Archive for May 2017
May 29, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 29, 2017
I get asked the question numerous times each day.
“How are you?”
I’ve come to the point that I usually give a one word reply.
“Great!”
When I’m at school it is the response I ALWAYS give! Not hokey, or inauthentic, but truthful…I’ve come to the point that I realize that I’m doing great! Not “am great”, like a star strutting down the sidewalk like a peacock, but rather living life one day at a time and doing great! In a middle school environment giving that one word response takes the conversation in a positive direction. At the end of the school year when I was encountering tired teachers, unmotivated students, and overloaded administrators one unexpected word perhaps planted a seed of pondering about attitude and the possibilities of a new day.
I use that one word response because I seem to encounter a lot of people who are “Woe be me’s!”, or seem to be apathetic about this life we are blessed to live. That’s not intended to be a knock against them. Many people are in the midst of life situations that are difficult and heartbreaking. One student I had last week was telling me about a couple of life situations he is in the midst of. Not momentary bumps in the road of life, but rather ongoing circumstances that he has no control over involving family dynamics. I listened to his wearied words, but also conveyed in my teaching and storytelling a delight for being present with him and his classmates.
Even in the down times I know that I’m blessed and, more importantly, loved. And so I give the one word response to a question asked half-heartedly.
“Great!”
A couple of weeks ago I asked one of the 8th grade classes to share one thing about that maybe no one else there knew about. One beautiful young lady responded, “I’m often depressed and feel lonely.” I thanked her for sharing, and in the last two weeks of school I sought to subtly share the joyful side of life. I caused a few smiles and grins to emerge on her face. Nothing earth-shattering, but perhaps she caught a sense that life can be more than dreariness and dreadfulness.
And lastly, why is life great for me? Well…today I’ll have three grandkids jumping on me. Tonight I’ll take a walk with my wife. This afternoon I’ll get to talk to my dad on the phone…just three weeks away from his 89th birthday.
And when my dad, who has a frequent flyer membership to his local hospital asks me how I am I’ll be able to respond from the depths of my soul…
“Great!”
Categories: children, Freedom, Grandchildren, love, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 8th graders, attitude, delight, depression, doing great, How are you?, joy, joyfulness, living life, loneliness, middle school, middle school students, middle schoolers, positive attitude
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May 28, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 28, 2017
Yesterday the ashes of a dear friend of mine were scattered from the top of a hill and wind-blown down into the valley of his grandfather’s land…a place that he loved to be in his growing up years and even when he decided he was finally an adult. His wife posted pictures from the family gathering on Facebook and my eyes watered from their effect.
It was appropriate that the family has chosen Memorial Day weekend, a time of remembering and cherishing, mourning and blessing. I’m sure that as they stood on the top of the ridge they shared stories and Greg’s brothers recalled brother exploits of the past that have taken their places as family legends.
My soul rumbled with quivering peace to know that they had paused to remember their son, husband, dad, and brother. Remembering is underrated these days! Speeding into the unconquered future and new experiences is the lane of life most traveled.
Where we’re going, however, can not clearly be understood without a grip on the past. One school day this past year when I was teaching seventh grade social studies at the same school that Greg taught for fifteen years, I wore a pink shirt that our area basketball officials were wearing before basketball games to emphasize, and remember, that the fight against cancer is ongoing. Greg had dealt with a cancerous brain tumor for six years before his death last October. On that school day I retold his story to each class. I brought them with me on his journey that was punctuated by devastating medical reports and MRI’s of good news. We remembered together even though most of them had never known him.
Remembering is a gift. It has meaning and substance. Greg’s nine year old daughter will remember yesterday’s gathering on a ridge for the rest of her life…the scene, the smells, the words of her grandparents, uncles, and mom…and there will be a sweet humming in her soul. Losing your dad at such a young age is something that many kids never recover from. The road of healing is always shaded by the stories of remembrance.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, love, Nation, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: family stories, grief, grieving, losing a parent, losing someone close, Memorial day, mourning, recalling the past, remembering, remembrance, reminiscing, sharing memories, spreading ashes
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May 27, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 27, 2017
My life is saturated with passwords!
