PONDERING THE JOURNEY

Standing on top of the lime kiln silo I pondered my journey.  Adored with hardhat, safety glasses, respirator, overalls, steel toe boots, and leather gloves I gazed to the south down a big valley toward home.  Holding a number two flat shovel which we called a “Red Neck” dragline, I was in an emotional quandary.

Overcome by the pungent smell of sulfuric acid, the distinct odor of crushed limestone, and hydraulic fluid, I questioned why.  The task at hand was several tons of limestone spilled on top of the silo due to the neglect of a lazy or half-asleep lime feed end employee.  Instead of limestone entering the silo by chute to start the process of making lime, it covered the top of the silo.  My equipment to direct the crushed limestone in the silo was the number two flat shovel and a wheelbarrow which we affectionally called a “Redneck Euclid.”

My crushed pride had me feeling low on a high silo.  It was a test of faith and confidence.  I had just graduated from the University of Montevallo with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a history major and English minor.  I had gathered several honors along the way.  I received all this while on a five-year layoff from the cement plant.  The plant included cement, lime, and quarry operations.

The tears from my eyes were from a combination of sulfuric acid, dust, and broken heart.  As I spoke with God that morning, He directed my attention to the quarry wall that was very visible from high above.  It was a mystic moment as the fog from the lime hydrator, dust from the limestone crushers, and exhaust from the kilns created an Old Testament meeting like unto the prophets.

The quarry is in the geographical center of the State of Alabama.  The Heart of the Heart of Dixie is a gigantic hole.  The limestone mined from the hole is some of the hardest in the world.  The limestone was formed from tiny seashells liken to the conch during the Great Deluge.  The quarry walls are layered at an angle.  Most of Shelby County dotted with limestone and lime plants.  Limestone not conducive for lime becomes gravel.

Here is what the Lord taught me in that spiritual moment.  The limestone was once a living sea creature and after the Great Flood settled into the valley in what is central Alabama.  Dead for thousands, possibly millions, of years until holes were drilled into the limestone beds and explosives packed in them to create limestone rocks that can be a small as dust and as large as the Euclid trucks and loaders that haul them.  Once dead, the Dunamis (dynamite) power begins a new creation.

Some of the limestone must be crushed in a primary crusher where some travel unscathed and large ones crushed.  A secondary crusher will continue to size the stone.  Again, some are untouched.  Before leaving the quarry via conveyor system, a tertiary crusher will make the remaining rock usable aggregate.  Some stone travels from blast to process untouched while others were crushed repeatedly.

Conveyors carry the aggregates to the lime kiln silos where I am having a divine moment.  These will enter a fourth crusher, a jaw crusher, that will feed the lime kilns were the stone will be exposed to intense heat to create “quick lime” which will enter a hydrator to make lime used in almost everything especially the purification of water.

Some branches of the conveyor will carry aggregates to a large “ball” mill that will mix in sand, iron ore, aluminum to create the “raw mix” used to burn in the cement kilns.  The kilns will cook the mix to make clinkers which enter a clinker breaker to resize to send to another “ball” mill called a finish mill to crush the clinkers mixed with gypsum into power making Portland cement.  The cement will be mixed with some sand and rock, mostly limestone making concrete to be used in construction.

During my five-year layoff I worked with Alabama Bridge Builders.  I help pour tons of concrete for beautiful bridges that help travels arrive to their destinations.  In process of building a bridge, some limestone was used directly after the Dunamis power separated it in the quarry.  Some limestone faced very few changes, but yet it is used in the bridge.  Some had many changes but in the end all that were transformed were used to help people in life’s travels. 

God was showing me that my journey would involve many times of being crushed and exposed to transforming trials and to be the only one on top of the silo with a college degree operating a Red Neck dragline loader and Euclid hauler.  God had blessed me!

 

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.  The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit       Psalm 34:18

 

But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.  Isaiah 53:5

We Hired You for Your Back Not Your Mind

When I started at the cement plant in Calera, Alabama back in October 13, 1976, I was introduced to making cement.  I remember my first day and all the wonders associated with manufacturing cement.  The first thing that my supervisor showed me was clinkers.  He reminded me that cement making is dangerous work.  He looked me in the eye and said, “Hopper, you were hired for your back and not your mind.  Work safe, you may walk into the plant and before the day is done we may have to tote you out!”

Clinkers are made by kiln burning raw materials of lime, iron ore, sand, and aluminum.  Years later I would be a kiln burner operator and watch as the blended ingredients would start a four-hundred fifty feet journey down the kiln.  I trained my eyes to watch the “burning zone” as the powder turned to liquid, then to a clinker as the liquid turn solid as it rolled down the kiln wall. 

Clinkers varied in size from dust particles to baseball size.  They could be gigantic if there was a disruption during the burning process.  The largest I witnessed was four feet in diameter.  It looked like a Volkswagen Beetle rolling toward me.  That’s a story for down the road.

One of my first jobs with the labor crew was helping to tear out bricks from a kiln.  Kiln bricks are 9 inches x 4.5 inches x 3 inches making a circle in a 12 feet diameter kiln hull.  That’s a lot of brick.  Back in the seventies management told us that replacing one row or course of brick cost $125,000 considering all the variables of down time, removal, replacement, and startup curing.

Brick removal is very dangerous.  First a “key” has to be cut in the bricks.  A 90 lbs. jackhammer is the principal tool to cut the key.  The jackhammer weighs more than 90 lbs.  It takes 90 per square inch of air to run it.  It is hard using it on a flat surface and more difficult to operate it in a 12-foot circle surface which 36 feet around the kiln.

Most of the time, about 3 feet high on each side of the key is as high as one could operate the jackhammer.  The rest of the row incorporated a sledgehammer that we effectually called “Percy” in honor of Percy Sledge the recording artist who was an Alabama native.

