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Saying Goodbye to The Fifties

April 30, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     April 30, 2014

 

                                  “Saying Goodbye to the Fifties”

 

    In five days I will exit “The Fifties”, and change the first digit in my age to a six. I began the journey of my last week of this part of my life by going to the DMV and getting a new driver’s license. I fear, however that when the license arrives next week I will look like a dork in my new license picture…whatever a dork looks like! I should have worn a leisure suit to compliment my dazed and confused look.

I began the “fifties” with three children semi-living at home. Two of the three were either in college or that period when they are trying to “find themselves.” I exit the “fifties” with an empty nest. We don’t even have a cat anymore. She got tired of the same old food every day and had a stroke.

Two of our children are now married, and two grandkids have joined the family picture and brought new definition to the word “energetic.”

Ten years ago I was training for my first Pike’s Peak Ascent, a 13.2 mile race that Carol fondly referred to as “The Death Run.” It began in downtown Manitou Springs and took the crazed runners to the finish line on the top of Pike’s Peak. Ten years later I exit the “Fifties” with knees that talk to me each day in low moans and groans, and a back that echoes “amens” from behind. A flight of stairs now seems more daunting than a “14er” did ten years ago.

I began the “fifties” frequenting Chinese buffets around town. I exit the “fifties” as a frequenter of low-fat yogurt mixed with fruit. Chinese buffets now seem scary!

I began the “fifties with glasses. I exit with progressives. They make me sound like a liberal in my eyesight.

I began the “fifties” with one prescription for heartburn. Now a shoebox holds all of my prescriptions.

Ten years ago I’d stay up and watch “The Rockford Files” with James Garner after the late night news went off. Now bedtime comes before the late news comes on. It seems like a reward for making it through another day.

I began the “fifties” with both of my parents alive, plus my father-in-law. I exit this time with just my dad still living on this side of Glory.

The “fifties” were good. The “sixties”, I pray, are even better.

Unfortunately I’m stuck either way with my dorky looking driver’s license picture for the next ten years!

Categories: Death, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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Winning My First Blue Ribbon…and Second

April 28, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                        April 28, 2014

 

When I was eight years old I was a non-stop mover. I was the hyper kid before we ever used that term. I may have defined it. I had short brown hair…no sissy long hair for us in those days…a freckled face, and most of my front teeth. Women were always telling me I was cute. Of course, they were also all my aunts. Unrelated eight year old girls seemed unimpressed!

In the summer time our community of Williamstown, West Virginia was a paradise for kids. There was the community swimming pool, Little League baseball, summer tennis lessons on the high school courts, and the greatest outdoor basketball courts I can remember.

Williamstown also had a summer parks and recreation morning program where kids could come and get involved in different crafts, games, and other kid-oriented activities. At the end of the summer the Wood County Parks and Recreation competitions were held in Vienna, a few miles up the road. Children from the various summer program areas came together to compete against one another in swimming, track and field, and other competitions.

I can remember hopping on the bus that morning with the other kids from my park and heading up the highway. I had my school lunch pail containing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white. (We didn’t know what wheat bread was in those days. If it was around it would have been viewed with a high degree of suspicion. After all, in 1962 we were told that there were all kinds of Communist subversive efforts going on. To us wheat bread would have been seen as a subtle pulling towards the dark side.)

      On the way to the competition my park director, a nice-looking young lady who I remember as being named Patty, informed me that I was going to be competing three events: the eight year old 25 yard freestyle and the 100 yard freestyle relay in the swimming competition; and the eight year old 50 yard dash in track.

I knew how to run fifty yards. I was fast. Whenever we played tag on the school playground none of the girls could catch me!

Maybe that wasn’t the best of ideas, now that I think about it!

The swimming competition started right after we arrived at the Vienna park, and being eight, my age group was to go first.

The announcer hit the volume on the loud speaker and said, “All those boys in the eight year old 25 yard freestyle race are to report to the deep end of the pool.” 

That was me! I entrusted my lunch pail to my friend Ronnie and trotted on my tippy toes to the  end of the pool that featured the diving boards. There was only one other boy waiting there. The starter waited another moment to make sure there were no other boys stumbling towards the deep end and then he turned to the two of us and asked, “Are you boys here for the eight year old race?” I nodded yes like a kid about to be given medicine, but the other boy looked up at the man with a pitiful expression of uncertainty and asked, “Is this water over my head?”