I’d much rather return to the days of Password…the TV game show, hosted by Allen Ludden. My family had the boxed game as well, and we pretended we were perceptive contestants who could figure out the hidden word associated to any clue.
But now my life is overrun with passwords for everything! Our cable went out this week. To reboot the system the TV was asking for a password! When Carol and I had a 12 inch black-and-white we didn’t need a password! Of course, we only received three fuzzy channels, but seriously!…a TV password!!
For the past year I’ve been driving over to the Sprint store each month to pay my bill because I couldn’t remember what my passcode was. At the store all I have to remember is to bring my credit card, and my phone number. (Side note! I think Sprint looks to put the person with the least amount of personality at the store entrance to make you want to leave!) Last night I went to Target to buy a new cell phone. (Second Side Note! The Target Tech guy was awesome!) Through the meeting of the minds, like a high school quiz bowl team, the Target tech person, Carol, and I were able to figure out what my Sprint password is…and then I had to figure out a new six digit passcode for my new phone since my old one was only four digits! Conquer one password, and add a new passcode…the mountain of remembered info just keeps getting higher!
As a substitute teacher I had to remember an ID number and a password. Whenever a call came to be sub for someone I had to enter my ID number and then the password. The problem was that I subbed in two school systems, and the calls would come at any time. If it was early morning I had the info right beside my bed, but if I was at basketball practice I HAD TO REMEMBER THE PASSWORD!
I have a passcode for my debit card and another one for my online banking, and a passcode for my garage door opener. I have a passcode for my satellite radio, and a password for AOL. I had a password for my basketball officiating web site and another one for the pay site called “RefPay.” I have an ID number and password for United Airlines, and another one for Travelocity, and another one for Southwest Airlines…for Pete’s sake!
My list of passwords is like remembering the full names of each of the U.S. Presidents, and then trying to put them in order! “Okay, was it James K. Polk and then John Tyler…or was it William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and then James K. Polk…or was it Tyler, Harrison, Polk?”
I told Carol that I’m going to make a list of passwords and passcode and put them in our deposit box, but that also means that I have to figure out where I put the key for the security deposit box!
Bottom line, it seems that I’m having to remember a lot more these days. It used to be that our password would be the name of our cat, but we’ve had so many cats that I can’t remember which one of them we memoralized into a password. How can I remember what my Firestone Credit Card password is if I can’t even remember what I had for lunch today?
Categories: children, Humor, marriage, Nation, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Allen Ludden, cell phone, passcode, password, Password the game show, passwords, remember, remembering, security precautions, sprint
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May 25, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 25, 2017
Today is the last day of another school year. Well, actually…most of the eighth graders’ last day was a couple of weeks ago! They checked out about the time “May” appeared on the calendar.
Today I’m substituting in the afternoon for a teacher friend of mine who is attending her daughter’s fifth grade graduation ceremony. So…what would be practical bits of wisdom to have written on my hand for the last day of school. Here’s what I’ve come up with!
1) Don’t let anyone get killed! Keep an eye on the school roof. Don’t let anyone jump from there just because they wore their Superman t-shirt. Also, if someone has been noticeably uncoordinated the whole school year playing “Frogger” across the street in front of the school most likely will end up badly!
2) Use your common sense. If something that is being done may very well end up with a police report being filed…that’s probably not good! Remember! “Common Sense” is a middle school elective that most students choose not to take. They prefer woodworking with sharp objects and piercing tools instead.
3) Stay with at least two other teachers during the last hour when most of the school is outside. Like packs of wolves, students will look for “lone teachers” to pick on. It’s their nature! In case you as a teacher get separated make sure you have plenty of candy in your pockets. Throw the candy away from you while shouting “Candy!”…and run in the opposite direction!
4) When the final bell sounds…get to the side of the hallway or into a classroom. The running of the bulls is about to happen. If you feel brave run in front of them, but just remember…another stampede is coming from the opposite direction and you most likely will be the meat in the bun!
