Parents, Who is speaking for you? After college, I had the opportunity to travel to South Africa for a month with a college friend. The country is beautiful, rich with natural resources and very culturally diverse. The Afrikaan family that hosted us lived on a large and lovely farm not far from the Mozambican border. After several days in the sprawling guest house, the host family sent us to explore the rest of the country. They probably needed a break from the Americans, but they also wanted to “show off” their wonderful country. We visited the amazing and historic Cape Town, the beach town of Durban, as well as Johannesburg and Pretoria. The highlights also included a night in a lodge in Kruger National Park and a couple of nights in a private Game Farm on the edge of the park. Our game viewing experiences were awe inspiring and wonderful with lions, elephants, zebras, giraffes. We saw almost every African animal you can think of. We met many new friends and explored several regions. There were, however, a few harrowing experiences while we were there. The first involved a lion roaring just outside of where we were staying in Kruger Park… there were no fences between us and the king of the beasts, it was terrifying. The wildebeest it was about to eat was probably terrified too. The next scariest was a night we were supposed to stay with our host family’s friend near Cape Town. He had two large and ferocious Dobermans who did not want us to stay there… we opted, rather than being eaten, to sleep in the car! But perhaps the most nerve-racking, was a night in Pretoria. Again, we were staying with a family friend of our host family’s son. He was in his young 20’s like us, fun, and always up for an adventure. It was winter there, but after some coaxing, verbally and with distilled liquids (these were during my, not-so-proud-of “rebellion years”) we all decided to take a swim in the above ground pool in 30 degree weather at midnight. Needless to say, we were frozen when we went inside. Our host had a fireplace, but no kindling to start the wood to help thaw us out. So, he suggested that we go outside and get some “dennebol,” aka, pine cones as a fire starter. He sends us out with large black bags to collect any dennebol we could find. What we didn’t know, because we had arrived after dark, was that the South African equivalent of the White House was right next door. So, as we are unsuccessfully wandering the neighborhood for the illusive fire igniting pine cones, we see lights and hear sirens of a rather intimidating paddy wagon speeding to where we are. Tires squeal as they stop, two soldiers jump out with Uzies locked and loaded. They begin shouting at us in Afrikaans, my friend and I drop our bags, throw our hands in the air and look at our friend, who begins laughing and speaking in Afrikaans. Our lives were in the hands of a brand new, fairly intoxicated friend we didn’t really know, who also didn’t know us, advocating for us a language we didn’t know, in a country we didn’t know. I envisioned at that moment being thrown into a South African prison and never to be heard of again. The national police were not amused by our friend’s humor and they kept shouting, guns raised and walking toward us. It was a couple of very tense moments of our Afrikaan speaking friend, talking fast and trying to explain our silly decision to take a frozen swim, and subsequent search for “dennebol” to start a fire to warm us up, that somehow, between his words and our petrified faces, these soldiers finally realized we were not a threat, lowered their weapons, and let us go, with instructions to go straight home. As the open air, steel barred, paddy wagon drove away, we counted our blessings and quickly returned to the house. At the time we were in South Africa, there was much turmoil and tension. There are 23 different people groups there, including Asians, Indians, English, Afrikaners, and several different African tribes represented, each with a different perspective and agenda for this rich and beautiful country. It was a time when some unfairly repressed people were on the edge and many people had ideas about how to resolve the many difficult issues in that nation. For all these national soldiers knew we had some agenda too. Our agenda was only to have more fun and find a little warmth from pine cones. I still don’t know what our friend said to the officers, but I’m glad I’m not writing this from an African jail.
Monday, February 28, 2022
Who Is Speaking For You?*
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
What Do You Do With Your Strength?*
What do you do with your strength? As a kid, I looked forward to getting up on Saturday mornings and watching cartoons in my pajamas on the console TV while eating Sugar Smacks (wow, just wow, but that’s another conversation). I anticipated the mindless entertainment of a good, humorous Looney Tunes short. Mel Blanc was the man of a thousand voices and he voiced the cartoons in a way that seemed to perfectly match the characters. One that I remember was Ralph the Wolf (who looked strangely like Wylie Coyote) and Sam the Sheepdog. They would both greet each other pleasantly and punch their time card. Then "it was on!" Smart and savvy, Ralph would try to steal the unassuming and vulnerable sheep in some novel way, sometimes even dressing up like the sheep to get closer to them, but the then strong, protective Sam would catch him, disable the predator in some way, return the sheep to safety, and bring peace back to the flock.
