Three Rings and a Funeral

I like gadgets.  I can spend hours in hardware stores, automotive shops, and electronic shops looking at all the neat things to have at your disposal.  I guess it is a guy thing, but having the right gadget or tool makes all the difference in the world for doing “honey do” projects.  Wow have some of these electronic wonders changed the way we work and communicate.

Lately though, I have noticed that many electronic gadgets are beginning to be a nuisance.  I have been to several meetings where ultimately; someone’s cell phone will interrupt the meeting with some ridiculous ring tone.  What makes it ridiculous is that the host most often asks each attendee to turn off their phones or if they are expecting that, “all important call” to put their phone on vibrate.

At the last Southern Baptist Convention I attended, I saw the rudeness of many in attendance who were on their cell phones, blackberries, or laptop computers during times of preaching or business.  I am always amazed at how many people attend a conference and the first thing they do is open laptops, now even smaller “notebooks,” and read e-mails and other stuff during meetings.  It makes me want to buy one of those illegal gadgets that jams the frequencies of phones, blackberries, and laptops.

I remember a funeral I attended a couple of years ago.  It was the mother of a former church member.  This former member is a respected medical doctor and a family friend.  My sister and I sat together, unbelievably, without daddy making us.  That was punishment for fighting when growing up.  I leaned over to her and said, “I bet you a supper that a cell phone rings during the funeral.”  She agreed with the deal.  Right on cue, someone’s cell phone started ringing to the tune of “Sanford and Son.”

I smiled at my sister and said, “Double or nothing I bet another rings.”  She agreed again.   Did I mention that my sister is gullible?  A few moments later, another phone rang.  It was in a lady’s purse and she fumbled for what seemed an eternity trying to turn it off.

Feeling kind-a bad about my sister owing me two suppers, I asked her to go double or nothing again.  I was thinking that by now everyone made sure his or her cell phones were off and sister could break even.  By the way, my sister is a very good cook.  Before the end of the funeral, another cell phone rang.  After the funeral, I told my sister all she had to do was fix one supper.

We have heard lately about the security breaches, the train wreaks, auto accidents, and other disturbing effects that cell phones and text messaging are causing.  I know I have preached at a couple of churches were the young people are text messaging during worship.  Now our young people can pass notes electronically.  It makes me want to text the sermon to them or have God text them, “LISTEN TO THE SERMON.”

I hope I do not sound like I am on a soapbox, but I think that we are losing our respect for one another.  The other day this dude was talking, I thought, to me.  I was having this conversation with him when I realized he was talking to his ear and I was talking to myself.  He wore another gadget makes people look like an alien from a “Sci Fi” movie.

In Wal Mart, two ladies were walking side by side pushing their buggies while talking on cell phones.  I saw four girls in a car on the Interstate all four talking on their cell phones.  Has it gotten that bad that we must have cell phones to communicate with one another while with one another?

I know that during the holidays it was hard to carry on a conversation with family and friends because they were constantly talking or text messaging to someone.

As we all know too well, cell phones can be critical in keeping us safe and connected. Technology, its myriad of benefits, and all its gadgets are not the issue, people are.

“Some people have gotten so fed up with rude mobile phone users they have turned to illegal cell phone jammers. These devices knock cell phone users off their lines and prevent a reconnection with the cell tower until the user wanders out of range. The rate at which jammers are selling speaks to the lack of manners among yappers.”

Thinking of cell phone etiquette, we need to remember the words of the Apostle Paul.  And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you (Ephesians 4:32 KJV).  The words of Jesus my express it better.  A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another (John 13:34 KJV).

The next time you are in worship or at a funeral, remember to turn off your cell phone.  It is not likely that God will be using Verizon, ATT, or Southern LINC to contact you and that cute ring tone might not be appropriate.

Polluted Pulpit

Do you remember the commercial on pollution with Indian Chief as spokesman?  It is the one where a Native American, Iron Eyes Coty, sheds a tear as he looks at a polluted stream.  Every time I saw the commercial, I thought it looked a lot like the roads, streams, and creeks in Chilton County.

When I walk the fence line on my property in Jemison, I have to carry a garbage sack, sometimes two, to pick up behind sorry folks who throw out their trash.  I don’t know about you, but I do not like picking up other people’s trash.