5) Expect the emotional! There will be the students who will say that they will miss you greatly…wish that you could come to high school with them…want to visit you this summer…tell you that you’re the best teacher they’ve ever had…that you have inspired them to become teachers…and all kinds of other nice comments. Simply nod your head in acknowledgement and give high fives. The students you truthfully inspired have been known to you for a long time. They are the ones who never have to look at their cell phones the whole class period.
6) Understand that some of these students will be sitting across the table from you in less than twenty years as the parents at parent-teacher conferences! As your body shudders uncontrollably…remember the same thing was true for you…back in the day! Miracles still happen, just as they did long ago with you!
7) When you get in your car immediately lock the doors! Students like to pretend they are zombies!
Categories: children, coaching, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: common sense, Frogger, junior high, last day of school, middle school, middle school boys, middle school girls, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, school, summer vacation, teacher common sense, teachers, teaching middle school
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May 21, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 21, 2017
My dad turns 89 on June 18! Unfortunately, on May 18 he was a patient at St. Mary’s Hospital in Huntington, West Virginia! He will continue to be there for two or three more days as he deals with a heart situation and limited strength.
And I am five states and two time zones away…in Colorado! My sister, nominated by me for sainthood, lives close by and keeps watch over Pops. I am so thankful for her tireless efforts to make sure he is okay. She has her own younger family generations to keep watch over, including seven grandkids, but she always finds the time to check in on Dad.
The assuredness of her on-site supervision gives me some degree of peace, but not totally. I’m experiencing what so many adult children are going through…living a long distance from their elderly parents. Some families move mom or dad, or both, close to where they live. Sometimes that works, but often it’s the worst solution. To move Mom or Dad away from where their peers live is usually emotionally and socially damaging.
Having my sister two miles away from Dad, and my brother about a three hour drive away, means I don’t have to worry about moving Dad to high-elevation Colorado. That thankful solution, however, does not eliminate the sense of helplessness. Carol and I will be flying back to Ohio in just about three weeks- being there for his 89th!- but each day of separation from my father includes an ongoing element of emotional anxiety. A question wraps itself around my mind: Is he okay today?
There was a time when we wanted distance from our parents. They were impeding our independence. They would ask us embarrassing questions in front of our friends, like “When are you going to be home?” We didn’t want to hear any more of their questions. In our opinion, they didn’t know anything! They were old-fashioned and not understanding of the times. Many of us went through that phase. We wanted to go away to college…so they wouldn’t see some of the things we wanted to do!
But then we hit the mid-twenties and had kids! And suddenly we had the questions and we needed them for answers as we entered the new territory of parenthood. The public library had books on parenting, but nothing came even close to the wisdom of our parents. They counseled us through those “life lab” situations.
Like a light switch we’ve flipped back and forth with our parents as life circumstances have changed, from dependent to independent to dependent to independent…
Perhaps at this time in my dad’s life, in a strange way, I’m even more dependent on him. He is the solution to my helplessness. My emotional wellness is dependent on knowing he is okay and cared for. That comes from the memories of experiences. Dad taught me how to ride a bicycle and a few years later how to drive. He taught me how to mow the lawn and how to tie a neck tie. He became my mom’s caregiver as she struggled with health problems. He modeled a walk with Christ, taught Sunday School for years and was, and is, a deacon.
It does something to you when you go to the cemetery with one of your parents, see where the other parent has already been laid to rest, and see the name of the one still standing beside you already on the grave marker. It hits you deep in your soul that these days with him are precious and few in number.
In reflection, I am thankful for these feelings I have of helplessness. They are the dividends of relational investment.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Grandchildren, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Aging, aging parents, caring for our parents, cemetery, dying, elderly, elderly parents, grave markers, Growing old, hospitals, Huntington, Old age, senior adults, St. Mary's Hospital
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May 20, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 20, 2017
It was a full week! Monday to Friday…start to finish…six classes each day inhabited by a hodgepodge of students who were seeing the end of the school year in sight. Such vision causes some students to do weird and unintelligent things that usually have negative repercussions attached to them. Such as saying something inappropriate and being added to my class list!
Oh…my class…yes, that thing! I’ve been teaching the Opt Out class of middle school sex education. When they asked me to teach that class I thought to myself, “That must mean the class on abstinence!” Wrong!!!!