“Well, yes son, it’s twelve feet deep!”

     A couple of eyebrows rose towards heaven, and his eyeballs got as big as saucers, and he said to the man, “Well…I can’t swim!”

The starter looked a little puzzled and said, “Ohhh!” And then he turned towards me and continued, “Well, I guess that means you win, son!”

He handed me a blue ribbon, which I would have immediately pinned to my chest if I hadn’t been bare-chested.

The thing of it was…I couldn’t swim either! Honesty, however, had not arrived as a resident of my life, and I wouldn’t start taking swimming lessons at the Williamstown Community Pool until the next summer. I had the mindset that I could dog paddle twenty five yards. Lassie did it on TV all the time!

Besides, the deep end of a pool where the water was undisturbed looked deceptively shallow…like you could just reach over and touch the bottom.

But if you didn’t HAVE to get wet, why give out any incriminating information?

So I didn’t!

Thirty minutes later our relay team was the only team entered in the swimming relay race…so I doubled my blue ribbon haul…and was still bone dry!

The third blue ribbon was legit! I out-raced about twenty other eight year old boys in the fifty yard dash. I was like a greyhound in the midst of a bunch of dachshunds!

I enjoyed my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and hid my three blue ribbons in the safe of my lunch box, like I was The Man from U.N.C.L.E!

I’m not sure I learned any lessons that day on the value of good sportsmanship and fair play, but…I was eight!

I still have those three blue ribbons in my closet. Every time I come across them while looking for something else I simply chuckle and remember.

Those were good days, days that still make me smile, except now when I smile I have all my front teeth!

Categories: children, Community, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
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Family Picture Boxes

April 24, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                 April 24, 2014

 

                                      

 

My dad is moving. He’s under a month now. The house sold in less than two weeks after he listed it with a realtor…a happening that caught him a little off-guard…kind of like when a young lady I went to college with said yes to a date proposal!

“You will?”

The quickness of the house selling suddenly changed the game plan. It’s the difference between reading War and Peace versus reading the Cliff Notes of War and Peace.

Yesterday we were going through boxes of family photos. It was entertaining and amusing. To see my dad as a curly red-haired two year old (Although his red hair doesn’t really stand out in the black-and-white photo. You rarely think of your parents as kids, especially when they are just shy of 86!

And then there was the picture of my mom in a swimsuit when she was about twenty. That’s another picture I’m not sure about. Mom looked great in a swimsuit…is that okay? A son kind of wants his mom just to look okay for some reason. Call it generational unrest.

Another box had old Christmas card pictures. My parents would put a picture of the three kids on a Christmas postcard each year. You can see the progression each year as we grew and became less cute. The growing attitudes of “This is no longer cool!” can be slightly seen as each year passed by.

There was a few pictures of my Helton grandparents- Mamaw and Papaw Helton. Papaw was a stoic-type Eastern Kentucky farmer, who measured success on the basis on crops, chickens, and good-looking hogs. Seeing the pictures brought back the echo of his voice.

“Loooorrrdddd, have mercy!”

It look him longer to say “Lord” than it did for Jesus to say “holy, holy, holy!”

There was pictures of Feds Creek School where my dad went to school, and Oil Springs High School where both he and my mom attended. It made me realize that I failed to take pictures of the schools I attended, most that no longer are standing! Years from now my kids will think I was home-schooled since there will be an absence of brick and mortar shots to tell stories about.

Pictures of my aunts and uncles through the years were revealing. Each of them shows the ticking of time on their faces, the sagging of their jaws, and gray in, or loss of, their hair. For some of my uncles age was not kind. Most of my aunts, however, had “good skin.”

There was a picture of our Siamese cat “Caesar.” He ruled the roost until he started urinating in the entryway of our house. Mom did not take kindly to a cat who got confused. “Cat dementia” led to an absence of cat.

Finally, there were pictures of former pastors, all with stories attached to the film. Pastor Zachary at Central Baptist Church in Winchester, Kentucky…a great pastor and, I’m assuming, preacher…although I was too young to know what a good preacher was. That was during the period when I was a little envious of the Methodist children. Baptists had Sunday night church, but the Methodist took care of all the spiritual hunger on Sunday morning. Bottom line! They got to watch Walt Disney on Sunday night while we were going at it for a second time at Central Baptist.