I have identified some characteristics of those people that want us to pick up after them.  One is they like fast food restaurants, especially McDonald’s.  It is bad enough to pick up hamburger wrappers, but it is wrappers, open catsup packets, tissue, and bit and pieces of hamburger, buns, and fries.  These folks try to be helpful bay tossing out the whole bag where a family of four has chowed down on the grub, in their old jalopy, on the way to who knows where.  Undoubtedly, it is a place where there are no trash bins or containers.

Another thing is that these polluters smoke cigarettes, especially Marlboro Lights in the box.  It’s bad enough that they empty their ashtrays in the public parking lots, but they decorate the highways with butts and empty boxes.  Every time I see someone toss a butt on the ground I want to pick it up and toss it on his or her car, but that would make me like him or her.  I need to be careful here, I want to preach a minute on the dreadful odor of nicotine and the awful sight of discarded butts when entering places that are clearly marked, “A Tobacco Free Facility.”  The ones at hospitals are kind of an Oxy Moron.  Oops, I almost got on a soapbox.

Another identifying mark of the polluter is they drink alcohol, especially Bud Light.  They usually prefer the dark long neck bottles that break on impact.  These babies create safety hazards for the unprotected hand and the unsuspecting lawnmower tire.  The long neck bottle provides a nice handle to use the bottle as a projectile to toss at mailboxes, especially the fancy antique aluminum ones or the every elusive metal fence post that gallant holds the barbed wire and retains docile livestock.

Coming in second in alcohol arena is empty pints of whiskey.  These are more durable and are not easily broken, excepting when you run over them with a tractor.  They shatter pretty good when a water filled rear tractor tire sits directly on top of them.

The lowest of polluters is the one that uses plastic soda bottles as temporary holders of urine.  These pee bombs riddle havoc on the unsuspecting lawn care worker who is so diligent to keep his or her area of the county right-of-way Southern Living Magazine perfect and help lower the high cost of county maintenance butchering, I mean bush hogging, of grass and trash.

Pollution is not confined to the streams, creeks, and roadsides.  Radio, television, movies, music and iPhone, and all manner of social media have a lion’s share of pollution.  The other day at Linden Fitness and Tan, some young men tried to play some polluted music from their iPhone.  They would not because a certain man was in the gym.  He told me that he was going to hang around because they will not play it in his presence.  I told him not to worry and that I would handle it.  Sure enough, just as soon as he left, these young men started to play their filthy music.  I calmly walked over and asked if their music contained bad (lewd or suggestive) music.  They said no, but they turned it off because I heard some filthy stuff.  There were some young girls in the gym and reminded these two young men that neither the girls nor I wanted to hear it.

It is sad that filthy language is becoming more prevalent each day.  Madison Avenue advertising tries to but offensive and suggestive language in commercials for hamburgers, credit cards, and most recently Chevy trucks.  Thankfully, people complain, and they remove the offensive language.

O.S. Hawkins in his devotion, The Joshua Principle reminds us that in the last days there will be a polluted pulpit.  One of the sure signs of the Lord’s Second Coming is that pulpits will turn from the truth.  Paul said, Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”  II Timothy 4:2-4

Polluted pulpits create polluted congregations.  Believers are to be in the world, but not of the world.  The Word of God is forever true.  As the Word of God unfolds around us, my we influence culture rather than culture influencing the church.

The picture I see here is not of Iron Eyes Coty shedding a tear, but of our Lord Jesus Christ shedding His blood.

I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6 KJV)

No Money, No Motivation, and No Morale

It is funny how things pop back into your mind.  Sometimes it is something you may smell, it is a word, or name spoken, or it is an event unleashing a flood of memories.

The other day a load of pine timber passed.  Suddenly, I was transported back to the pulpwood days of growing up in Chilton County.  Stumbling through the woods, tripping over vines, and falling over stumps with a ten-inch stick of pulpwood on your shoulder is comical now, but frustrating back then.  I did learn to fall gracefully without injury.  It was great off-season training for football.