The Opt Out class is for those students who have decided not to take the sex education curriculum that is state-mandated for the school to teach. Probably more accurate, it is the class that the parents of some students have decided their child would not be a part of. Back to the inappropriate comments, I had a few eighth grade students, who had made crude or insensitive remarks in the sex education class, suddenly get ushered into my class.
In all I have about forty-five students in the six classes: 20 eighth, 16 seventh, and 9 sixth graders. We’ve made it past the “weirdness” feeling, of knowing that 90%+ of their classmates are in a different class that they aren’t participating in. For some of the students, mostly the eighth graders, there is a slight stigma attached to it. Almost all of them think about sex almost as much as they use their cell phones. You can even see the “posturing” in the class to look appealing, cool, or manly.
Strange as it may sound, I’ve enjoyed being the classroom teacher, not so much for the content- 6th Grade has been studying erosion, 7th Grade the ecosystem, and 8th Grade electricity- but for the ongoing relationships with the students. As the week has gone on I’ve discovered things about them and they’ve discovered things about me. Interestingly the last eighth grade class…my last class of the day…has become increasingly interested in who I am. They’ve met Carol, who has been subbing with the special needs students, and asked me questions about family, my kindergarten granddaughter, and how I like coaching middle school kids in football and basketball? In return this last group has felt safe sharing some personal information with me about life struggles, life situations and interests.
Sixth graders are funny! They say things that make no sense, and then giggle with glee.
EX: If rabbits had wings they wouldn’t have to hop across our street! What would you do, Mr. Wolfe, if I tied your shoe strings together right now? I wish my skateboard had an engine. That would be cool!”
Sixth graders, working on individual assignments in the same classroom, have random thoughts and conversations that are totally unconnected…and they are totally engaged in the journey together as they travel from one topical state to the next. The teacher is more of the lead cowboy in front of the herd.
Seventh graders are more likely to question one another about the ludicrous nature of a statement. Seventh graders have more, what I call, “squirrel moments”, where they will become instantly distracted from what is being talked about by something else in their peripheral vision. The teacher is like the cowboy riding behind the herd, keeping stragglers from getting lost or straying off.
The teacher of eighth graders is standing outside the corral, looking to simply keep the thoroughbreds and ponies corralled.
My Opt Out assignment goes through next Wednesday, and then, quite frankly, I’ll miss the characters of the classroom. Call me strange! That reminds me…squirrel!!…I rented the movie “Dr. Strange.” It must be about a middle school substitute teacher!
Categories: children, coaching, Community, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: eighth graders, end of the school year, middle school, middle school boys, middle school girls, middle school students, middle schoolers, Opt Out Class, seventh graders, sex education, sixth graders, squirrels, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching middle school
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May 14, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W May 14, 2017
My wife Carol gets described in an assortment of ways. I was talking to a middle school teacher on Friday and I mentioned that I was married to Carol who works with the special needs students. The teacher’s first question was, “Is she kind of short?” When I said yes, she replied, “Ohhh…she is so nice!”
Our youngest daughter would come to me a few times over the years when Carol was in the midst of a situation that was raising her blood pressure and she would warn me, “Mom is about to go Italian!” Her maiden name was Faletti, and sometimes the “excited exuberance” of her father’s ethnic roots would rise to the surface. (Did you notice how I said that in a complimentary kind of way?)
But Carol has been a mom to a number of kids that aren’t related to us. Last year our grandson’s soccer coach presented her with a tee shirt at the end of their season with the team logo on the front…and “Number One Fan” emblazoned on the back.
Even though our kids have long since graduated, she attends Liberty High School athletic contests on a regular basis…basketball, soccer, volleyball, baseball, swimming, football, JV contests, lacrosse…it matters not! From time to time she will even put her “Lancer Lunatic” shirt on that the students also wear.
When I went to coach at a different high school she adopted those players as some of her own. She prepared the fixings for the team dinner at our house, and chuckled from outside the circle as the players played “Mr. Boodle.”