There was Pastor Gale Baldridge who was a great pastor with a servant’s heart. He wore brightly colored suits that someday will come back into style…shortly after leisure suits arrive again.

The boxes are full of memories and history. Since cell phones are now cameras I;m not sure how things will be years from now. Will the history be evident? Will there be a richness in that time when our kids help us pack up for the move?

I don’t know. No one talks about “Kodak Moments” much any more.

Categories: children, Community, Humor, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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Post-Boston Marathon Resurrection

April 22, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                  April 22, 2014

 

                                  

 

How appropriate for the Boston Marathon to be held the day after Resurrection Sunday! A year after the tragedy that impacted a city and rippled through the nation, the race breathed new life into the Boston Strong. Over thirty thousand runners jammed the streets to trudge through the triumph of 26.2 miles.

Calamity can create a lingering odor of defeat. It echoes with the senselessness of it, such as the loss of life and the vengeance of disturbed personalities.

A year ago we watched the reports on television of the chaos and shook our heads in disbelief. Our nephew worked about a mile from the blast site. I remember his mom calling his cell phone trying to find out if he was okay, but they weren’t able to make a connection. The heightened anxiety of those moments will stay with both of them for the rest of their lives.

So…it was appropriate this year, the day after we celebrate Christ rising from the dead… being the conqueror of death, not the conquered…that a nation would raise a race of endurance from the ashes.

It’s interesting that a marathon race is about perseverance and pushing through quitting points. A tragedy can derail the best of intentions, but not this time!

If there is enough resolve in a group of people to the mission unthinkable acts can be overcome.

The Apostle Paul uses the image of a runner in a long race to talk about following Jesus. In Philippians 3:13-14 he writes “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

     Our walk with Christ has its smooth stretches, nicely-placed slopes, but also a Heartbreak Hill every once in a while. The hills test our commitment. There are a lot of smoothy-committed Christians. Who, however, will struggle alongside Jesus?

Back to Boston! Yesterday was a different kind of resurrection. We applaud the resolve…the perseverance…and the tears of triumph!

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Freedom, Jesus, love, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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Heaven’s Admission Fee

April 17, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                      April 17, 2014

 

                                    

 

Perhaps Michael Bloomberg was saying it “tongue-in-cheek”, but his statement recently about his guaranteed admission into heaven attracted a lot of attention and comment.

The billionaire former New York City mayor thinks God likes him because of his generosity. He’s made a $50 million dollar contribution to help an anti-gun lobby group and fight the NRA.

“I’m telling you, if there is a God,” Bloomberg told reporter Jeremy Peters, “when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

Bloomberg must see admission to heaven as being like going through security at Denver International Airport. There’s the preferred status line…and then there’s the other line that the rest of us are in.

Special reserved seating admission to Glory is now being seen as having a price tag attached…kind of like courtside seating at a Denver Nuggets’ game…but I’m not sure why anyone would want to be that close to this year’s Nuggets team! It would look less painful from a distance…like the upper deck!

Like I said, Bloomberg could very well have made that comment in jest…like saying a White Castle hamburger tasted heavenly! No one would say that with a straight face and a happy gut!

His statement, however, voices the belief of many that heaven’s admission fee…the price of entry…can be paid by us…can be earned. Good works may admit us into an honorable humanitarian club, even get our name on a plaque mounted on the wall of a hallway, but they won’t give us a pass through the gates of paradise.

I know…I know, it doesn’t make sense! Since most of our other systems of praise and recognition operate on the principles of “how much”, “how many”, and “how often”, the gospel is a walk into the unreal.

Jesus died so I might live…we have very few people around who would give up first-class for coach, let alone die so that someone else might live!

It is easier to believe in a sum payment system than the Son of God being crucified. Thus, a former mayor, in many people’s eyes and even his own, looks like a good bet for a heavenly mansion.

From what I know about Scripture, however, I’m afraid he’s going to be disappointed. You can’t put a price tag on the atonement until you realize it’s free.

Then one realizes it’s priceless!

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Death, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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A Revolution

April 16, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                           April 15, 2014

                                        

 

We live in turbulent times where going against the grain is often frowned upon. Just try doing the speed limit on the highway and see the extended middle finger get shown to you by drivers speeding by who have important places to be. Isn’t it interesting that going the speed limit is seen as being radical now.