When a truckload of pine lumber passed me the other day, I thought about all the houses that I helped Brother Bill Langston build.  Building houses was much more fun than loading pulpwood and carpentry paid more too.  Lumber is much cleaner than pulpwood.  Shoulder loading pine timber from woods burned annually results in smutty necks and arms that are very hard to clean, especially when you wash yourself in a washtub or pan.  Pine rosin from pulpwood and fresh sawed lumber is hard to remove.  Usually, you wear it off.

I received a call the other day informing me that a member from the first church I pastored passed away.  The family of AC Oaks wanted me to have a part in the funeral service.  It is important when a member of a church that you pastored thirty years ago wants you to say a few words.  I feel fortunate in that every church I pastored, I left it on good terms and could return.  I know that there are churches that do not want former pastors back and there are pastors that do not want an invitation to return for any reason.  Thirty years in the ministry seems like yesterday.  When I first started, it seemed unattainable.

AC was a true friend and mentor at the beginning of my tenure.  As I met with his wife Peggy and their children I immediately thought of all the good times I shared with them.  I had the privilege to commune with them more time than I could count.  Fellowship, the church we all ministered, was a small church of about fifteen in attendance. 

I remember the first Sunday I met the Oaks family.  I attended school with AC’s children and was attending the University of Montevallo with his daughter-in-law.  I had seen AC on many occasions, but I never had met him personally until that first Sunday I was at Fellowship to supply. 

After supplying for three Sundays, Fellowship extended a call to me to be pastor.  It was a challenge and opportunity to live out my calling.  The church had been in existence for a short time.  Fellowship started the Baptist way, a church split.  Sixty-eight members left a neighboring church and started a new church in an old and outdated Methodist church.

Full of enthusiasm, members of Fellowship dug a basement beside the old church.  It did not take long for the excitement to turn to an exodus.  When the money ran out, it took the motivation and members with it.

I became their third pastor.  There was no money, no motivation, and no morale.  The church was three months behind on the church payment, the butane gas was empty and the gas company would not refill, and the electricity was in the process of disconnection.

AC and family were pioneers.  That is what a member of the Alabama State Board of Missions called the remaining members.  AC was dedicated to Fellowship and was an emotion man.  I think that his frequent bouts with sickness personified his emotions.  I thank God for his wisdom and leadership.  In less than three years, Fellowship Baptist Church paid all delinquent bills, purchased a new piano, waterproofed the abandoned basement, and had two thousand dollars n a building fund.

I remember one Sunday that the old church was so cold that there was frost on the piano.  We had a modified Sunday School and Worship and everyone went to AC and Peggy’s to thaw.  Another time there was a blizzard during an associational brotherhood breakfast and before the men could attend morning worship, we cancelled church.  AC and I went to the church to be there incase someone came that morning.  The church was near Interstate 65 and we thought someone might be stranded and need a place to weather the snow and ice.

There are plenty of stories.  One we celebrated at the wake was the cantata we did.  We had more in the cantata choir than were in the audience.  We laughed about cantata, but we performed it for the Lord and five church members.  AC thought the cantata was great.

One morning a young girl rode a small motor scooter round and round the church.  We played that the scooter stop annoying us.  God honored the prayer and the scooter quit.

AC supported me when I was a novice pastor.  He encouraged me in the ministry and we talked many time through the years.  I thank God for AC and our relationship.

When I think of Fellowship Baptist Church and AC, I remember Paul’s words to the Church at Philippi: I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: (Philippians 1:6 KJV)

 

Sweet Home Alabama

With all the hoopla of a new world order and mid-term elections behind us and the uncertainty of the world before us, people are cautious.  The prognosis is bleak for a worldview and thus caution prevails as our economy tumbles.  Cautious people procrastinate and worry of failure. 

Beverly Sills, famed opera singer, observed, “You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.”

That statement reminds me of my uncle Clifton.  He was my favorite uncle on the Hopper side of the family.  He lived with us when we lived in Illinois.  He rode a Harley, raced stock cars, drove in demolition derbies, and flew airplanes.   Now, you know why he was my favorite uncle.

He was the reason we lived in Illinois.  He got daddy a job at Beloit Iron Works.

Uncle Clifton ran away from home when he was sixteen.  He lived in Bessemer for a short time running moonshine and racing cars with the boys from Hueytown, the ones who would later become Alabama Raceway and NASCAR legends.

