Who's Knocking on My Door

God always prepares us to minister for Him. I never dreamed that contract negotiations were progression for pastoral ministries. Each step we take in life’s journey is preparation for the next opportunity headed our way.

Negotiations had been difficult at Blue Circle Cement in Calera, Alabama. The 1980’s were troubled and trying times for the economy. Due to a corporate takeover, in 1982, Martin Marietta Cement sold to Blue Circle.

During the period from April 1982-March 1987, my vocabulary increased. Terms like “corporate purging,” “downsizing”, “eliminating inventory”, and “efficiency focus” created an atmosphere of low morale, drop in productivity, loss of experience and knowledge.

I, as well as several other employees, were laid off from Martin Marietta and called back after months and years later to Blue Circle. Being the last man hired in October 1976, I was the last employee for five years. I learned to despise the corporate terminology that led to five years of transition.

During the five years of struggling, I felt called into full-time ministry and enrolled at the University of Montevallo in the fall of 1983 as a twenty-nine-year-old freshman. The is one of many steps in a long journey. A wise pastor said, “A trip around the world starts with one step and the higher you go, the farther you can see.”

Four years later, Blue Circle called me from layoff. Blue Circle and Local Union 537 were at an impasse on contract negotiations and implemented a contract. My university experience had broadened my horizon. My co-workers discouraged from loss of pay, loss of vacations, and other losses. I found myself in a battle with human resources over insurance and trying to finish my spring term at Montevallo. Trying to turn five years of change in three days was no easy task.

Having been successful with human resources, some union brothers asked me to use my college knowledge to help the union. I reluctantly agreed and was immediately found that I was president by default.

God blessed me and we did negotiate a new contract with wages, vacations, and other fringe benefits restored. After a year as president, I decided to “go out” on top but stayed on the negotiation team.

By 1994 we were in another contract negotiation. Once again Local Union 537 and Blue Circle were at impasse, and the Federal Mediator is involved. Trips to the Federal Building were regular. Lockout would follow. Local Union 537 was outside looking in.

On a federal mediation day, the Local president, Keilan, and I were early and decided to see an old friend that had retired and lived in north Birmingham. We had promised to see him, but he lived in a rough neighborhood, and we did not have his address.

Elijah Smith (Smitty) was our friend’s name. He was black and lived in a black neighborhood. What we did was crazy, but we promised Smitty we would visit. I knew about where he lived because we discussed it when we worked together. I knew he lived near 15^th Street and could see the Hardee’s from his house.

Two white boys rode through the north Birmingham neighborhood looking for his Chevy van. Kelan was scared to death. Round and round we drove with no luck at all. I spotted a senior adult black lady swinging on her front porch swing. I told Keilan that I was going to ask her where Smitty “stayed” as Smitty called it.

I went on the porch and introduced myself to her. I told her that Elijah and I worked together at the cement plant, and we had promised to visit him. I knew he lived on 15^th Street. Keilan watched me from the car.

She told me her name and pointed across the street and said, “Elijah stay at that white house there.”

I thanked her very much and told Keilan that Smitty lives there. We drove to Smitty’s driveway, and I got out to knock on the door. Keilan whines, “Hopper, you going to get us shot!”

I told him that we were welcomed by the front porch lady. I knocked several times but no answer. I told Keilan to write a note that we paid a visit. About that time, I hear the unlocking of the door. There were several locks, and I realized Smitty was cautious.

Our friend opened the door, I think Keilan lay low in the car. There was Smitty smiling big and tears running down his cheeks. He said, “Lords I don’t believes it. Yall said you would come and yous did.”

Keilan and I found a lonely old friend in need of conversation and remembrance. We celebrated a wonderful morning. It would be our last time together. Keilan and Elijah are in the presence of the Lord.

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20 KJV

Blue Circle Cement locked out Local 537 for several months eventually allowing only a few employees to return. The plant sold a few years later as result of corporate purging and corporate downsizing philosophies.