I had the privilege to operate both the 90 pounder and “Percy.”   One of my first claims to fame involved the sledgehammer.  I had the strength to sling the hammer.  I could tear out the brick but with one fatal flaw.  I would break the head off the handle.  That day I broke every sledgehammer in the plant which was no small number.  My co-workers replaced the handles until they had used everyone the storeroom had driving the cost a little higher.  It is like the man of God replacing the lost axe head in II Kings.

Another time Don, my co-worker, and I were charged by our supervisor, Hubbard, and the plant production manager, Killingworth, to cut a key in the burning zone of the cement kiln.  This area of the kiln reaches temperatures of 2200 degrees and uses a more expensive brick.  $125000 multiplied by 100 rows (75 feet) is $12,500,000 for a rough estimate in 1976.

Don and I asked how far they wanted the key cut.  They responded, “Don’t worry about that, just cut to we get back.”  So, we did as instructed.  I ran the jackhammer and Don tossed out the brick.  I cut three bricks, then four for seventy-five feet key.

Suddenly, Don and I smelled the aroma of a pipe in the draft of the kiln.  Hubbard, which we called” Pawpaw”, could not sneak up on us because of the pipe.  Killingworth, which we called “Killer”, not because of his name but due to an attempted suicide, entered the kiln.

It was a grand entrance.  Killer’s face turned blood red like unto a cartoon character and tossed his hardhat up the kiln in anger and cussing like a Corinthian sailor.  Pawpaw had some unlike Pawpaw words as well.  “Why in the &@!$#did you tear out so many bricks?”

 Our answer was classic.  “You told us not worry about it just tear them out to you got back.”  They denied it but Don that Pawpaw kind of favored said, Hubbard you did say tear them out to you got back.”

Don and I had worked hard without stopping while they were gone.  They were only going to replace 15 feet.  Killer and Pawpaw told everyone that the brick were rotten and that is why Don, and I removed them so quickly.  Killer and Pawpaw had to report to upper management, but everyone in Calera knew they were just covering their very costly blunder.

All they had to do was tell us what they wanted.  We just used our backs and did not think.  

 But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed.  II Kings 6:5 KJV

He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.  Proverbs 10:4 KJV

Dad's Last Supper

 This past Sunday, Resurrection Sunday, Union Springs Baptist Church observed the Lord's Supper during the Worship.  My mind goes back to that last supper when Jesus became a servant and washed the disciple's feet.  True to who He was He humbled himself to the lowest of servants.  It was a nasty job.

I'm reminded each time of being the one in my immediate family that had to empty the "slop jar" each morning.  Some people would call the "slop jar" a chamber pot.  Our slop jar was an empty gallon paint can.  We couldn't afford an inside toilet nor a store-bought chamber pot.  They did not have them in Jesus' day and the lowest of servants would empty the clay jars of human waste at the local dung gate or dump.  I emptied our tin gallon bucket in the edge of the woods.

The slop jar resided in my brothers and my bedroom.  Our sister had to do "Number Two" in it almost every night.  I believe did it because I had to empty it.  My brothers and I just went outside to pee and to the outhouse (toilet) when dad built one.

When Granny Hopper would stay with us, she always used the paint can slop jar.  There was no modesty curtain and our ten-by-ten bedroom with the army cot which was my bed and my brothers' double bed filled one end of the room.  A baby bed used for clean clothes that mama ironed was at the foot of my cot.  Each corner beside the door opening (no door) were wires nailed loaded with clothes and coats.

I was ashamed carrying the slop jar especially when we had company.  When there was company, I would place the tin bucket through my sister's bedroom window outside on the ground.  I would carry and empty it.  The edge of the yard was so beautiful green where I deposit my sister's number one and two. 

My sister was like one the Buc-ee gas station’s rest rooms sayings, “We are number one at number two.” 

Sunday marked the forty-first Easter since my dad died.  As were observed Communion, I thought back to the Last Supper I had with dad.  It was the Monday night after Easter, and we had convinced momma to take some time off.  She had cared two years for dad who had a brain tumor.  He was in his last hours.  Momma had babied daddy and his nursed could not believe how healthy he was.

Momma had fixed daddy a wonderful meal with his favorite potatoes, green field peas, pepper sauce, corn, tomatoes, cornbread, and sweet tea.  I wheeled dad to the supper table in his wheelchair.  He was very feeble and could not speak.  I prepared him a plate and began to feed him.  Every time I watch Driving Miss Daisy, I weep.  I think of feeding daddy what would be his last meal. 

I would take a fork and point it to his food.  If he wanted it, he would nod his head yes.  If he did not want it, he would nod no.  One time he nodded no to everything.  I finally bumped the sweet tea glass, and he smiled and nodded yes.  It is a precious moment in his and my being that I will forever cherish.

I feed him some cornbread, and he choked.  I thought he was going to die, and I was alone with him.  We had a great time not realizing it would be the last time we would communicate.  During the night he slipped into a coma.  Early Friday around four in the morning, daddy died.  I would spend our last moments holding his hand.  When he the nurse pronounced him dead, I shook his hand and said, "See you later pop."

Daddy had turned sixty on April 9, 1984.  Easter Sunday was April 22, 1984, and I fed dad his last meal on the 23rd which is today's date for this article.  He died on the 27th.  

Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hand, and that He was come from God, and went to God; He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garment; and took a towel, and girded himself.  After he pureth the water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.   John 13:3-5 KJV

"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me." John 14:1 KJV  

Greatest Night in History

 

So, after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out.  And it was dark. John 13:30

How many of you know someone that has so much potential and refuses to live the good life that God has for them?  Each of us knows someone who has allowed alcohol, drugs, and other deadly vices destroy careers, marriages, families, and fortunes.  How many parents grieve over a child that could have been a great Christian working to improve society but falls victim to the sins of society?  How many neglect the opportunity to serve the Lord? Do we consider how much we grieve the Father when we do not live according to His plan thereby not living to our potential?