Revolutions are occurring around the world in nations where governments are teetering on survival. Some of the revolutions are the rise of people against injustice, while others are radical revolutionaries bent on causing destruction.

Jesus was considered a radical by the religious establishment of his day because he questioned what was, and talked about a relationship with the Lord God Jehovah that was intimate and personal. He was seen as a revolutionary, and yet he was exactly on target. A peacemaker is seen as being a troublemaker if society is anchored to war and unrest.

I just finished Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas. it’s the biography of the pastor, teacher, writer, and mentor who was executed by Hitler at the end of World War Two, just a few days before the Allied Forces marched into Berlin. At his memorial service on July 27, 1945 Holy Trinity Church in London, Franz Hildebrandt used a quote from Bonhoeffer in his sermon. On his last visit to London he had said, “Why should it always have to be the bad people who make the revolutions?”

What an idea! What a life mission for anyone of us! To ignite a revolution of lovingkindness and service! That describes the early church in Rome. In the midst of a culture that exalted Caesar to being a deity there were the Christ-lovers who cared for those who no one cared about. An epidemic swept through Rome that was leaving five thousand people a day dead. Family members who were sick were abandoned to die alone. Many of them were literally pushed into the streets and banned from entering the home again…to simply suffer and die alone.

And in the midst of that miserable situation a community of Christ-lovers emerged. They were seen as being revolutionaries of lovingkindness. They ignored the danger of the spreading disease and took the sick under their care, attending to their needs. Most of the sick passed away, but they departed life with a sense of peace as opposed to being seen as discarded and rejected.

That early Christian community was taking the words of Jesus in Matthew 25 about caring for those in need as the gospel to be lived out. It was a revolution committed to Christlikeness.

What might the next revolution be? Right in the midst of one’s community? Across a sea to a distant place of suffering? A decision to give as cup of cold water to someone passing by that I don’t know? An invitation to a worship service where Jesus will be proclaimed?

As Bonhoeffer said, “Why should it always have to be the bad people who make the revolutions?”

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Bringing The Cross Back Inside

April 10, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                              April 10, 2014

 

                                 

 

Our church has a great sense of humor…usually! Actually, most churches have a great sense of humor…you just may have to dig a little deeper to find it!

Years ago we had a couple of people from our congregation construct a wooden cross and a stand that it could be propped up in. It was heavy…and, forgive the term, a bit on the ugly side. Of course, it is difficult to make a cross look good, I don;t care how many Easter lilies you place around it!

The wood of this cross was rough and rigid. It was the kind of wood that takes the pounding of nails easily without stumbling. In the past few years we’ve moved it up the aisle and back to the rear of the sanctuary. Back and forth it has gone like a person without a home.

At Christmas it has crouched in the back corner so that the attention can be more focused on the fifteen foot Christmas tree in the front and a homemade livestock stall with a rustic wooden crib in the midst of it.

At Thanksgiving it disappears to make room for turkeys and canned goods.

But on Good Friday it trudges back to the front in order to have a dark piece of fabric draped over it and a handful of nails driven deep into its strength. Its meaning and significance has never waned, and yet we’ve never felt totally comfortable with its look of abandonment and sorrow either.

This past September we moved it outside. It has stood behind a fenced area behind out sanctuary, kind of like an oversized first-grader hovering over his classmates in the school picture. It’s been standing there through storms and excessive windblown snow.

Come Saturday, however, it is being moved back inside. We jest about it with statements like “It’s time to bring the cross back in” and “I think the cross has been grounded long enough. Let’s unground it!”

We say it with the lean towards humor, but, on the other hand, the cross makes us antsy and uncertain. Give us a manger scene with a dressed-up plastic baby doll laying in it and we’re fine, but a cross of wood is a remembrance for us of all the bad things God endured because of his love for us. It’s a reminder of our tendency to be wayward people of faith who sometimes are brought back to the reality of our fallible decisions.

This year, however, a number of people in our congregation are asking for the cross. It’s been the forgotten symbol long enough. On Palm Sunday it will be back at the front of the sanctuary. To temper the celebration of the palms it will silently stand at a distance in the foreground…alone…bare…reminding!

I think it will be a good thing to have it there without fabric or flowers to partially cover its frame. I hope we can even keep it inside for a while.

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Christmas, Community, Death, Faith, Humor, Jesus, love, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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