. I wouldn’t know where to start with a sign bashing Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl. “Our Green is Prettier Than Your Green” perhaps? I’m sure the students will come up with something.
Meanwhile, it’s great that TCU is in the Big 12 now because that continues our longest rivalry – one that spans more than a century with Baylor winning 52 times, TCU 51, and seven ties. It just doesn’t get any tighter or better than that. Even when both teams were at the bottom of the old Southwest Conference, we were fighting for the best of the bottom and the best of each other. And this year especially we’ve shared our dominance of the historic big-time state schools.
Speaking of which, Baylor and Texas have played 104 times, and Texas leads mightily at 74-26-1. That’s an annual game and rivalry that is huge and for my money better than any bowl game. Other great rivalries have been Baylor-A&M (31-68-9) and Baylor-SMU (37-36-7). I’d love to see Baylor play the Aggies again on a regular non-conference schedule just to resume the rivalry that flows up and down the Brazos River. And while some have said Baylor needs to scrap the non-conference meetings with SMU in order to improve our annual resume, the rivalry among the two small church schools is special, and SMU is going to be strong again some day soon. Meanwhile, I have great memories of my student days when Baylor-SMU fell on Texas-OU weekend.
For me, no bowl game can match the regular season excitement and adrenaline rush: of finally beating Oklahoma on the last play of the game in 2011; dispatching No. 1 ranked Kansas State in 2012; or coming from 21 points behind to beat TCU in 2014. No bowl game can top the emotion of that last home game in 2013 when Baylor beat Texas, won the Big 12, and turned out the lights after 64 years at Floyd Casey Stadium. Or opening up McLane Stadium against SMU in 2014, and closing the first season in our new home with a second straight Big 12 Championship by beating Kansas State.
And don’t get me started on the climate-controlled stadiums that now host many of the bowl games. They just add to the artificial feel of those emotionless match-ups. I’ll take 24 degrees and freezing fog at Floyd Casey, or 110 degrees under the melting sun at McLane any day over the artificial conditions at AT&T Stadium, the Super Dome, Georgia Dome or University of Phoenix. Three of my fondest football memories involve harsh weather: sitting with my dad in the cold drizzle in 1974 to see Baylor beat SMU in the Cotton Bowl Stadium (their home field at the time); getting rowdy with fellow students as Baylor shocked the Aggies in the driving rain at Kyle Field in 1980; and standing with alumni in the freezing fog at Floyd Casey in 2013 as Baylor beat Texas. All three of those games led to regular season conference championships, and the weather was part of the experience. The weather made it real; made it memorable.
Looking ahead, I think that if the College Football Playoff is expanded to eight teams, there may be opportunities to create meaningful rivalries across conference lines – the way there is in college basketball during March Madness. But that could take years, so for now you can have your bowl games and invented hoopla. I’ll take the regular season – in real stadiums with real weather and real rivals. That’s where great things happen.
Friday, November 28, 2014
A New Start
Just as Advent begins the new church year, I’m beginning the “web year” with a big change to this web site: I’m merging all my blogging into one page.
I started these writings in December 2009 with “Things on My Mind,” and then a year later I was invited to contribute to the weekly blog of Wilshire Baptist Church. The “Wilshire Blog” has taken precedence over the past year, in part because I have a real weekly deadline for that but also because I have devoted more time to writing and marketing books. So it seems logical and more manageable to merge it all into one blog. I hope in doing so I’ll feel less guilty about neglecting “Things” and will actually be motivated to write more.
For now I will keep links to archives of “Things” and “Wilshire” on this page. You may want to go back and read some, and I still need to keep things organized. In fact, you might be interested to know that LeAnn is going back through all the “Wilshire” writings and is looking at what might be organized and collected into a book. If you have a particular favorite – something that moved you or provoked you in a certain way – let us know.
Which also prompts me to say that the lack of a way for readers to comment is an issue that I hope to fix soon. We have a real web design pro working on a complete redesign of this site that will not only update the look and improve navigation but will allow you to comment and answer back.
So, thanks for visiting here, and keep talking to me through email and Facebook until we get the new site launched.
Copyright © 2014 Jeff Hampton