 

Communication: Complicated Made Simple

I was out and about one day in Demopolis, Alabama and paid a visit to a church member that had missed church. He owned a windshield business in town. After swapping a few pleasantries I asked why he was not attending church and what his relationship to the Lord.

He hung his head and sheepishly said that my preaching was not deep enough. I asked him to explain. He said that my sermons were too simple. I told him that the art of communication was to take the complicated and make it simple.

I try to get on the same level as my listeners whether they are two or ninety-two, educated or not, blue collar or white collar, skilled or laborer, and professional or not. I always try to reach common ground.

I said so you want more hermeneutic, exegesis, Christology, Eschatology, Apocalyptic, Parousia jargon. He smiled and said that’s what I’m talking about. I looked in the eye and said, “You are clueless to what I just said.” He hung his head again.

I told him that I could go deeper, but much of the congregation would be oblivious to what I was saying. I told him that in the congregation were children, educated and uneducated, farmers, medical doctors, nurses, schoolteachers, lawyers and a wide variety of folks.

I told him that hermeneutics was the theory and method of interpretation of texts. Next, I said that exegesis was the interpretation of text, especially the Bible. I explained that Christology was the study of Christ, the Eschatology was the Second Coming, Apocalyptic was the study of End Times and Parousia was the Rapture.

I reminded him that my Pastor’s Pals was an introduction to the sermon. I was taking the “complicated and making it simple” giving a head’s up to what was coming in the sermon. My preaching was like him installing a new windshield so folks could see better. He never returned. I guess I was too shallow for him. He eventually closed his business.

Back when I worked at the cement plant, I worked with Sam. Sam was an instrument technician. He had the ability to read an electrical schematic and explain it. When I worked with him in the electrical shop it helped me to read the schematics.

He would say, “See the thing-a-jig here connects to the Hickie-me-dodgy over there and controls the what-you-me-call powers the machine. He probably did know the technical jargon, but he knew how it worked.

I have kinfolks and friends that are ignorant of the technical, but have the knowledge to repair equipment, computers, and most anything that runs, twist, or turns. As my father-in-law told me as a young man, “You can do most anything once you understand it.”

When the Creator of the universe came to earth as Jesus, he spoke to people in a way they could understand. He took the complexity of the universe and made it simple enough for children to understand.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Proverbs 4:7KJV

I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Psalm 78:2

Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Matthew 13:13 KJV.

I Will Speak Using Stories: Thirty-one Day Devotion Bobby E. Hopper 

God Hears the Heart

I read an interesting article the other day and it resonated with my heart. It was about an upcoming wedding. The bride was thrilled that she had lived long enough to marry. At nine years old doctors at University of Alabama Birmingham diagnosed her with cardiomyopathy, a disease of her heart muscle.

An eleven-year-old boy died from an accident was doctors pronounced him brain dead. Doctors asked his family if they would donate his organs. At first his father refused but later said that he felt as though his son was tell him yes.

On Mother’s Day 2011, UAB surgeons transplanted the boy’s heart to the nine-year-old. Their families became friends and on August 9, 2025, the bride invited the boy’s parents to her wedding. The boy’s parents were thrilled that they allowed their son to donate his organs that other may have life.

I have read about the thrill that parents whose children donated organs, especially the heart, hear their child’s heart beating. There is a special bond forged when listening to a heart beating.

The same day that I read the Florence wedding and the heartwarming event, I received a picture of my youngest son riding his son on his back.  It’s a wonderful picture.  My son Aaron and grandson Jack Barrett are in the water.  It was a picture of love, trust, and hope.

When Aaron small, his brother Andy and sister Angel loved the water. Angel could swim before she could walk. They had traumatized Aaron making him terrified of water. I had a very difficult time teaching him to trust me and jump into my arms at the pool. When he did learn, he became a very good swimmer.

Seeing Aaron and Jack Barrett together brought back memories of my love for Aaron. Jack Barrett looks like Aaron.  They have the same smile. Since they live in Texas and I in Alabama, the picture is a sweet reminder of a dad/son relationship. I pray that Aaron will have the same heart and love for Jack Barrett that I had for him.