Thursday, January 20, 2022
Run Headlong Into Joy! *
A preschool cousin came to visit my childhood home when I was in middle school. He loved the green, sloping front yard that overlooked the lake, so he took off running and laughing. The potential energy of his body and his oversized toddler head and his position on the hill overcame the relative inert energy of his tiny little legs and their ability to keep up, so he tumbled forward, face first with his little body flipping over him, headlong. We looked on, frozen, unable to get to him to keep him from falling and we waited for tears to go pick him up after the front flip. However, he gathered himself back up with sheer joy on his little face, squealing with delight. Then he started running down the hill again, and yep, once again flipping over face first and yes, getting himself up with delight, only to do it again and again. Soon our fear for this kid’s safety turned to joy as we joined in with this tiny human’s screaming laughing happiness. This delighted, grass-stained little boy would continue with his hilarious, hedonistic, seeming self-flagellation, until my aunt finally caught up with him and scooped him up, kissed his little face, and cleaned the grass off of him. I’m sure he slept well with a smile on his face, with maybe a few bumps and bruises, on his long car ride home that day.
Wow! What a picture of a joyous life… running kamikaze into life’s potential with its certain tumbles awaiting us, knowing our frail humanity will fail us, but not letting the fear hold us back. Oh to jump back up after our stumbles and tumbles, mess-ups and mistakes, squealing with delight and running headlong with reckless abandon into the next challenge. What if we did the same thing with our relationship with God… not fearing the potential hurts and disciplines of becoming more holy, but engaging fearlessly, joyfully in the delight of connection with Him trusting in His grace? Perhaps we can learn proceed a bit more cautiously, with some healthy respect for who He is, so that we are not corrected beyond repair, but preserved to love Him again and again, more and more, as well as those people that He places in our lives who also stumble and mess up.
The writer of Hebrews tells us that if we have a connecting, loving relationship with Jesus, we can run straight to our All-Powerful, Heavenly Father with no anxiety. The writer says, “Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God's unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it].” Hebrews 4:16 (AMP) As we move fearlessly toward Immanuel, the God who is glad to be with us, joy begins to overcome our fears and we learn to love God and others like He does.
Hang in there people. God is glad to be with us. I’m praying for us all.
Friday, October 15, 2021
Parents, What Do We Do With Shame?* Words from COVID 19 Delta
Parents, What do we do with shame? … As a young minister, in one of my first churches, I was excited to be asked to be on the church’s softball team. I had deflected the invite by saying I’m not great at softball and I hadn’t played in several years. The coach said they were down a player and he insisted that I come. As a kid, I was a decent stickball & whiffleball player, a pretty mediocre softball player and a not great baseball player, but I was looking forward to belonging to the team, hanging out, and having fun, making new friends with some guys my age at my new church. In my excitement of being asked to join the team, I went out and bought a new glove, something I hadn’t done since elementary school with my dad. I enthusiastically shared with Anita my great anticipation. I drove to the ball diamond for my first practice. As soon as I got out of the car, the coach said, “grab a bat”… so, I grabbed a bat and stepped up to the plate for what I thought was a practice swing. The pitcher sent me a melon - soft and sweet, I swung the bat and made contact. I didn’t swing hard, I was trying to warm up my muscles a bit. The coach said, “run!”; I was like “what?” and began to run toward first. The short stop easily threw me out. The coach said, “We can't use you Bill… you didn’t even make it to first base.” He was looking for a ringer and I was no ringer. So, in shame and embarrassment I walked back to my car like a disappointed 6th grader who didn’t make the school basketball team (that happened too BTW). According to shame researcher, Brené Brown, shame is an “intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” So, in a sports obsessed community where your value and acceptance is determined by your softball prowess, this was the epitome of shame. The entire team averted their eyes to avoid looking at me as I slinked into the car trying not to show any emotion. I drove home, threw my glove in the closet and collapsed on the couch in a heap, like dirty laundry tossed into a basket. Lots of things were going through my head, all of which led to a spiral of disappointment, hurt and anger. I wasn’t sure what to think, I didn’t know how to process this in a healthy way. I wish I had been mature enough to lovingly confront this older fellow church family member, asking if perhaps I had misunderstood his invitation, or if he had somehow misunderstood my expression of my skill level. However, all I did was avoid the coach and any team member for the rest of my time at this church and they seemed comfortable doing the same. (BTW I needed some humbling at that point in my life, I was kinda arrogant and capable of dispensing some shame myself. God was probably allowing this humiliation with good reason. That doesn’t, however, give a free pass to those who uncaringly dish out this toxic shame.) A few years ago, I gave that glove away with some bikes and other sports equipment to a Dad with four active kids. Just looking at the glove, triggered some shame. I wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone, but each time I remember it, it reminds me how much it hurts to feel like you don’t belong, like you’ve been rejected and you are just not good enough. It helps me to remember to value people over other things. It reminds me that we are all desperate to belong and we gotta make sure we help flawed people (hint: we’re all flawed!) know they have a place with Jesus and us, regardless of what they can do for us or whether or not they can improve our lives (or win us the church softball league championship).