Carol’s motherly nature, however, comes out as she helps students with special needs. A graduate from Texas Christian University, this Horned Frog got her degree in deaf education and taught preschool deaf kids for a few years before we got married. In recent years she has worked as a para-professional with the students at Timberview Middle School. If you are not familiar with the position, it takes a great amount of patience and energy. It also takes love and compassion. It takes putting the needs of the autistic student above your own. It takes the willingness to be sneezed on, change the diapers of twelve year olds, deal with parents who are rightfully very sensitive about their special children, having your hair pulled, being punched or pinched, and often not being considered part of the educational process by the administrators and teachers they rub elbows with.
But Carol’s motherly nature comes out as she walks down the hallway with the child who just needs someone to come alongside her. She is her advocate and protector as self-absorbed 8th Graders threaten to topple her over. When Carol comes home at the end of a school day she’s spent!
For years she was the Children’s Church leader at my last church pastorate. Kids would share their heart-felt burdens with her, as well as other problems. A typical Sunday might include everything from “My Granddad is really really sick and in the hospital” to “Pray for my dress, because I got peanut butter on it and my mom is going to be really really mad!” Carol listened with empathy and understanding. Many in the church never knew what a gift she was. They were just glad they weren’t being asked to do kid’s church! Since I retired almost a year and a half ago, I’m pretty sure…she misses those times of children gathering together in worship.
She is a mom to three grown children and “Grammy” to three grandchildren, and she is “Mom” to countless others who have passed through our home, her classroom, or even walked down our street.
She is a mom. It is what she is comfortable with. It is who she is!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Freedom, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, Jesus, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: autism, autistic, children's church, going Italian, helping kids, Horned Frogs, Italian, Liberty High School, middle school, Mom, motherly, Mothers, Mr. Boodle, para-professionals, special education, special needs students, Texas Christian University, Timberview Middle School
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May 13, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 13, 2017
School field trips were always awesome! I remember my first one back in…1960! Our class went to the Royal Crown Bottling Company plant in Winchester, Kentucky. We discovered how they made the sugary drink and then each student received his/her own bottle to drink at the end of the tour. Awesome! RC Cola was our standard back in those days!
Field trips are no different today! In the past two weeks I’ve been a part of two 7th grade field trips. The first was an “educational” educational experience. The second was an “educational” experience to a minor league baseball game. Whatever and wherever class field trips take place some common elements exist.
1) There are attempts at adolescent romance! Mostly unsuccessful, mind you! You can see the hints of it on the bus ride. Most of the two person seats, which were mandated to hold three, get occupied by three of the same gender, but then there were the couple of seats where a boy wearing his dad’s borrowed cologne and a young lady who is trying to look like she’s twenty get scrunched together…happily! Whereas most of the bus passengers were counting down the minutes until they could unpack themselves these “couples” wanted these moments to last forever! They are now “an item!” At the baseball game I saw a couple of “roosters.” Game time temperature was 50 degrees (It did get warmer, but the forecast was for a high of 58 that day), and a couple of the young men wore tank tops to the game. They were proudly modeling their biceps, which must have looked bigger to them than they actually were. I watched, and was intrigued by, these boys, who did not pay one bit of attention to the baseball game going on. The young ladies crowded around them weren’t paying attention to the pitch count either. They were focused on whether one of the these guys was going to make a pitch to them. The next day a young boy, with one blonde hair sprouted on his chin like a dandelion, told me he had gotten the phone numbers of a couple of girls from another middle school. What???
2) There is money that is burning a hole in someone’s pocket! At the baseball game I heard one boy, who was surrounded by nachos, cotton candy, and a Pepsi, make the remark, “I have seventy dollars in my pocket!” He was like a concession stand high-roller! By the end of the game He had a couple of coins and a sick-looking expression on his face. I was glad to know that on the return trip he was riding on someone else’s bus. There were the students who hadn’t brought squat and those who had stopped by the ATM on the way to school. One student looked at me and with a high pre-puberty voice said, “Mr. Wolfe, guess how much I paid for this popcorn and Pepsi?” I gave up. “Twelve dollars!” I looked at him and asked, “Well, why would you spend that much?” “I needed to eat lunch!”