Aaron did trust me. When he was a baby, he would lay on my stomach with his right ear on my heart listening to my heartbeat. He would continue to sleep listening to my heart until he got so long that he pushed my chin with his bushy hair. He was around four years old when stopped laying on my stomach.

He continued to listen to my heart beat each time he hugs me the lays his right ear on my heart. Oh, what a wonderful feeling that is. In my thirty-one-day devotional, I Will Speak Using Stories, the first devotion is God Hears the Heart. It is about a small boy that when speaking his words were not comprehensible.

He volunteered to pray one Father’s Day. The congregation, with the exception of his parents, did not understand him, but God did. It was one of the best Father’s Day experiences I ever had.

I pray that you will obtain a copy of I Will Speak Using Stories.

Herman’s Hermits had a song with these lyrics:

Every time I see you lookin' my way
Baby, baby, can't you hear my heartbeat?
In the car or walkin' down the highway
Baby, baby, can't you hear my heartbeat?

Thank God He hears the heart.

But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart. (I Samuel 16:7 KJV)

The Sound of Silence

They say that silence is golden. My experience with silence is that it can be ire. When we went all night fishing on Mahan Creek, there were sounds of all kinds of night creatures. There were the crickets, katydids, the croaking of frogs, toads, the hooting of owls, and the rustling of branches.

There was the noise of boys laughing, the roaring of a fire, and the splashing of water where someone fell into the creek, the screaming of someone being chased or scared half to death. Then the yell an adult or leader heard more than anything else hollering to settle down, be quiet, who fell into the water?

If everyone and everything became quiet, it meant trouble and the silence of a storm was brewing nearby. It could mean that something unusual was lurking near. Silence in the woods at night is not normal.

The falling of a dead and rotten tree can break the silence. Before all the noise generated in the world today, we could hear strange sounds. We lived on a hill. The hollers around us echoed various sounds.

We could be in the backyard and hear a vehicle drive into the front yard. Daddy would say, “One of y’all go see who it is.”  Most of the time there was no vehicle or person. From the backyard we could hear people talking and music playing just as though the sound was in close proximity.

Momma told us stories of sounds that were scary. When mamma and her brother were small their mom, my grandmother, told them to get water from a spring in the holler. This was the late 1930’s and there were no pumps for running water to the house. Momma and my uncle Gerald where dipping water and the heard a loud noise that scared them.

Grandmoe, said that Uncle Gerald out run momma to the house. She said that momma’s hair was standing straight up, and she was white as a ghost. Grandmoe said Uncle Gerald was shaking like a leaf. They told grandmoe what they heard. Grandmoe said she had heard it before, and it sounded like an elephant falling down a tree. No one was able to find the source of the sound, and it continued for years.

When I was young my aunt Annie said the same thing. I never could understand the analogy of an elephant falling out of a tree. I aways wondered how an elephant climbed a tree. Aunt Anni’s house was on the opposite side of the holler from grandmoe. One day my cousins and I were playing in branch where momma and Uncle Gerald had dipped the water. Suddenly, a great sound scared us. All I can say is that it sounded like an elephant crashing through the trees.

It continued to reverberate gigantic and massive sound waves through the years. It was always loud and frightening. We heard the sound until aunt Annie and Uncle JP cleared the shrubs and trees behind their house to make a garden. We never heard the crashing elephant again.

When I pastored Friendship Baptist Church in Clanton, Alabama I tried an experiment one Sunday morning during worship. I told the congregation that people cannot remain silent very long. Folks enjoy noise. People in today’s culture listen to noise through ear pods, headsets, and ever so popular loud music flowing from audio power amplifiers. It has become prevalent that most town and cities have noise ordinances. Young people do not realize that they we deaf from all the loudness damaging their hearing. They may have a future where they cannot hear.

I challenged the congregation to be silent for one minute. It was amazing. In less than ten seconds people were squirming, fidgeting, looking at their watches (before I phones), staring at me. Again, we must have noise. For some people, the television, stereo, or other devices break the silence. I spend most days without playing noise. I love drive without the radio playing.