Journey back to the night of Jesus’ betrayal.  What was the greatest night in the history of the world when the disciples were gathered together with God turned into a restless night of confusion, separation, denial, guilt, jealousy, murmuring, and rejection.  An intimate relationship with Jesus and with each other becomes a night of revelation about the hearts of the Twelve where unfilled areas of the heart were exploited by sin, especially Judas.  Jesus loved Judas knowing his future betrayal.  Jesus knows and loves us in-spite-of our actions. 

Long Cold Journey

 I love Spring.  New life is everywhere.  The sunshine creates thousands of shades of green, millions of different colors decorating the landscape, and in Alabama temperature changes that baffle the mind.  In the mornings you need heat and clothes that keep you warm and are removable because afternoon you need an air-conditioner and shed clothing.

Night times are marvelous with clear skies and billions of stars that remind us how insignificant we seem in this universe God created.  The Bible reminds us that humanity is His greatest creation and all that He created was for us.

One beautiful spring Saturday, my son Aaron and I decided to make a road trip.  Living in Linden, Alabama we were a hundred miles from Sugar Ridge my home where I grew up and where I am now retired.  Aaron has a Jeep Wrangler, and we removed the hard top and doors and started to make the trip just to check on the house and property.

I went into the house and got me a jacket.  It was a good sun shining morning and Aaron questioned my getting my leather jacket.  I reminded him that it might turn cold before we returned to Linden.  He reluctantly got him a jacket, a down one I might add. 

Aaron had a friend that had testicle cancer and had lost all his hair due to treatments.  Aaron decided to shave his head to encourage his friend.  He asked me to shave it, and I did.  I add this information because it is pertinent to our adventure.

The journey was one that helps bring a father-son relationship a cherished one.  Aaron had the best time that day.  My hair was blowing in the wind while Aaron's bald head was getting a tan.  It was exhilarating viewing the spring unfolding its beauty.  It was fantastic watching from the jeep.  We took our time and took in every special moment.

The Spring began sinking into the western horizon.  Sunsets are gorgeous on Sugar Ridge.  We started our one-hundred-mile journey back to Linden.  My leather jacket looks great but lacks any warm thermal qualities.  I carried mostly for blocking the wind.  Aaron started home in his short sleeves.  We went through Clanton the county set of Chilton County got us some grub from Sonic as darkness dominated the skies.  The air began to cool.

Traveling down Alabama Highway 22, it got cold and colder.  Aaron finally put on his jacket and turned the Jeep's heater to high.  On 22, we discovered all the cold spots and the colder spot that trees had shaded during the day.  Warm spots we few and far between.  My leather jacket did not warm me.

With the temperature steady falling, I begged Aaron to stop, and I would use political signs to make us doors for the jeep.  It was election year and there was plenty if signs.  He pulled his jacket over his bald head, I shivered, and the Jeep began a refrigerator.  When we reached Selma, we stopped at a redlight and the heat from the pavement temporally gave us some warmth.  

I don't know if the cold froze Aaron's brain, but he would not stop.  Outside Selma we were halfway to Linden.  We could not feel the heater any longer.  Aaron was driving so his left leg was exposed the cold from the missing door.  As passenger I my right leg was freezing.  He slowed the Jeep hoping it would reduce the and we could feel the heater.  It did not good.  Two icicles finally arrived in Linden to a warm house.  Both of us still had cold legs.

We laugh at our frozen escapade now.  It was a journey that I will always cherish mostly because I made this wonderful memory with my teenage son.  

Thanks, Aaron, for making life fun and unforgettable.

Thank you, God, for your wonderful creation and unpredictable Alabama weather.

O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.  Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.  When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?  For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.  Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:  All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.  O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!  Psalm 8 KJV

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. Genesis 8:22 KJV

The Right to Vote

 It was a November evening in Alabama.  The Hopper family loaded into a 1958 Chevrolet Biscayne and headed to Posey’s Crossroads.  It was Election Day.  Day had changed his election voting location from Randolph, Alabama to Posey’s Crossroads which was less than a half mile from our home.

Dad had moved us back from Beloit, Illinois in March 1960.  Dad had been registered in Randolph even while we lived in Illinois from1957 to 1960.  This had to be 1964 and one of the most memorable moments of my life.

Mom, my sister and two brothers sat in the Chevy as dad entered the polling building which was a car shed which exists until now.  Things in the ballot house started to deteriorate when they refused to allow daddy to vote.    He had returned back to the house to get the legal documents that verified that daddy had changed his voting place.  

Dad walked back into the car shed and produced his documents.  What they told dad was that his name was not in alphabetical order and was added to the back of their registration roaster.  The irony was that dad was registered and all the men running the voting were personal friends with dad.  They often played checkers across the road at our local store/filling station at Land Mart.

There was a big commotion building as faces turned red, shouting continued to get loud, and face to face confrontation grew intense.  Then it happened.  Escalating, dad began to roll up his long-sleeved shirt.  We all sat in the Chevy watching something like at the movie drive end.

Momma said, “Bobby, go get your daddy.  Tell him it is not worth it.”  What those so-called friends of daddy did not realize, they were about to feel the wrath of my dad.  It was a defining moment for the Hopper family.

Dad’s rolling of the sleeves was a signal that some serious “butt kicking” was about to explode.  Mom always bought regular shirts for her Hopper man and his three sons.  They never fit because we were not regular.  We were taller and bigger.  I have pictures of us growing up.  Regardless of the sleeve, short or long were worn one to two rolls on them.  When dad got serious, working or kicking butt, he rolled them higher above the bend of the elbow.

