Sitting on the Front Porch

Philip Gulley’s, Front Porch Tales, is a delightful read and inspiration for many of the articles I write.  Gulley writes of family, faith, laughter, and love.  Paul Harvey, Jr. says, “The tales Philip Gulley unveils are tender and humorous . . . filled with sudden, unexpected, lump-in-the-throat poignancy.”  I envy Gulley’s talent.  Front porch tales, how wonderful is that.  It reminds me my home place and our front porch.

I visit dad and mom each time I go back to my home church.  A pink granite headstone marks their grave.  It is not hard to find.  It is the only pink headstone in the graveyard.  Momma got it when daddy died.  I stand there and whisper to them.  I usually smile remembering what momma said about her grave before she died. “I been so bad, the grass will probably not grow on my grave.”  She’s right, it doesn’t.  Her grave is where the rain runs down the hill and the centipede is patchy.  It has nothing to do with her being bad, just bad location.

I wish many times I could go back to those days on our front porch.  Around my high school graduation, we remodeled the front porch and daddy put momma oak swings on each end.  Springs from the hood of one of our old junk cars held one swing on the porch.  We would get momma in that swing and bounce her up and down.  There was a sensation springing up and down, swinging back and forth that no county fair ride could duplicate.  Momma would scream, holler, and we would bounce more.

From those swings, we would have talks.  I would sit in one swing and dad and mom would sit in the other. Back and forth, toward and away, and sometimes just sitting still we discussed important things of life.  We talked of getting married, leaving home, dying with cancer, having babies, whipping (disciplining for those who are politically correct) children, planting crops, attending funerals, heaven, hell, and the real issues of life.

Sitting on the swings, I can see momma smooching on daddy, my daughter Angel playing tic-tac-toe on the marks left from radiation treatments on daddy’s baldhead, and the look of horror of the unsuspecting visitor who sat in the “spring loaded swing”.  They thought it was falling only to realize the Hopper Law of Physics (reverse of Newton’s law of physics) was at work.  What goes down will go up.

Sitting on the swings, I learned how much daddy and momma loved God, loved family, and loved me.  Stories, laughter, tears, hope, and wisdom saturate the swings.  I stop there sometimes and draw from that magnificent saturation.  It is sweet and precious.  I wish everyone could have had a turn in the swings.  Life is short and good counsel is essential. 

Losing someone who counsels us leaves a great hollowness in our system of significance.  I am glad dad and mom chose to give me life.  Since Jesus gave me life, I am glad I have the Holy Spirit.  The Lord’s promise from Hebrews 13:5 reminds me, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  Dr. Calvin Miller in his book, Loving God Up Close, writes:

This is the most remarkable thing about the counsel of the Holy Spirit: those who seem to abound with the most obvious joy, do not have less frequent troubles.  In fact, just the opposite seems true.  Those with the most joyous lives have often wept their way to the inner Counselor.  Laughter among people of real faith does not indicate that they are strangers to affliction. The truly joyous often have lived on the edge of an abyss where they have had to face the glare of despair and learn the laughter of God.

Ripe for Pickin'

One Christmas season I was traveling and played a couple of Christmas CD’s.  One was by Elvis and the other Burl Ives.  As I listened to Elvis, I reminisced about Christmas Past and my mind carried me to a place that I sometimes long to be.  I keep thinking that momma is going to wake me.  Is today real or am I having this long nightmare?  Am I dreaming of the future?  Sometimes I wish I were only dreaming.  Boy, do we live in a messed up world today or what?

I usually ride for miles without listening to the radio or CD’s.   I usually take that time to think about the past, the present, and the future.  It is my meditation time.

As Elvis sang of Silver Bells, Blue Christmases, and Red Decorations on Green Christmas trees, I thought how nice it would be to be home for Christmas.  Only problem is the home I long for only exists in my mind.  I am not speaking of a house, but a time long gone.

As I traveled, I thought how momma made dinner for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  These were very special meals and family time.  She was a very good cook, except for fried hamburger, fried chicken, and fried fish.  Everything else was really very delicious.

Most of what she cooked, we harvested and gathered ourselves.  Mom was an impatient gardener.  I can see momma headed to the field with a fork and basket in hand going to dig “taters.”  We never had big potatoes.  Mom would dig them too early.  She loved new “taters” and gravy.

Daddy always made a bed for sweet potatoes.  He would plow them up and we would store them in a bed he made in the ground.  Momma would start baking them and making sweet potato pies before the sweet potatoes cured.  It was the same with green beans, sweet peas, okra, butter beans, corn, and peas.  She never let them mature, or as she would say, especially about sweet corn just off the blister, “Get too hard.”  Boy, those tender fixin’s were sure delicious.