He left home because Granny Hopper would not let him play sports or participate in any activity that might harm him due to a heart condition.  No one knew where he was for years until one day he appeared at our home in Chilton County, Alabama.  Daddy did not recognize him and he did not know daddy.  He was looking for daddy when he stopped to ask where the Hoppers lived.  After that meeting, we packed and moved up North.

After three years there, we moved back to Sweet Home Alabama.  Uncle Clifton married Aunt Maxine and for several years could not have children.  They adopted Jim, eighteen months later adopted Mike, twenty-one months later birthed Bill, and later Alice.

Somewhere along the way, my adventurous and dashing uncle became over cautious.  Reckon having kids did that to him?

One day years down the road, my cousin Bill approached Uncle Clifton with a great idea about VCR’s.  VCR’s were new and Bill suggested to Uncle Clifton that they buy VCR movies and VCR players and rent them to people.  Uncle Clifton told Bill that that new-fangled invention was a fade and it would be a bad investment.  You know what happened there.  When I think of it, I could have been related to the billionaire who created Bill’s Blockbuster or The Hopper Movie Gallery.

A little later Bill, the persistent entrepreneur, had another scheme.  He told Uncle Clifton about paintball guns.  Bill wanted to open a store that sold paintball guns and accessories.  Uncle Clifton said that it was another fad and that it too would pass.

Like the VCR rental, paintball and accessories were the craze of young people everywhere.  Bill did open a store and had success with the store as a part-time venture.  He had paintball guns that were like something out a science fiction movie.

Bill, the perennial entrepreneur, consulted Uncle Clifton with the idea of buying a tract of land and building a course for hosting paintball competition.  Bill envisioned hundreds of people from all over the state coming and competing in paintball wars, battles, and mêlées.  He dreamed of family events, national competition, and maybe worldwide competition.  Uncle Clifton talked him out of the venture.

Uncle Clifton, on one his spontaneous excursions, visited me at Gallion, Alabama.  It was not unusual for him to make a trek from Illinois to Arizona to Louisiana to Alabama to Illinois visiting kinfolk.  He was not too cautious, just with his children and his money.  On this particular visit, he spoke of Bill’s potential as an entrepreneur.  He said that the next time Bill had an idea that they were going to run with it.  On Uncle Clifton’s next spontaneous excursion, he had a stroke near Joplin, Missouri and died in the hospital. 

Being too cautious prohibits many blessings.  Philip is an example of being too cautious in the Bible.

When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?  And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do.  Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.  One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him,  there is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?(John 6:5-9 KJV)

"Good Old Boys"

Well the Christmas holidays are over and a new year is underway.  Many have already broken their New Year Resolutions.  Personally, the person who devised New Year resolutions needs to be whipped.  Resolutions are too quickly broken.  Resolutions need to remain the devices of government and the legislative process or annual meetings, not New Year vows made after a party.

The best thing about parties is the food, the fun, and the fellowship.  The worse thing is preparation, dealing with uncouth people, and cleaning up the mess.  A very good friend said that having company is like fish, after three days its starts stinking.  Uncouth people ruin parties.

I am reminded of two friends from the University of Montevallo who were uncouth.  Mike and Enos were a couple of “good old boys” never meaning no harm.  Mike was Italian.  He was very short, very athletic, and very industrious for a retired man.  He was climbing and trimming trees well into his seventies.  Enos was your average “Bubba” with his pants low, shirttail out, large belly shining, and ball cap.

Mike and Enos were sanitation specialists.  They had one of the most intriguing jobs at the University.  They ran the garbage truck.  Watching them everyday was like watching a comedy sitcom.  They knew everything going on around campus.  You might say they were the University garbologists.

It was never difficult to locate Mike and Enos.  All one had to do was to use the sense of sight or smell to follow the garbage juice that dripped from the truck.  The trail usually led to the cafeteria or to the baseball field.  They loved cookies and baseball and were friends of the head of the cafeteria and the baseball coach.

People liked to joke with Mike and Enos.  Enos was single, never married.  One day one of the boys from the carpenter shop asked Enos if he was a virgin.  Enos replied, “No, I’m Church of Christ.”  Enos was a tad slow mentally.