When we lived in Beloit, Illinois, daddy worked at Beloit Ironworks in Beloit Wisconsin.  We lived one block from the state line.  One morning after a midnight shift, a raucous began across the street at a tavern named The Brown Derby.  Police were trying to arrest a drunk.  He had escaped and wound up in our back yard.  He had wrapped his arms around on a utility pole.  There the police had handcuffed him there.

Daddy woke from all the commotion and went out to investigate.  He asked the officers what was happening.  They said they could not put the man in the patrol car.  The drunk did something that most Yankees do not take offence but to Good Old Southern men and boys it is the unpardonable sin.  The drunk what’s it to you SOB as he spat in daddy’s face.

Dad slowly removed his wristwatch and his beloved ruby ring and handed them to one of the bystanders as he rolled up his sleeves.  With one bow to the jaw of the drunk, he slid down the pole, the officers thanked dad, undone the handcuffs, and laid the unconscious twice smashed intoxicated man in the patrol car.

The person that took dad’s ring and watch gave them to mom as the neighbors gave dad an ovation.

I went into the voting shed and took daddy by the hand as he rolled his sleeves.  I was almost twelve years old.  Looking at dad with eyes of pity and respect I said, "Momma said to come on that they are not worth it,” She knew dad would do serious damage and be in serious trouble.

The real damage was that we spent the rest of the evening traveling to the county courthouse trying to help daddy vote he never did.

That is one of few times I witnessed my daddy being hurt.  We heard him telling the poll men that he fought and was wounded in WWII, that he paid his pole tax (abolished in 1966), and that he was registered.  None of the men at the polls had ever served in the military.  From that day on, dad never respected or had any relationship with those men.

Not long ago someone posted an Easter picture (below) of my sister, brothers, and me.  People wanted to know, “What’s up with these Hopper boys and rolled up sleeves.”   As Hank Williams Jr., another Alabama boy would say, “It a family tradition.”  We all still do it even though our lovely wives buy us shirts that fit.  It’s a habit and reminder of the right to vote.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 

II Timothy 1:7 KJV 

It is joy to the just to do judgement: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity. 

Proverbs 21:15 KJV

Notice the sleeves on the Hopper boys

MIRROR, MIRROR

 

            One of my earliest memories is getting a haircut. I remember sitting on a board on the arm rails of one of Mr. Bratton’s barber chairs. As I looked in the mirror, I could see the barber cutting my blond locks from my small head. I have a very large knot on the back of my head, and, for years, the barber would gap my hair and cut my head. During that first cut the barber pulled my hair, and I have hated a haircut since that time.

            I never understood why Daddy made my brothers and me get a haircut every two weeks. We were very poor, and the $1.50 charge was more than the hourly minimum wage. I think that the other boys being long-haired hippy freaks might have played a major role, but most of the haircuts came before that era.

            The trip to the barbershop was not all bad. While Daddy supposedly ran chores, I would read comic books. There were Spiderman, Batman, Superman, and the Incredible Hulk.

            The most fascinating thing was the barbershop mirrors. Behind and in front of each barber chair were large mirrors. Looking up from deep in the bat cave while reading Batman, I could see the mirrors reflecting one another. It was endless. One reflected the other until it got so tiny you could barely see the reflection, but it kept on going. That was long before the Energizer bunny!

            I do not like mirrors, because they reveal too much. The better the mirror the more flaws one can see. Take the poor stepmother in Snow White. The poor woman was the fairest in the land until the day Snow White became a young woman. I studied Bettelheim's interpretation of fairy tales in college. He said that in fairy tales the wicked stepmother is really the mother who loses the husband’s affection to the budding young daughter. In other words, Snow White became a daddy’s girl. The poor mirror just reflected what stood before it. Father time caught up with the mom.

            My brother-in-law had a revealing experience once in a steakhouse. He was at the potato bar. As he loaded his baked potato, he noticed a man on the opposite side of the bar. The man had a huge potato, covered with cheese, bacon bits, butter, and sour cream. My brother-in-law was amazed at how much the man put on the potato. The potato had so much in it that it spilled over onto the man’s plate.

            My brother-in-law thought to himself, “What a pig!” My brother-in-law noticed that the man stopped when he stopped and started when he started. He thought the man was watching him. He noticed the man’s arm and realized that the man was wearing a red and black flannel shirt, just as he was wearing. The man continued to mimic my brother-in-law’s movements.

            Curiosity killed the cat, so my brother-in-law lowered his head to see who was on the other side—only to see his own reflection in the mirror. The thoughts my brother-in-law had had about the man were really his own condemnation. It always looks worse when we watch someone else doing what we do.

            A colleague of mine said his dad ran an auto repair shop. When he visited there, his dad asked some advice to help him organize the collection of repair manuals he had in his office. My colleague suggested that his dad could put more shelves behind his desk if he would remove a large mirror. His dad told him the mirror had to stay. He said that when customers became angry during a repair, he would invite them into the office for coffee and discuss the problem. He said he never had a customer get irate or even very angry. They would not—because they could see their reflection in the mirror.

            While attending university, I worked in the carpenter’s shop. On one occasion, we placed mirrors in an exercise room for the athletic department. Every piece of exercise equipment in the room had a full-length mirror where a person could see his or her progress. People did not know that it was an experiment.

            Each participant followed the same routine. The first mirror distorted the person’s reflection to make him appear heavier than he actually was. Each mirror targeted a specific part of the body, and the exercise equipment in front of it worked that area. When he completed the workout, he looked in the last mirror, which made him look thinner than he was. The mirrors encouraged people to exercise.