Mom made a wonderful pecan pie.  In fact, we loved any thing that had pecans and loved the pecans raw.  One time I tried to eat a pecan that was not ripe.  It tasted bitter.  Don’t laugh.  I remember a Yankee that came south to show us dumb country rednecks how to run a cement plant and he had never eaten a raw pecan.

My friend Keilan brought a sack full to work.  All the men got two pockets full to eat during the day.  Pecan hulls were everywhere.  This know-it-all Yankee asked what everyone was cracking and eating.  Keilan gave him a handful, showed him how to crack them, and started to walk away.  He had never seen them in the hull and cracked by hand.  The word pecan means nut cracked by rock.  The Yankee cracked the pecans, removed the pecan haves, and started to chew.  Suddenly he spit the pecans out complaining they were bitter.  The dummy did not know to remove the pith lining between the halves.

One time momma made a hickory nut pie.  It was very good, but it was very hard because the nuts were hard to crack and the meat hard to retrieve.  Hickory nuts require a hammer. Needless to say, we did not want many of them.  Hickory nuts make great ammo for slingshots.

One time daddy wanted a persimmon pie.  Persimmons need to be ripe before enjoying.  Each morning I walk to work I pass a persimmon tree that is almost in front of the office.  I have watched with eager anticipation, as they are turning from green to orange, hoping to beat the possums to them.  I have been tempted on several occasions to pop one into my mouth.  Dad taught me a valuable lesson long ago when he had me taste one.  I remember my lips puckered for a long time.  Mature persimmons and persimmon pie are delicious.    

Picking time for the fruit of the land is crucial for consumption and enjoyment.  Growing, cultivating, and harvesting good fruit is a labor of love, yet a challenging task.  Growing up in peach country, I know the difference between a peach picked to eat and one picked for market.  Ain’t nothing sweeter than a fresh peach. 

Momma had a different view of new potatoes as opposed to peaches.  She wanted the peaches ripe.  I will miss her peach cobblers and fried pies again this year.  There is nothing compared to the home grown and home cooked fruit of the land.

Jesus used the analogy of fruit to teach about spiritual growth:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.  Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.  Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing (John 15:1-5 KJV)

And, how about Jesus’ birth?  The world was ripe for the coming Messiah.

But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son . . . (Galatians 4:4a KJV)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Christmas Cost God Everything

Christmas is a costly time.  It cost God everything.  When all the hoopla, all the sales, all the parties, and all the family are gone, Christmas becomes memory.  My memories about Christmas are different from most people.  The Hopper Christmas was not about presents, but about time together, momma’s cooking, daddy’s being Scrooge, and no school.

I do not remember my first Christmas.  I was twelve days old.  The first Christmas I remember was when I was four or five years old.  It was cold, snow flurries, and the wind was blowing as daddy took me to the Bijou, an old movie house.  Every time I watch It’s A Wonder Life, I have a flashback to the Bijou.  If you remember George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) running down the street in the snow yelling at the Bijou.  It was my first encounter with The Three Stooges, pizza, and salami.  It was in Beloit, Illinois/Wisconsin. 

Beloit was on the state line.  Dad worked in Wisconsin and we lived a few blocks away in Illinois.  No, I am not a Yankee, I was born in Clanton, Alabama, but we moved and daddy worked at the Beloit Iron Works.  My brother David is the Yankee and now you know why I saw snow.  I walked to school in the snow, had a snowsuit, had snow gloves, and snow boots.

After the Three Stooges movie, each boy and girl received a Christmas present.  I never had seen that many presents before.  It was the first time I remember seeing a Santa Claus and he was very intimidating for a shy, small Alabama boy.  Each boy and girl sat on Santa’s knee to get his or her presents.  My first encounter was quick.  I did not know what to make of a man in a red suit with  long white hair and a beard.

The fact was that each of the employees of Beloit Iron Works contributed money to the company which bought each boy and each girl presents.  I did not know any better.  I was unfamiliar with the whole Santa Claus thing.

When we moved back to the poverty of Alabama, Christmas was never the same.  In rural Chilton County, there was no Bijou, no pizza, and no salami.  It would be years before I saw the Three Stooges.  I would be out of high school before a Pasquales’ Pizza would open thirty miles from home and stores would sell salami.

Each Christmas dad would be on layoff, Christmas shutdown, or unemployed.  There would be no money for food, much less for presents.  We stopped going to visit cousins. They got lots of neat things that we were not allowed to touch.  Aunts and uncles instructed our cousins to hide their toys until the Hoppers left.

Mom and dad stayed on edge during Christmas.  Mom wanted to decorate the house and dad would get depressed and start acting worse than Scrooge.  Even though not a Christian, he would say that Christmas is about the birth of God’s son, not about all the hoopla that people make it to be.

