Scrooge, Lay-off, and Christmas

It is hard to remember every Christmas season I experienced, but a few stand out in my mind.  I remember Christmas 1957.  Santa brought me an airplane.  It was silver and black and had a friction mechanism that the more you pushed it before you let it go the faster it went.  It also had red lights that blinked as it rolled along the floor.  Unfortunately, it would not fly.  I know because I threw it from the deck of the second floor in the apartment that we stayed.

I remember Christmas 1958.  My sister and I got Zorro suits.  Mom took pictures of us in them.  We looked like matadors ready to fight the bull.  I am pretty sure the pictures were of us, but I could be mistaken because we had on masks like those that the real Zorro wore in the Disney movies.  No one knew who he was, so I'm not sure that is us in the picture.

Christmas 1959 was the last one we spent in the snow in Illinois.  I remember that the tree had lots of presents beneath it.  Mom took a picture of that one too.  One of the presents under the tree is Huckleberry Hound.  Huckleberry Hound was actually a target that had a gun with suction tip bullets. 

I remember that we got lots of guns, toy and real, for Christmas.  That was before the naysayers said that guns caused too much violence.  I guess the naysayers did not have my daddy as their dad.  Dad never allowed us to point our guns, toy or real, at people and pretend to kill them.  If we did, we felt daddy’s wrath.

When we moved back to Alabama, Christmas was not the same as up north.  Alabama, Chilton County especially, did not have the same economical advantages of Illinois.  That is why were moved north in the beginning.  Back in Alabama, dad did not work during the Christmas holidays. 

I remember him coming home with this grim look.  He would tell momma that he was on layoff for the holidays.  He was the junior man on the totem pole where he worked and because business was slow, companies, I called them Scrooges, laid off workers until after the holidays.

I do remember one special Christmas.  We wanted bicycles.  My sister, brothers, and I had suspicions that Santa might not be the real deal.  On this particular Christmas, we were going to stay up and watch to see if Santa actually would come. 

We did not have a fireplace, but we did have a small pot-bellied stove in the southeast end of the house.  We wanted to see if Santa could come down the stovepipe.  It was real small, and crooked, and from all the pictures that we saw, Santa was real big.  We wondered how Santa could keep his suit so clean climbing down chimneys without getting soot on them.

Back then, there were no presents under the tree until Christmas morning.  We went to bed pretending to be asleep, but Mr. Sandman filled our eyes with sleep.  We woke the next morning to see that somehow, some way, that Santa had left us new bicycles.  They were Huffy bicycles.  Mine was red and white twenty-six inches tall.  I rode that bike everywhere I went for years.  Of course, I made several modifications to that bike.  I removed the front fender.  I bent it in a wreck.  I took off the chain guard.  It got bent in a wreck.  I took off the reflectors which got mangled in a wreck.  I also bent the front forks.  That bike was one of the greatest Christmas gifts I ever received. 

As years passed and layoffs came every Christmas, the magic of Christmas vanished.  Magic is that way.  Magicians can make things disappear.  The Hopper family learned what the Magi, not magicians, did.  They were astronomists that studied the heavens and realized that God, a King of the Jews to them, was coming to earth.  They said that they had seen His star in the East and were following it.  They said where is He that born the Kings of the Jews for we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.

We learned that Christmas is about the greatest gift that one can receive.  It is the gift of Jesus.  That is what Christmas is.  It is Christ’s Mass or worship of Christ.  The Apostle Paul reminds us that God sending Jesus to earth was the mystery of the Old Testament revealed in Jesus.  Santa, like Disney, may have a magical kingdom that will one day disappear.  Jesus’ coming ushered an eternal kingdom that is marvelous and will never disappear.

Sometimes I, and perhaps you also, make a wreck of God’s gift as I did with my bike.  My bike was a wonderful gift, but I abused it.  God gives us the gift of Salvation and we experience life’s wrecks.  I thank God for helping through my wrecks.  How about you?

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him (Matthew 2:1-2 KJV).

Hope as the Year Ends

As the football season draws to a close and the football bowl season starts, we know that it is the holiday season.  It is a time of giving thanks, celebrating Christ, ending another year, and making new resolutions.

Family gatherings, festive merriment, and financial exertions will deplete our good nature, drain our energy, and depress our banking accounts.  Each of us will enter the New Year tired.

Take a moment to reflect on the game of football.  It has been said that at a college stadium, there are twenty-two players in need of rest and ninety thousand spectators in need of exercise and that is at the game not counting the hundreds of thousands that are watching on television.

The truth is that the hustle and bustle of the holiday season is everything but a time of Holy day reflection.  Most everyone will start the New Year tired and exhausted.  As my daddy would say about vacations, “Son, I got to go back to work to rest.”

If you are like me, there are times when I have been tired and in need of rest when the unexpected happens.  Suddenly, totally exhausted we must find energy to continue.

While attending the University of Montevallo, I found myself in that situation on several occasions.  One of those times, I was working full time at the cement plant, taking a full course (12 hours) at the University, and pastoring the Brierfield Baptist Church.  I worked rotation shifts at the plant and had to swap my day shifts and evenings for evenings and midnights.  Truman, the co-worker that I swapped, loved the conditions.  I needed to do what I thought would help me live my call in the ministry.

After working a Saturday midnight, I went home, took a nap, got up, showered went to church, preached, ate dinner, took a nap, went to church, went home, and went to work Sunday midnight.  Monday morning I showered at the plant, and went to classes at the University.  My last class was physical education, a course in tennis.  I played tennis with an eighteen-year-old girl who beat me every class.  I was thirty-five and running on caffeine having not slept much since starting midnights.