            Mirrors help dentists, mechanics, electricians, welders, and truck drivers see places they normally cannot see. If you drive, you know the importance of a rearview mirror. “Objects are closer than they appear.”

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. (James 1:22–25, NIV)

 

How will the reading of God’s Word aloud help reveal more of God? 

Do you think about being made in God’s image when you see your reflection in the mirror? 

How is the Bible relevant in your life today? 

 

Prayer: Father, thank You for your eternal word that helps us see what we cannot see. Your Word reveals You and helps us see ourselves as You see us. It does not gloss over sin or sinners and does not compromise. Your Word is perfect, and blessings flow when we live it. Help us to be reflections of your marvelous grace and infinite mercy. Thank You for creating us in Your image.

page 26, I Will Speak Using Stories: Thirty-one Day Devotional 

Matters that Mattered

 

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13b-14

The apostle Paul challenged Christians at Philippi to look to the future and not rest on their accomplishments.  He stressed the importance of pressing forward toward the upward call of Christ or be under the threat of perfectionism. 

Christ liberated Paul from the old Pharisaic values and sins that consumed him.  Paul challenged those who experienced liberation to look to those things ahead.

Paul’s epistles reveal that he lived a real life in real circumstances with real options to choose.  He made some wise choices.  He pursued matters that mattered.  He said, “One thing I do.”  Without a defining, central priority, there can be no sensible priorities in life.  Paul knew that all his priorities grew from this consuming priority. 

Priorities help us choose, but a consuming priority redefines how we say yes and lives to make that yes a reality.  Paul challenges: Don’t look back, stretch forward, and never give up.

Heard Through the Grapevine

 

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord.” Romans 12:19

A few years back gossip wrecked my ministry.  As a pastor, my reputation was rooted in confidentiality, honesty, and moral integrity and all these dissipated when well-intended folks spread rumors rooted “appearance of evil.”

I learned as a young man that things are not always as they appear.  I tell folks not to believe everything they hear and only half of what they see.

Those that knew the truth tried to squelch the rumors, but juicy gossip attracts more attention than the truth.  The hardest thing has been to forgive the perpetrators and ignore the gossipmongers.  The “country boy” in me wants to even things, but my faith says wait on the Lord.  I know that the Lord will judge accordingly.

The Lord has blessed my faith with a renewed ministry, a more compassionate heart, and better understanding of forgiveness.

Hold to the truth.  God knows the truth and repays.

Love of the Game

I love to play football.  From the very first time I played on the school playground I was hooked.  I had thrown the football in the yard with dad, but never really played the game until physical education at Jemison elementary.

It was fourth grade recess, and two teams were playing.  I didn’t know anything about the game and had never watched one on television of been to one at school.  On one particular play a new kid had transferred from Calera Elementary and seemed to know about the game.  His name was Tony and he was quarterback.  I didn’t really know what a quarterback did, but he was the one throwing the ball.

As he dropped back to pass it, I realized he was throwing it toward me.  In yard football we played more running than throwing.  I was more Rugby than football.  I reached up and caught the ball.  The guys around me hollered “interception” and the new kid that threw the ball asked, “Whose side you on?” Not really knowing, I yelled, “Yours.”  He yelled, “Touchdown!”   That was the beginning of many passes that my future brother-in-law would toss me.  I would play many PE games before I actually witnessed a real game. 

 My best friend during my school years was Ricky.  He was a small boy and an avid University of Alabama football fan.  Tony my other new friend was an Auburn University football fan.  Being an ignorant poor boy from across the tracks, I was clueless about college football.  I had no idea about national championships.  As I said, never watched one and had no idea that a Bear was coach at Alabama or that a guy named Shug was coach at Auburn.

 One day in the lunchroom Tony and Ricky were arguing, as most Alabama and Auburn fans do, about who was better.  They would almost fight over it.  Finally, they asked me who I was for, Alabama or Auburn.  Now I was clueless about who or what an Auburn fan was, but I knew I lived in Alabama and said, “Alabama of course.”  Ricky and Tony would be bitter rivals until the die-hard Alabama fan went the Auburn University for an engineering degree. 

In the spring of the seventh grade, Ricky talked me into going out for football.  Spring training was much harder than PE football.  On the first scrimmage coaches lined up across from a junior named Tracy.  He was a monster.  I found out that he was a very good tackle.  He made All Conference the previous season.

I had never played organized football, so I asked the coach what I was supposed to do.  It sounded simple.  He said, “Tackle the man with the football.”  I had done a little of that at PE with my peers from fourth through seventh grade.  They were nowhere near the size of Tracy. 

Suddenly the center snapped the ball, and I disappeared in a cloud of dust and under a mass of humanity.  It hurt really badly, but I was determined.  Same thing happened over and over.  The best thing about the spring practice was I got to watch my first real live football game from the sidelines.

In the ninth grade I had the privilege and honor to be one of the practice dummies for the first every state championship playoff in Alabama and for Jemison.  We ended second in the State of Alabama Two A playoff.  In the off I have the privilege of seeing my first T-bone steak.   I couldn’t eat so I gave it to one of our running backs.   I got to go to a football banquet and received my first football letter.  They gave away trophies and I determined to win one the next year.

God blessed my football training by chasing hogs and I found that catching football players were much easier.  I played defensive end and offensive tackle/end.  I remembered what they told me at my first ever practice, “tackle the man with the ball.”  So, I did.  They added a bonus.  They said hit the quarterback every play.  So, I did when there was no one else to tackle. 

I earned two trophies for best defensive player for my junior and senior years.  Made all conference and had scholarships offers.  I received one from Dartmouth College and another from a junior college.  Alabama and Auburn said I was too small.