Every year something always made Christmas hoopla diminish.  During the Christmas season, I have repaired a slipping transmission, replaced a blowout tire, replaced a broken fuel pump, and replaced deteriorated disc brake pads.  At other times, things would happen like the dryer element burning out, the pickup engine blowing up, and the well pump going bad.

There would be the unexpected hospital stay for cancer that would days later take mom’s life.  There would be Christmas Day emergency room visit for stitches to my son Aaron’s mouth where he tried to run through a barbed wire fence.  Trips to therapy for a bulging disc caused from the stress of layoff, mother dying with cancer, wife pregnant with no insurance, and college tuition for upcoming term due.

The first Christmas without dad was tough and the first one without mom was real tough.  The first Christmas with my oldest son Andy was exciting.  He was almost a year old and was happy playing in a box of Christmas paper.  The one with my daughter Angela was challenging.  She was three months old and had colic.  The one with Aaron was special.  He was seven months old and was fun to watch.

My first Christmas as a married man,  I bought dad a unique shotgun, a collector’s item the first year he owned it, mom an electric guitar, my sister a beauty salon style hairdryer that looked like a giant hornet nest, one brother a cassette player, and the other brother a starter guitar.

When I imagine Joseph and Mary’s first Christmas, today’s hoopla misses the point.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.  And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.  And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger (Luke 2:13-16 KJV)

Clumsy Soggy Bottoms

Experiencing a growth spurt in my early teens, I became a maladroit athlete.  Another word for maladroit is clumsy.  I learned how to stumble without serious injury by learning to hit and roll.  In fact, I made it an art, which was a great attribute to possess being a practice dummy for the senior high football team that kicked and knocked me around quite regularly.

Shouldering paper wood and walking in the woods through honeysuckle vines and saw briars was a great learning tool for the art of stumbling.  It is amazing how many of nature’s creeping plants can grab hold of a size 12 boots.  Stumbling with a large stick of paper wood, you learn quickly how to fall without serious injury.

My junior year, I remember one night I intercepted a pass and headed for a touchdown.  I had two blockers, who should have been blocking, along side of me as I headed for the end zone.  The only man to beat was the quarterback and we were behind him.  He chased, and at the last minute, drove to catch only the tip of my right cleat.  I stumbled, falling short of the end zone.  I went rolling head over heels like a ball.  We did not score and eventually lost 14-13.  I watched the play on film and the quarterback barely touched the tip of my toe.

Most people, who stumble, will jump up readily and look to see if someone is watching.  The other day I stumbled on one of the boards I use for a ramp into my shed.  It has flipped me on several occasions but I have always landed on my feet.  That was until the moment when my neighbor was watching.  The board tilted throwing me toward the shed.  Wanting to preserve my face, actually not wanted any more scars, I used the poise of a ballet dancer to turn while flying through the air, soutenu en tournant,  and toward a host of scar making items.  With the grace of a meteorite striking the earth and the sound of an elephant falling into a room full of brass cymbals, I miraculously landed sitting upright in the garage door.

Thinking of a moment that could have earned me a spot for the grand prize on America’s Funniest Home Videos, except that no one was filming, I heard my neighbor holler, “Are you okay?”  I was until I realized what a sight he saw.  I assured him that it looked and sounded more melodramatic than it was.

One Memorial Day my good friend and minister of music, Bill Baker, took my son Aaron and me fishing on a slough converted into a lake on the Tombigbee west of Demopolis.  We bought some minnows, called “menners” in Chilton County, and headed to a great day of crappie fishing.

I got concerned about the size of the boat for the three of us.  Bill assured me that it was big enough as we bypassed a larger one.  Bill would be running the trolling motor so he wanted a boat he could navigate more easily.

We put the boat in the water and again I questioned the size of the boat to the size of us three.  Bill said, “Preacher you get in first, Aaron can sit in the middle and I will sit on the front.”

Slowly I maneuvered my way to the back, a floating boat is an accident waiting to happen, trying not to stumble and fall into a cold lake.  I had already experienced stumbling on a rebar on a bridge and falling backwards, while holding and bending to rebars, into a muddy creek where the high for the day was 14 degrees.  Did you know that cold water will take your breath?

I made it to the back of the dinghy, small boat, and as I sat on the bench, the water came within an inch of the rim of the top of the boat.  I told Bill I thought we needed the bigger boat.  He assured me that it would be okay and he told Aaron to get it.  Aaron, size 15 boot, tripped on the ice chest between the front and middle seats and fell into my lifted and out-stretched arms.  I broke his fall and kept him out of the lake, but the dinghy sank to the bottom of the lake with me holding my precious baby boy in my arms.  I had visions of the sinking of the Titanic.  For a moment I knew how the Egyptians must have felt when the Red Sea came crashing in on them.  I watched the water come over the boat like a miniature Niagara Falls wetting me to under my armpits.  I was glad we were near the bank or we would have perished. 