We listen when it is silent. I fear that folks do not like the silence because they do not want to listen to God. We pray in silence so we can communicate with God. Unfortunately, we do most of the talking as God listens. We need to spend our “quiet time” listening to Him.

As Director of Missions, I visited several churches where the men of the church gather for pray before worship. There were a few where all the men prayed at once. Very distracted I could not pray. I would stick my fingers in my ears and consecrate quoting Psalm 23.

 And when he had opened the seventh seal. There was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour, Revelation 8:1 KJV

After the tragic event of 911, I sat on the front porch of the pastorium of Gallion Baptist Church and the silence created was frightening. Could it be that when everything stopped on 911, God got the attention of the world. After a while we returned to noise.    

 

 

 

Wild Varden

Fall is my second favorite season. Leaves are turning orange, yellow, brown, and all shades of reddish orange. The more they fall, the closer old man winter approaches. Cooler weather means hunting in Alabama.

When asked do I hunt and fish, I say that I am not a hunter. The are shocked. Most of the time I converse with those that do like I do hunt. Not that I lie. Here is what happens. One time I headed to our farm at Sugar Ridge in Jemison, Alabama from Linden for the purpose of cutting grass and weed eating.

I stopped in the College Town of Marion at the Chinese Restaurant for dinner (noontime in Alabama). I wore a pair of Turkey Federation camouflaged Liberty overalls that had purchased at Wall Mart. They were on sale, left over from the hunting season. They were not thick and heavy like the denim ones, and they were 4X and were comfortable. I loved them and wore them to where my wife Lisa could nor repair. I wore them in the restaurant.

It was turkey season, and some hunters were enjoying Chinese as I was. I asked them if they had good luck that morning. They told they had not. They asked how I did. I replied that I had not seen any turkeys. The said too windy for them. I agreed with them and as they asked questions I answered. My answers were truthful, but I had not hunted. They assumed I had.

Again, when asked if I hunt and fish, I say I’m not a hunter and fisherman, but a killer and catcher. We raised pigs, chickens, and beef cows. At an early age daddy appointed me the task of killing them for slaughter. I tell hunters that want to belittle my hunting that I have killed more meat than they have. That usually ends the conversation.

I did hunt in my youthful years. Dad gave me a 410 shotgun when I was twelve. I hunted quail, doves, squirrels, and rabbits with my trusty 410. I still use it to kill varmints any thing else that needs it.

One cold and sleety day after school I decide to go squirrel hunting where momma could cook squirrel stew and dumplings. I crossed the electric fence that corralled the pigs and headed to the woods. Our bore hog, affectionally named Varden for daddy’s co-worker that sold Varden to us, decided to go with me. Varden was almost a pet, but the older he got the ornerier he got. He was black with white strip and had some very long and sharp tusks.

I waved him back. I heard him again getting closer. He was smacking his lips together and white foam sprayed toward me. This time I broke off the top of a small pine tree and ran him back to spend time with the sows. I took a few more steps and here he came again only faster. I did not to turn my back to him, so I reached behind me to break another pine top.

I stumbled and fell on my back. Varden lunged at me and tried his best to use his long tusks to rip out my guts. His white slobber raked across my jacket. I threw up my feet and 410 and pushed him. When he cleared the barrel, I unloaded the squirrel shot into his left shoulder.

I had one shot, but it was effective. He ran limping back toward the barn. I was scared and the adrenaline was sky high. That was the only this 125-pound boy pushed 300-pound Varden away for the shot. If I missed, I was dead.

I did not go squirrel hunting after that. I called daddy at his work. He was on second shift. I said, “Daddy I had to shoot Varden. He ain’t dead, but he has a shoulder full of squirrel shot.”  Daddy asked me if I was okay and told him I was.