 I loved to hit quarterbacks.  I love the game.  I loved it enough that I received a cussing every day when I got home from walking six miles to house and feeding hogs and getting in firewood.  I loved it enough that we played most every Saturday and Sundays between morning and night services.

My dad worked evening shift.  One night my sophomore year, I went to the sideline for a breather.  Someone said your dad is here.  I looked and there stood dad in the tunnel leading to the field.  He was in his work clothes, covered in grease, and wearing a hardhat.  I was proud and happy.

My junior year he sacrificed and took off work to travel to Selma, Alabama to watch me.  That night I had hit the quarter back most of the night forcing him to pitch the football.  The coach changed the scheme and had me take the running back.  When the Selma quarterback ran the option, he looked to see where I was.  When he saw me, he pitched to the running back whom I hit immediately forcing a fumble.  The football shot high in the air and hit in the end zone spinning like a top.  I jumped on it scoring a touchdown.  Dad was there.

The new Name Image Likeness (NIL) rule breaks my heart.  Going to the highest bidder replaces team loyalty.  Love of money has replaced love for the game.

 

 For the love of money is the root of all evil (I Timothy 6:10)

This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17)

Imago Dei

 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. Proverbs 9:10

Have you ever heard someone say, “God is out to get me?”  I had a co-worker that continuously said it.

We are created in the Image of God, “Imago Dei.” The world says we evolved however, Christianity, on the authority of God’s Word, states that we are created.

We are created with a purpose, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.   He loved us enough that He imparted us with the dignity of being free moral agents, the ability to make choices, to choose evil or good

We are created with meaning and have interpretation in relation to God.  Our understanding of ethics, law, education, and sexuality depend on what we believe about our beginning.  We begin with God or a mindless processes and dramatic consequences.  We have God’s moral rules. Finally, one night I told my co-worker, “Jesus did not come to earth to get us, but to die and resurrect for us.”     

The Great Deceiver

 

In the Garden of Eden came the first lie

The Deceiver said, surely you will not die

The woman decided to give it a try

To the Garden of Eden, she said goodbye

 

A lie has the tendency to grow

Further and further from the original it will go

Where it comes to rest, we may never know

It creates havoc and a really big show

 

The lie a reputation will ruin

People accused of that not doing

Juicy gossip with mouths chewing

Imaginations in the mind brewing

 

Lies believed before the truth a way of life

Partial truths are malicious, deceptive, and anti-life

Lies are colored causing trouble and strife

Simple and selfish is the black lie creating lowlife

 

Fibs are lies of trivial matter especially from a child

Jocose lies are told in jest, a tall tale that is wild

Grey lies are hard to clarify, ambiguous and begild

Whites lies avoid hurting someone and acceptably mild

 

Exaggerations are lies with fundamental truths within

Half-truths can be the whole truth with a deceiving end

Told big enough and long enough a lie will be the trend

Just remember the Great Deceiver is where lies begin

Bobby E. Hopper

Clark and Chief, Boys and Dogs

Growing up we always had dogs.  We fed them table scraps and never bought dog feed.  They would occasionally eat wheat shorts that we fed the hogs.  That was the closest we came to feeding them bought food.

The first dog that I remember was my Uncle Clifton’s boxer named Pat.  Pat was a well-trained dog.  The Beloit, Illinois Police Department would use her to train rookies.  They would place Pat in an abandoned automobile and have the rookies check it out with the goal of retrieving Pat.  Pat would make bona fide officers of them and make seasoned officers laugh at the rookies.

Pat was gentle and protective of my sister and me.  We rode her like a pony.  We were only 3 and 6 years old.  That was comforting considering Pat and Uncle Clifton lived with us.  Dad and Uncle Clifton worked evening and midnight shifts.  Southerners from Alabama living in Illinois with unknown surroundings, Pat was a wonderful guard dog.

My first dog was a mix breed.  I never knew what kind, but he looked like a collie/German shepherd mix.  I named him Butch.  He was not very old when we moved our Yankee dog south.  Butch was a faithful companion and lived a long time.  Summers were brutal for him.  I often wondered if he had some Alaskan Husky blood.

We got him a rebel playmate that was a German deer dog and named him Red.  We were always original when naming dogs.  Red had weird eyes and was greedy.  Red was the culprit that ate the first biscuits my sister made when she 9 or 10 years old.  She made from scratch and did not get done.  When she threw them from the back porch into the yard, Red quickly gobbled them down.  Getting choked, he vomited them up.  We continue to josh our sister to this very day that her biscuits were so bad that the dog puked them up.  For the record, my sister Diane is a very good cook.

Since I have two brothers, we had several dogs.  Since Butch was getting old and Red was gun shy and did not hunt, we got a spotted bird dog and named him Spot.  He wasn’t much of a Bird dog, but he was great at pointing.  He pointed mostly at food.

One night I was returning home in a pouring rain when I saw a puppy in the highway.  The puppy looked like a drowned rat.  I picked it up and carried it home to be with Butch, Red, and Spot.  I discovered that the puppy was female and was red with traces of white on its tail.  It looked like a fox so we named her Foxy.  Foxy never ran like the other dogs and never got very large compared to the others.  Well, in time we realized that Foxy was a fox.

Father time finally got the best of Butch.  I had to “put him down.”  At that time, it was the hardest thing that I had ever done.  In his last moments I held him close and tight, and we relived some precious moments that we had together.  That’s what boys and dogs do.

Through the years I had a dog named Duke.  He was a red bone hound that looked like Duke on the show “The Beverly Hillbillies.”  I had him when my oldest son, Andy was born.  He and Andy were inseparable.  The along came Angel.  I have vivid memories of the three walking across the field to their maw maw’s house.