I got home needing to get some rest before working Monday midnight.  Getting ready to sleep I got a call from the cement plant to report to work.  The evening shift man did not report to work and there was an emergency.  I tried my best to convince them that I had no sleep and could not work.  I was an oiler on the cement kilns.

Have you ever noticed how plant safety or any other employee rules go out the window in times of emergency?  The evening supervisor told me that if I needed to sleep, I could sleep in the control room.  Sleeping on the job meant termination on normal days.

I went to work and pulled a double, working the evening shift and the midnight shift.  I was tired on Tuesday morning.  I took a good hot shower at the plant and went to two classes at the University.  When I got home Tuesday afternoon, I died for a few hours.  By the way, I did not sleep on that double shift.  I worked for those sixteen hours.

Life is full of times when trouble comes when needing rest.  We have all been there.

After a very exhausting day of ministry and work, Jesus instructed the disciples to cross the Sea of Galilee.  While in route to the other side, a violent storm arose.  The area in which the disciples were caught in the storm was not an area where storms usually occurred.  It was dark and the boat tossed back and forth causing the disciples to panic.  It is bad when veteran fisherman panic.  Jesus was asleep in the bottom of the boat, but He got up to serve.

There is a lesson for us.  The disciples forgot that hope, Jesus, was in the boat.  They wanted to rest but they had to serve, wanted to rest but had to work, wanted to rest but had to pray, wanted to rest but had to continue, and wanted to rest but had to glorify God.

And the same day, when the even was come, He saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side.  And when they had sent away the multitude, they took Him even as He was in the ship. And there were also with Him other little ships.  And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.  And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake Him, and say unto Him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?  And He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.  And He said unto them, why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?  And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, what manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? (Mark 4:35-41 KJV)

Life is Precious and Brief

I love visiting the Brierfield Café.  Located in Brierfield, just southwest of Montevallo, the Brierfield Café has the finest pork barbeque and the best, fried, green tomatoes in Alabama.  The café is the dream-come-true work of a former church member and friend, JoAnn.  The finest barbeque, the best fried green tomatoes, and a hug from JoAnn is hard to turn down, especially when she says, “You will always be my pastor.”

Each time I dine there, JoAnn always asks, “Who died?”  It seems that most of the time when I patronized her establishment, I am back home to attend or conduct a funeral.  This particular time, I was there to spend a Friday night and Saturday working on my farm, Sugar Ridge.  As I entered the café, Mary, another old friend, hollered to us.  Mary is the president of a bank in Montevallo and wife of a famous Birmingham radio Deejay.

Mary said she needed me to do her a favor.  “Would you go visit Truman?”  Truman, her ex-husband was dying with cancer.  Mary said that he did not have long to live. 

I worked with Truman for eighteen years.  He was a short, thin man with a beard and mustache.  I will never forget the first time I met him.  He asked me if I had my union jacket.  It was my first day at the cement plant.  I was under a ninety-day probation period and not a member of the Union.  I gave him a puzzled look and he said, “You need to ask the plant manager to give you a union jacket.”

Having worked on union jobs before, I replied, “I may look like a dumb country boy, but I did not fall off a turnip green truck yesterday.” Truman laughed.  That same day while shoveling cement from top a roof, Truman told me to ask the plant manager if he could get us one of those big roof fans to blow the cement dust away from us when we dumped it off the roof.  I have never figured out why little men think big men are stupid.

Truman was a Viet Nam vet.  I would tell him from time to time that I appreciated his service to our country.  Viet Nam Vets were not honored, as were Vets of other wars before or after Viet Nam.  Like most Vets, he did not talk much about the war.  I would tease him, along with several other Viet Nam Vets that one of the reasons we did not win in Nam was because they were all little men like the Viet Cong.  He would remind me that I was too big a target.

I visited Truman the next morning as I promised Mary that I would.  As I entered the room where he lay, he smiled.  I forced a smile seeing a small skeleton with skin stretched over it laying in a fetal position.  I reminisced of all the pranks and fun we had together.  One of the things coworkers and I would do is when Truman started his aggravation, and he was worst than a gnat on a hot sweaty afternoon, was to grab him up and clean the floor with his bottom side.  He would always jump to his feet and yell, “My pants are on fire!”  By the way, the tile floor looked good afterwards.

After becoming a pastor, I convinced Truman to attend church with me at Brierfield Baptist.  It tickled Mary that Truman was in church.  Truman had an addictive personality.  He was addicted to smoking, drinking, pornography, and gambling.  These, especially gambling, led to the divorce of Mary and Truman.  I felt that if Truman accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, he would be a dynamic believer.

With these memories racing through my mind, Truman and I shared what would be our last moments together.  He tried so hard to talk, but the drugs and pain mumbled his speech.  I had to know if he was ready to meet God.  I leaned close to his mouth trying to hear what he had to say.  I thought he was trying to tell me he wanted me to do his funeral.  His wife said that Truman had accepted the Lord a few months earlier.

On the night before another visit to see Truman, I bumped into another former coworker.  I told him that I was going to visit Truman.  He said, “They buried Truman last Wednesday.”

Don’t live carelessly, unthinking.  Make sure you understand what the Master wants.  Don’t drink too much wine.  That cheapens your life.  Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him.  Sing hymns instead of drinking songs!  Sing songs from the heart to Christ.  Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:17-19 The Message)