Saturday, October 2, 2021
Parents, Be Careful Who You Believe!* Words From COVID 19 Delta
Parents, be careful who you believe! There I was standing on the wall of my childhood back porch, wearing my cape, shorts with pasty white spindly little legs sticking out and my red Keds tennis shoes, believing I could fly. The Wonderful World of Disney, by the way, had convinced me that all I had to do was BELIEVE and then I could fly. So, I closed my eyes, believed real hard and jumped. Thankfully I had not climbed to the top of the house, still it was about a 7 foot drop (thankfully onto grass, not concrete) … a long drop for a little boy. I hit the ground hard, landing on my feet. My legs folded up under me, my breath was knocked out of me. It hurt my whole body. I limped back up to the porch, thinking maybe I just didn’t believe hard enough. So, I climbed back up, closed my eyes and believed harder, but this time I was either smart enough not to jump or my legs were hurting too badly to try again. Or perhaps I realized that the law of gravity was one that was real and true regardless of my belief (no discredit to the Wright brothers who learned how to use some other physical laws and truths to overcome gravity temporarily). A similar thing happened to a hallmate in my freshman dorm in college. We were on the second floor of the dorm and it had started snowing. This young man had never experienced snow before, he lived in South Florida. As the evening went on, the snow began to pile up. Mind you, we were in Greenville, SC and there were only 3 inches of the wet white stuff, but this young man had been celebrating the snowfall with some inhibition reducing beverages (that weren’t, btw, allowed on campus at that time). He had believed that the snow was soft and that jumping into it would soften his landing. Despite some of his hallmates telling him not to do it, he, like many of us at that age, also believed he was made of steel and he jumped. He, however, was not made of steel and the snow was not deep enough to be soft and he spent the rest of the semester on crutches with a cast on his leg. Both of us had believed a lie or lies. We believed them earnestly and wholeheartedly enough to jump from high places, but we both hit the ground hard. Our sources of truth were unreliable.
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Parents, Does It Really Say, "Give Thanks In ALL Circumstances?"* Words from Delta COVID 19
Parents, does it really say, “give thanks in all circumstances?” In 6th grade, Knox County students had the opportunity to go to a three day learning camp in the Smoky Mountains. I had heard all about this camp from my sister and her friends, so I couldn’t wait to be a sixth grader and go do all the things her class did. This was the mid-70’s so it was kind of a hippie nature education experience. We hiked, dipped our own candles, and wove belts from strips of leather. We heard mountain music and ate grits. The day before we left for the trip, my sixth grade teacher who, by the way, adored my sister and let me know I could be more like her, said, “ be sure to bring rain gear!” When we arrived at the camp and piled off the buses in our ponchos and raincoats, we gathered in the gym. She told us that it was forecasted to rain the whole time we were there. We all groaned, but she told us that these were the days that were given to us and we could embrace them, enjoy the rain and experience nature in a different way than we typically did or we could all be miserable and complain about it the whole time. She said our experience could be the best any one group has ever had at that camp, but it was up to us as to what our experience would be like. We could mope, but that wouldn’t change the circumstances, so we may as well find the positive, embrace the beauty of the rainy temperate deciduous forest biome while we were there and carpe diem! We could whine or shine through these wet days. This may have been my first realization that my attitude didn’t have to be shaped by the circumstances around me. Amazingly, our group stayed as relatively positive as any group of sixth graders could for those three days. After our hikes, we would pour the water out of our boots, wring out our socks and hang them on the end of the bunks. When someone would start to complain, this teacher would gently redirect us to notice something extraordinary or unique, like how the rain dripped off the pine needles and made a pattern in the needles on the ground. She would remind us that these trees around us grew strong and tall because they had plenty of rain. I was introduced to reflective journaling on this trip. We were instructed to find a place in the woods, far enough from another person so we would not be distracted (especially those of us with attention deficit challenges). Each morning we must go to this spot and write in a gratitude journal. This was not easy in the rain, trying to keep the pages dry, but somehow under our ponchos and raincoats we were able to write some things we enjoyed or appreciated from nature. My spot was on a rock next to a creek. The creek of course was rambling and loud, I thought that was cool, because sometimes I could be rambunctious and loud. I imagine it was typically just a babbling brook. After this experience, whenever it rained, I would put on my rain gear and boots and walk around my neighborhood to see how things looked and sounded differently than when it was dry and sunny and be thankful for the precipitation that made the grass green on the field where we gathered to play football and how it made the the trees that I climbed, strong and tall.
Monday, August 30, 2021
Return to Me and I Will Return to You - The Lord Almighty*
I sat as a twenty-six year old in the front yard of my childhood home in Knoxville, TN having returned there from more than half a decade of rebellion. My life was in shambles. My engagement to Anita was broken, I was broken. I was full of regrets for the narcissistic ways I had been living for the last several years and running from my call to ministry. A couple of years before God had gotten my attention and I had returned home, went back to my home church, enrolled in a masters program, but there was still much rebellion in my heart… The drizzle began to fall, tears were falling and I was crying out to God in prayer for my life.