Varden limped for a while. That did not tame him, but we did our first dental work removing Varden’s tusks and removing his manhood he was gentler. Months later I had the pleasure of shooting Varden. We slaughtered him and momma made some great sausage. The left Boston Butt was full of squirrel shot that we surgically removed before processing. Each time I hold my 410, I think of almost being devoured by the beast that we named Varden. I think of it each time I read I Peter 5:8 in the KJV version of the Bible.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

 

 

 

Brainstorming, Take Cover

The human mind is remarkable as God designed.  Lisa and I were discussing the other night about how smells, sights, and sounds trigger a memory, even those long forgotten.  For our minds to store infinite bits of information, we utilize very little that we have access to retrieve. 

We marvel at computers and the seemingly unlimited acquisition of info.  A computer’s capability is based on data programmed into it by those with human minds.  The media bombards us with possibilities and potential of computers giving our minds movies, programming, and stories, and to ponder and have vivid imaginations.

The electronic wizards of computer chips can never replace the human mind.  Mankind is the ultimate creation of God.  This three-pound organ is 75% water with approximately one hundred billion neurons with a storage capacity of one quadrillion (1,000 trillion) connections.  Therefore, when our minds start to wander it has a lot of territory to cover.

As Lisa and I talked, my mind started on a journey.  There is so much stored in my brain and the possibilities of where I’m going are endless.  Lisa comments sometimes, “I would love to see into your brain, but it scares me to think what you are thinking.”  Well, my brain is storming and everything is swirling.

That night something she said something that triggered a memory of an old black man that was our neighbor and friend of my grandpa.  They had known each other for decades.  I thought about the influence he had on the community and on me.

Lawrence Atchison was a very dark man.  His mode of travel was his feet and an occasional traveler that might give him a ride.  When I started driving, I gave him a ride home.  He lived about two miles west of us.

Lawrence was kind, gentle and big and tall.  He would travel to Land Mart which was our local store where there was hoop cheese, tubes of baloney, bread, and the entire essential for living in rural Alabama.  After filling grocery sacks, not the thin and flimsy plastic ones but brown paper sacks.

I remember seeing Lawrence walking home with two sacks under his arms and baloney protruding out the top of the sack.  If grandpa was sitting on the front porch rocking, Lawrence would join him.

Two old friends would reminisce about growing up together and living as sharecroppers.  Now both worn out from the hard labor and rugged lifestyle of trying to eek a living in poverty-stricken Alabama rocked, laughed, and talked.

Lawrence lived on a dirt road and lived in an old shack which was kind of standard for most that lived in our community.  Most of the time, Lawrence traveled at night.  He would visit his relatives that lived east of Land Mart.  He was hard to see at night.  If any dogs barked after sunset, depending on the time of the year, we all knew that it was either Lawrence or the old black panther making their journeys.  The black panther came through migrating in the spring or in the fall.  Dogs would hide when the panther was passing, and they walked with Lawrence when he was passing.

Sometimes on dark nights the dogs would have a soft bark and daddy would say, “Old Lawrence must be headed home.”  If it was someone of something passing, the dogs growled and barked angrily.

Lawrence and grandpa have been dead for more than sixty years.  Most people in our have never heard and know of them.  There is no evidence of Lawrence’s old shack, but Grandpa’s front porch is across the road from our home.  Sitting or swinging on my front deck I can still visualize and almost hear Lawrence and Grandpa enjoying the relationship they had.

They had something that computerized society so critically needs today.  They used their minds to reminisce and had a personal relationship with each other as well as with most in the community.

I thank the Lord for Him allowing Lawrence and me to cross paths in life’s short journey.  I remember walking home from football practice after being dropped off at Land Mart.  The night was so dark that I could not see the road.  I walked with one foot on the pavement and the other on the grass for the quarter mile journey.  I wondered how Lawrence was able to make the trip.

In closing, there used to be a commercial that stated, “A mind is a terrible to waste.”  With all the capability of our brain and all the information available, why waste our brain.  There used to be a song that had the lyrics, “Input, output, what goes in is what comes out.”  That’s our brain.  It processes and stores what we experience.

Thanks, Lawrence, for the influence you had on me.

 

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.  (Romans 12:2 KJV)