Bill, holding the rope to the boat and I think humming Taps, bent over with laughter, fell to the ground, and rolled on the bank laughing to the high heavens.  Aaron made excuses for stumbling and we became the other famous “Soggy Bottom Boys.”  We were not men of constant sorrows, but men who got the bigger boat and had a great day of fishing, teasing, and laughing, with soggy bottoms.

We all stumble in many ways (James 3:2a NIV).

Now to Him who is able to keep them from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory in great joy.   To the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time, and now, and for evermore. Amen, (Jude 24-25 ASV).

Stressed Spelled Backwards is Desserts

Why is it that Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday eating causes weight gain?  It is hard to understand how an ounce of cake turns into a pound of fat over night and that same pound of fat takes two weeks of hard work in the gym to remove.  Five Christmas parties equal ten New Year Resolutions that are broken by the time Valentine’s Day arrives.

Things like this make the holidays depressing.  I do not know about most people, but when I get depressed, I eat.  A super-sized order of Big Mac, fries, and diet Dr. Pepper help my depression.  If I cannot get the Big Mac, desserts will help drive depression away.  You do know that stressed spelled backwards is desserts.

Preaching is a stressful job.  Just think of all the eating invitations that preachers receive.  I know I do not look like it, but I am a picky eater.  I always try to please cooks and people who prepare meals for me.  One can never afford to make the cook angry.  I get stressed thinking about what might be in my Big Mac if the cook is angry.  I have heard horror stories about foreign object allowances in our food during processing.  It is depressing and Big Mac time.

I have had a few occasions where I have worried.  One time Mama Green invited our family over for Sunday dinner.  Before being a pastor I was supply preaching at Mama Green’s church.  Mama Green was a short, bent, lady.  She had a contagious laugh and infectious love for the Lord.  As she readied the table, my family, along with another couple from the church, looked at all of Mama Green’s earthly goods.  She had some neat stuff in a slightly unkempt house. 

She filled her table with large bowls of good old country cooking.  It was a table right out of Miss Manners or Dear Heloise.  Gathered around the table, Mama Green asked the husband of the other couple to say grace.  We started the feast.  Did you know that kids could embarrass you?  My daughter Angela tried that day.  She spotted a large roach crawling among the food bowls.  She said, “Daddy, there is a big roach on my plate.”  Boy, I’m glad Mama Green was hard of hearing.  When Mama Green asked what the dear little girl wanted, I think I patched it by saying that she wanted some pig roast or a big piece of roast.  I motioned and whispered to Angela that it was okay.  It made the meal a little more difficult to eat.

That’s almost as bad as the time we were eating green beans and my baby son Aaron found a worm.  I told him that the worm was full of green beans and the worm added a little more meat flavor.  Angela removed it from his plate and Aaron does not eat green beans.

One Sunday afternoon we were frying some French fries.  We kept smelling this foul order and could not find the source.  That was until we dumped the fries along with a French fried green lizard.  Aaron responded, “I wondered where my little lizard was hiding.”

I have always had the fear of being on a mission trip to a foreign country and having an exotic meal.  I have heard of missionaries who have been served camel eyeballs, goose intestines, and fish heads.  I'd rather have roaches and worms.

Stuff like that reminds me of a cousin returning home from a hard day’s work, entered his kitchen, and found this delicious aroma.  He removed a lid from a boiling pot and discovered the contents and source of the aroma was a beautiful pink meat.  He used a fork to get some of the tender meat.  It was delicious.  As his wife entered the kitchen, he quizzed her about the meat.  As my cousin chewed a large mouthful, his wife said, “Hog lights (lungs).”  My cousin spit them out, but his wife loved them.

On another invite to a home after church, we gathered around a beautiful arrayed table.  It had all the amenities of fine dining.  The silverware, utensil, and napkins were an etiquette masterpiece for American dining.  I worried how to act, but my worries quickly subsided.  There on the placemat was cat hair.  While we were at church, Old Tom decided he would take a nap on the elegant place mats and napkins.  I am glad I did not get a hairball.

 As you can tell, these things have only slowed me, not stopped me from eating.  If you are depressed from reading this, go get a Big Mac or some desserts.  Remember when invited to a home for dinner; do as Paul told the Corinthians about meat offered to idols.  Do not ask, just eat it.

But fortunately God doesn’t grade us on our diet.  We’re neither commended when we clean our plate nor reprimanded when we just can’t stomach it.  But God does care when you use your freedom carelessly in a way that leads a Christian still vulnerable to those old associations to be thrown off track (I Corinthians 8:8-9 The Message).

But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak (I Corinthians 8:8-9 NIV).