Once a pack of dogs attacked Duke and almost killed him.  The dogs ripped him open around his testicles.  I had him examined and the vet wanted to “put him down.”  I couldn’t do it.  He said the dog is going to die.  I performed surgery on Duke.  I had successfully removed hog testicles for years.  Duke didn’t like the surgery, but he survived and lived for several more years until I had the heart-to-heart take with him.

Lisa, my wife, bought a half German Shepherd/Great Pyrenees.  He looked more German shepherd, and we named him Loki.  I taught him to sit, to shake hands, and to high five.  Lisa works full time, and, in my retirement, I spent most of the time with Loki.  He was smart, protective, and faithful.  He was also aggravating, always hungry, and digging holes.  Like Butch, Loki could not take the heat, so he dug holes for cooling.

He loved to swim in two ponds near our house, never met a stranger, and slept at our front door.  Lisa loved him and would spend time with him when she was home.

It was not unusual for Loki to be missing for a few days.  This past summer he was missing longer than normal.  I didn’t get to spend last moments with him.  I found him and buried him.  His loss hurts.

This past weekend, we spent time at my brother’s place in South Alabama.  When we arrived, a beautiful bloodhound greeted us to the Hopper Ponderosa.  The bloodhound is a big puppy and belongs to my 6-year-old great nephew Clark.  Clark named him Chief.  They were inseparable.  I laughed as Chief dragged Clark across the yard.  Later Clark, while riding his bike, dragged Chief who was hanging on to Clark’s shirt.  Clark says that Chief is his brother.

I watched Chief smell Clark’s trail to find “his brother.”  Once Chief snuggled up the Uncle Bobby and later lay at my feet near a fire.  When Chief looked me in the eyes, he had the saddest face, drooping ears, and pitiful eyes.  Suddenly, Chief’s brother appeared, and the yard wrestling started over again.

What made the trip wonderful was Saturday night Clark and his older his sister, Ellison were doing the brother-sister thing.  Their pawpaw corrected Clark for making Ellison cry.  He told Clark to hug, kiss, and tell his sister he was sorry.  He was very reluctant, but pawpaw insisted saying hug her like you do Chief. Clark took three steps.  First, he sort of hugged her.  Second, he hugged her somewhat.  Third, he hugged her.  Pawpaw with a stern voice said, “I said to hug and kiss her.”  I thought about all the times I had to hug, kiss, and tell my sister Diane I was sorry and that I loved her.

Clark with remorse and tears said, “Pawpaw that's weird.”  I knew the feeling.  Thing was he didn’t mind hugging and kissing “his brother” Chief.  That’s little boys and dogs!

Thanks Clark, for the memory.

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.  Proverbs 18:24

“She replied, ‘Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.'” Mark 7:28

Restoration

 I own a 1950 Plymouth Special Deluxe.  People are always asking, “What is it and what year is it?”  It is a beautiful automobile.  Another question asked is, “Can I take some pictures of it?”  Usually the photographers are women.  Young women, most often Hispanic, want their picture taken with it.  I tell them go ahead.  I do worry about their boyfriends.

Lots of men my age salivate and drool and have to see under the hood.  Young hot rodder give a thumb’s up, blink their headlights, or try to buy it.  I tell them it is not for sale then they offer a ridiculous low price.  I usually them that their will buy them a look or the offer might get you the wheels.  Old timers say, “You got a lot of money tied up in the car.”  Some will ask where I found it and bought it. 

As of this article, I have been driving the Plymouth over sixty years.  That’s right.  I started driving it when I was twelve.  Mama taught me to drive it.  Back then it had a flathead six-cylinder engine, a three on the tree shifter, and a clutch.  I can still hear mama fussing and sometimes cussing me when releasing the clutch and the Plymouth hopping and jumping.  

Trying to shift from first gear to second was even more exciting.  I kept trying to shift it up and going into reverse.  The grinding sound was loud, but momma was louder.  I knew how to shift our Farmall Cub tractor.  It was a stick shift on the left with the gears marked and moved a whole lot slower.  I eventually got the hang of and started driving it. 

The Plymouth has been in the family since 1957.  Mamma’s brother worked was a body shop in Brent, Alabama.  I never knew what Uncle Gerald did in repairing it.  I never found any evidence of a collision.  He sold to his dad, my Grandpaw Chapman.  It was baby blue, two-door sedan.  My fondest memories are Grandpaw driving the Plymouth to our house on Saturday mornings brings us groceries because dad was out of work, which meant out money and out of food.  The Plymouth was quiet and sounded like a Singer sewing machine running.

Grandpaw became disabled due to his age and could not drive anymore, and daddy bought the Plymouth from him.  Daddy drove it to work each day for a few years.  The Plymouth had approximately six-eight thousand miles on it when a rod started knocking in the flathead.   Daddy asked, “Do you want a car?”  Boy did I.  Hot Rod magazines tantalized and owning a car was dreams come true for this fourteen old.  You read that right, 14.

Plymouth behind me

We had used the Plymouth for everything one would use a farm pickup to do.  We hauled firewood in the trunk.  Pulled farm equipment and pulled logs using chains connected to the bumpers.  We used the bumpers push and pull a wide variety of stuff.  There were bent, gouged, and scraped.

I started driving the Plymouth to school, to the store, and to church.  I bussed football players home, drove girlfriends' home, and when I got a driver’s license, I drove it to work at Hiwassee Land Company for two summers.  The first summer I earned enough to paint the Plymouth crystal blue on honor of Tommy James’ song “Crystal Blue Persuasion.” I drove it to the prom with plastic over the passenger window.   The second summer I had rolled and tucked interior installed.

