Parents, What are you going to be when you grow up? My great-grand-mother was quite a character. She was witty and sharp and could even be caustic when she spoke the “truth in love,” She knew the scriptures, was a card shark, loved to tell a slightly off color joke, and was a strong opinionated woman who had survived the Great Depression, World Wars and much hardship. Maude, or “Mau Mau” as I knew her, had lived her life with her husband Will, who was a professional tailor in his shop in Arkansas, until she moved to live with my grandmother, known as “Mother Mac” in my hometown. She would sometimes babysit my sister, my cousins and me. She didn’t put up with a lot, but loved us as her generation knew how to show love. She spoke the truth of scriptures she had memorized at just the right time. She could tease us harshly and just laugh out loud, but no one else dared mess with anyone in her family… she would defend them, even if she knew they were wrong. One day in the apartment building with the swimming pool on top, she was keeping the 4 Knoxville great-grands and we were discussing what we were going to be when we grew up… all the standard responses: policeman, nurse (popular in my family), doctor (there were a couple of those in the family too). I responded with, “I want to be a ‘rootin’ tootin’ cowboy.’” I had seen one on the Sesame Street skit a couple of times, dressed like a dude with six shooters, chaps, boots, and spurs. (My family now tells me I at least got the tootin’ part right… I tell them, “that’s not funny, but pull my finger.”) I then changed my mind, as kids do, and said I wanted to be a fireman. Mau Mau looked straight at me and said, “No, you are going to be a pastor!” I thought, how boring! I became angry and told her, “No, I am going to be a fireman.” Little did I know that God had given her some insights that would come to fruition many years later. She didn’t live long enough to know that I had become a pastor, but she was so sure of it, she saw it and “prophesied” it, called me out and up to it when I was just a child. I did my best to run from it, deny it, and rebel both then and as a young man, but God hunted me down, changed my heart, sent me to seminary, called me to churches to serve. He has blessed me with many brothers and sisters in Christ whom I love very much. I may be boring, but my life as a pastor has not been boring. I have had the great privilege of seeing God at work in the lives of many people, rescuing many from the fires of hell... my aunt reminds me that maybe I am a fireman of sorts…
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
Parents, What Are You Going To Be When You Grow Up?* Words From COVID19 quarantine
Monday, February 22, 2021
Parents, It's Right In Front of You!* Words from COVID 19 quarantine
Parents, It's right in front of you. On our honeymoon, my new bride and I stepped off the airplane in Maui to paradise and an almost charismatic, “snorkeling boat tour to Molokini,” hawking barker who was gifted at getting the attention of unsuspecting jet lagged mainlanders. It sounded exciting to go to the mostly submerged cone of a volcano and snorkel in the crystal clear waters. My new “wife for life” graciously agreed to take one of our precious days in Hawaii to get up and get on this boat. The nearly charming (probably a former snake oil) professional, sweetened the deal saying a buffet would be served too! How could this get any better I wondered. So, the next day we got up anticipating our romantic snorkeling half day trip. We imagined blue skies and calm seas and a beautiful boat with pretty people just like the picture on the front of the brochure had promised. We arrived at the dock, with gray skies, rough seas, an old rusting large boat and nice, but somewhat unglamorous fellow shipmates, who had also been drawn in by the airport snorkel hawker. We even saw an old fraternity brother of mine… (happy honeymoon baby!) He was kind and gracious and was friendly, but gave us our space. As we began our short “3 hour tour… the weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed,” Undeterred I was still eager to “snorkel the famous Molokini crater.” My sweet young bride, however, began to get seasick. The waves, the nauseating smell of half-burned diesel, a half-cleaned head (read - “boat bathroom”), others tossing their cookies, and the promised barbeque with grease dripping off it...and she was done… the ship steward recommended she go below, so the tossing of the ship was lessened, but the smells were even worse below. It was miserable, there was no escaping the nausea and there was no turning back until the tour was over. She graciously told me she would try getting in the water. The snorkeling was horrible, the seas had churned up the water and visibility was terrible, eventually the captain recommended that the snorkelers board the bobbing cork of a boat and we return to Maui… a cheer went up from all. When we got to land, we were too sick to demand a refund, and the best they would do was give us a discount on our next trip with them!!! What? So, we went back to the condo and rested with our pressure point wristbands and motion sickness bags. The next few days we relaxed and biked, toured, enjoyed the pool, beach and rode mopeds around on the beautiful island. After overcoming our initial snorkeling experience we decided to try snorkeling the area just in front of our condo. Wow! It was so beautiful, all kinds of beautiful coral and fish and shellfish, everything that had been promised on the other tour. We even saw a sea snake which, I reluctantly later told my wife, was very poisonous. The area was so beautiful and so much fun I didn’t want to stop exploring this underwater paradise. The whole time this gorgeous Black Rock was right there not too far from where we stayed, no boat necessary.
Saturday, February 20, 2021
Parents, You've Got Peace Like A River!** Words From COVID 19 quarantine
Parents, you’ve got peace like a river. As a boy, I was drawn to any kind of water: swimming pools, creeks, mud puddles, oceans, ponds, lakes, waterfalls and rivers. We even had a small waterfall in the entryway of our house, which looked out to the lake from a large bank of windows. When I wasn’t swimming, skiing, canoeing, cliff or bridge jumping, boating, houseboating, or fishing in the water, I was usually asleep… maybe a bit of exaggeration, but I spent a lot of time in and around the abundant waters of East Tennessee and the Southeast. Even in winter, I was content to be at swim practice in an indoor pool, walking near the river, or snow skiing on frozen water. My favorite teen jobs were lifeguarding at local pools, and teaching kids to waterski. There were times when I spent the day with dozens of teens on our houseboat for a church youth group ski day and times when I was fishing quietly in solitude in an isolated lake cove. There is just something about how two Hydrogen atoms connect to an Oxygen atom by the bazillions that not only sustained my life, but made it joyful, peaceful and at times exhilarating. Once, as an adult, I had taken a group of students on a rafting trip on the Ocoee River. It was thrilling. There was one particular part of the trip that the guide said we could check the security of our life jackets and jump in if we wanted. The water was cool and calming, like a lazy river ride at a waterpark, only real and better. As I floated motionless for a couple of minutes, it was probably one of the most peaceful times I can remember in my life. As I floated on my back, my ears went under water, sounds were muted. I stared up into the blue sky until I closed my eyes. I could have stayed there all day bobbing, floating in that bliss, suspended between the rocky, bumpy bottom of the beautiful river and the cares, challenges, pains, and the seemingly endless responsibilities of life that awaited me at the end of the raft ride. The guide instructed us to get back into the raft quickly, because the upcoming rapids would be challenging and he assured us the class 4’s would be much more challenging if we were outside the raft.