The president of the University retired and the University spent a hunk of money on his farewell party.  Dignitaries filled the campus.  The cafeteria prepared a feast fit for kings.  Tents, podiums, and seats filled with people at the baseball stadium.  Everyone loved the president because he treated everyone the same.  He knew every University worker by his or her first name.

Mike and Enos were out making their rounds when they realized that it was time for the big shindig.  In haste, they made their way to the baseball stadium.  They pulled the garbage truck up the big tent were all the dignitaries from all over the state of Alabama had ascended that day.

Mike and Enos hopped out of the truck, walked into the tent, and started giving their farewell condolences to the president.  Suit and ties met jumpsuits and boots.  Those with expensive cologne and perfume mingled with those of sour milk and rotting stench.  The clean-shaven and manicured rubbed elbows with the scraggly bearded and dirty finger nailed as the garbage truck dripped its putrid and malodorous juices just inches from the gourmet spread for kings.

As Mike and Enos helped themselves to the cuisine of the elite, the head of the Grounds department and Deans of College scampered to catch the fainting and rescue the nauseous.  Embarrassment rolled as a loose garbage can blowing in the wind.

Finally, the Head of the Grounds Department asked Mike and Enos to move the truck.  Mike and Enos, as happy as pigs in slop, jumped into the truck and continued their rounds.  The celebration ended more quickly than everyone anticipated.  Gone were Mike and Enos, but in their place flies buzzed over the putrid and malodorous juices left behind for everyone to enjoy.

When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; and he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee (Luke 14:8-10 KJV).

Tempus Fugit

As I was walking down the street one day

A man came up to me ask asked me

What the time was

That was on my watch

Ye~a~h that day

Does anybody really know what time it is

Does anybody really care

If so I can’t imagine why

We’ve all got time enough to cry

These 1969 lyrics by the band Chicago deal with how one faces living in a world under constraints of time.  We live in a “time” where we serve the clock.  Americans live by the clock.

Older clocks have the Latin words Tempus Fugit (time flies) etched on their faces.  Time does fly, especially as we grow older and when we are having fun.  Where did 2018 go?

I own several clocks having collected them for many years.  My oldest is a chiming wall clock presented as a gift.  It operates by using weights.

For some odd reason it stopped chiming for several months.  It kept perfect time. However, did not DING DONG.  I tried, unsuccessfully to “fix” it in-spite-of my family’s protest that I would tear it up.  I assured them that I could not break something that was already broke.  Time, coupled with fear of protest, prohibited me from fixin’ the clock.  Suddenly, one evening the clock started to DING DONG.  The hands did not match the number of chimes, which bought the chorus “I told you so” from family.  Removal and reattachment of the hands synchronized to the chime produced a “fixed” clock good as new.

One night while we were watching Disney’s Pinocchio.  As old Geppetto put the wooden puppet away and he readied for bed the clock on Geppetto’s wall struck nine o’clock.  At the exact same time, our “fixed” clock struck nine o’clock.  The probability of that happening is astronomical.

We have another wall clock named Princess Di, which chimes a few minutes past the hour.  There is no adjustment to the minute hand, but after each rewinding, it will strike correctly once, and then be off again.  Another wind-up clock will not run with its door closed.  Another will keep perfect time but will not chime.  Someone wound it too tight.  I can make it chime, but it will not run.

I have a chiming schoolhouse clock that I gave my mom that I inherited.  It is battery operated.  It stopped running and I tried to “fix” it on several occasions.  After checking for dead batteries and still no life, I did not work on it for several months.  I started to store it but for some odd reason I blew into it and it worked for a long time.  Maybe it runs off a battery and hot air.

It takes time to keep all the clocks wound and regulated.  People ask me how I tolerate all the clocks chiming at the same time.  Well, you get used to it and the sound is hypnotic.

Why clocks?  Remember God’s timing is always perfect, and life is full of adjustments.  Moses, who understood something about time, reminds us of Tempus Fugit in Psalm 90:12.  So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom (KJV).

As we celebrate the Sanctity of Human Life each January, the reality is we start to die the moment of our conception and start to live forever at our second birth.  We must seize the day and live our purpose of our creation.  We must use good sense in preparation for eternity.

Author, preacher, theologian, and poet Dr. Calvin Miller writes:

“Improve Time in time, while the Time doth last,

For all Time is no time, when the Time is past.

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).

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)