During the years between age fourteen and eighteen, I replaced the flathead with one from a 1953 Plymouth Coronet.  I replaced the transmission and rear end, never bought new tires.  I never had the front end aligned.  I bought old junk Plymouths for ten to twenty dollars and used the good tires from them or picked up good ones in trash dumps.

When I graduated and later married, I drove it to work.  I drag raced it when challenged.  The brakes were bad, and it would not start when hot.  We always had to push it a few a few feet, jump inside, push the clutch, shift in first gear, and pop the clutch.  When it rained, was foggy, or a rat peed on the distributor it would not start.  My hot rod dream was to build it up from the ground up. 

Back in July 2012 our house in Jemison, Alabama burned.  I was Director of Missions in Linden two hours away.  Angela, my daughter, had the fire department pull the Plymouth out of basement storage and away from the house before it completely burned.  That’s when I carried the Plymouth to Linden and started six years of restoration.

Because the Plymouth was so unfaithful, I had named her Jezebel.  After the fire and restoration, I named her Phenix in honor of the mythical bird that rose from the ashes.  Phenix has a 3.5 Dodge hemi engine and automatic transmission, fat boy front end, 9” Mustang rear end, four-wheel disc brakes, high end vinyl bucket seats, power tinted windows, chrome mag wheels and tires, and painted Porsche Meteor Grey.

A family heirloom

The Phenix is a conversational starter.  It is an opportunity to tell of God’s transformational power.  It is a display of how something can change when loved and given a new start.  That’s what God does with us.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (I Corinthians 5:17 KJV)

Now for a little Bible humor:

What automobile does God drive?

Plymouth Fury - Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury (Jeremiah 32:37 KJV)

What was the official car of the early Christians?

Honda Accord - And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all in one accord in one place (Acts 2:1 KJV)

A King James Bible KJV and /Casserole Dish

Baptists in Alabama are known for preaching and teaching the Holy Bible, spring and summer revivals, homecomings, Southern Gospel singing, and “dinner on the ground.”  My good friend Kelly from Demopolis said that when he “got saved,” that he was told he had to get two things.  First he had to purchase a King James Holy Bible and a large casserole dish to be a Bono Fide Baptist.  Baptist folks love good preaching.  Most are disappointed and discouraged if you don’t “step on their toes.”

Sunday dinners are prominent times in the church.  When my home church, Union Springs Baptist Church Randolph, Alabama, had dinner on the ground it was outside under the big oak trees on homemade concrete tables. 
There would be meats of fried chicken, beef roast, pork barbeque, fried pork chops, pork ribs, and meatloaf to name a few. Salads were potato salad, congealed salad, poke salad, pear salad green bean salad, and green salad.  The list continues with mashed potatoes and gravy, fried taters and onions, baked potatoes and the fixings, and French-fried potatoes.

Every spread had green peas and butterbeans, bacon topped baked beans, and green beans.  The table always had turnip greens and collard greens, both cooked with lard and/or bacon with homemade pepper sauce to doctor them up.  There had to be cornbread for them too.

The bread table had yeast rolls, homemade and handmade biscuits, brown and serve rolls which were faithfully burned on top, sour dough bread, Mexican cornbread, and usually broccoli cornbread.  Some poor soul would have white loaf bread.  Finally, there had to be buns for the barbeque and possibly hamburger patties.

The dessert table was place of delicious beauty and gluttonous debauchery.  Some brought store bought cake mix cakes and store-bought icing that semi qualified for homemade, made from scratch cakes with homemade icing, again some poor soul would bring a Wal-Mart or Winn Dixie grocery store bought cake.  There would be Italian Cream cake, frozen coconut cake, carrot cake, chocolate cake, banana cake, strawberry cake, and the good old yellow cake.  My sister Diane makes the best homemade from scratch red velvet cake.  One Sunday I ate strictly from the dessert table.

Pies included home peach and apple cobblers, homemade lemon meringue pie and lemon no meringue pie, cherry pie, pear pie, ham and egg pie (Not a desert), mince pie, and those out of this world diabetic overload pecan pies made with Golden Eagle sopping syrup.  My sister-law makes the best million-dollar pie. Boy those were days.  Most ladies today bring Sunday dinner to church in a bucket or box.

When I think of yesteryear, most of the good cooks have passed away.  I can say that my sister is one of the few church women that continues to cook the old fashion way.  At her church, her dishes are the first consumed with all the envious women wanted to know what makes my sister Diane’s dishes better.  They all cringe and turn up their noses when she says she still cooks with lard.  No one in my sister’s family is fat!  in good old Chiton County vernacular, Ain’t nothing no better than French fried taters cooked in lard.  Ump, ump, ump!

When I reminisce about the cooks at Union Springs there is Ms. Betty Joe Pate’s fried chicken.  Eat your heart out KFC.  There was Ms. Nola Dutton’s chicken and dumplings.  Ms. Deenie Smith cooked the best homemade macaroni and cheese.  My Aunt Annie and Aunt Katherine made the best biscuits that the Pillsbury Dough Boy envied.  It is sad.  All these delicious cooks are gone.  Some futuristic ladies did acquire their recipes but in Chiltonian words, “It ain’t the same.”

My friend Kelly received some very wise council when he was told to purchase a large King James Holy Bible and casserole dish.  Baptists love Koinonia, the Greek word for Sunday dinner on the ground.

 

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship (Koinonia) to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Acts 2:42 KJV

 

Before I forget it, there are several men at Union Springs Baptist Church that are great cooks.  Heedy, James, and my brother David have their world-famous barbeque chicken halves and quarters made with a secret special sauce over a fire of hickory wood.  As they say in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, “The secret is in the sauce.”  My brothers David and Glenn have perfected the cooking of a whole hog which happens at Union Springs Baptist Church each year.  Ya’ll come!