3) Someone will lose something! One frantic student ran to one of our bewildered teachers, “I lost my hoodie!” Several moments of desperation resulted before another students came up with the misplaced hoodie that had simply been left behind. One reason God created necks was to keep the heads of middle school students from getting lost from the rest of their bodies! I’m always amazed at how trusting parents are with cell phones for their sons and daughters who lose their math homework with regularity!
4) On field trips students often discover that their teachers are really people! My teaching partner, Ron McKinney, and I danced together in the midst of the educational establishment we visited. There was a peppy song playing in the background. The students discovered that their teachers could actually…get crazy! They discovered that their teachers could actually function OUTSIDE of the classroom! It was a scary moment for many of them! Scary also for Ron and me…because someone videotaped us on their cell phone! Where and when will the video resurface? We live in fear that the momentary lapse of our “teaching persona” will be discovered!
Categories: children, Community, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 7th Grade, 7th Graders, adolescence, adolescents, education, educational, field trip, middle school, middle school boys, middle school students, middle schoolers, RC Cola, Royal Crown Cola, school bur rides, school bus, Seventh Grade, seventh graders, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching middle school, young people, youth
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May 10, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 10, 2017
I have nicknames for many of the students I substitute teaching for. I’ve been in their classrooms enough that having a Mr. Wolfe-created nickname is a badge of honor…sorta’!
Bryson has become Bison, Marina gets called Marinara, Alex is Arby’s, Josh with his man-bun is “Pimple Head”, Jonah has become “Goat” (His choice! He says it is an acronym for “Greatest of all the rest!” I pointed out to him that the acronym would then be “Goatr!” He gives me a blank look…like a goat!)
I rattle off group nicknames also, like “Fruit Loops”, “Munchkins”, and “Space Cadets.”
Evidently, turn about is fair play, because a day of subbing in 7th Grade Science produced a new nickname for the teach!
Back in my high school days I was nicknamed “Beowulf” when my sophomore English class was studying the old story. “Bill Wolfe”… “Beowulf”…it stuck to me like a fly on a fly strip. In due time it got shortened to simply “Beo.” People I went to high school 45 years ago…no, it can’t be that long!…still call me “Beo.”
On this day of science discovery a new name was delivered my way. As my first class began trudging into the portable classroom of my friend, Ronnie McKinney (whose uncreative nickname is “McKinney!”), the pre-bell chatter began. One of the students who I had nicknamed “Abnormal” (Abigail is her real name) asked me how tall I was. I responded with “5’6” and 1/2.” Then I added, with a note of pride, “However, I used to be 5’8”!”
“So you’ve shrunk?”
“Unfortunately!”
Another young lady who I nicknamed “Camm-ay” (from Cammie), saying her name like she’s French, joined in the conversation. Since I refer to her as “Camm-ay”, she calls me “Wolf-ay!”
“Wolf-ay! You’ve shrunk?”
Another young lady, Ky-lay joins in. “Like a grape!” Wolf-ay is like a raisin!” Everyone laughs, and I even chuckle about the personalized humor.
“Wolf-ay has become all wrinkled!”
“It happens!” I admit.
Three minutes later as the class is about to begin there is laughter by the white board at the front of the class. I know something is up. I didn’t graduate from high school with a 2.4 GPA because I was stupid, mind you! I gaze at the board as the students clear out of the way. Camm-ay has drawn two pictures with a dry erase marker. The first one is an oval shaped figure with two stick legs. The picture is labeled with the words “Young Wolf-ay!” The second picture is also an oval shaped figure, but a bit leaner with a few lines squiggled through it. It’s a raisin! And the name beside it is “Old Wolf-ay!”
I chuckle at their humor aimed lovingly at me. During the course of the day and since I’ve been referred to as “Old Wolf-ay” and “Raisin” quite often.
Even as I write this I’m picturing the drawings…and I’m still chuckling!
Categories: children, coaching, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 7th Grade, 7th Grade Science, 7th Graders, acronym, adolescents, Beowulf, getting shorter, middle school, middle school students, middle schoolers, nicknames, Old age, school, shrinking, substitute teacher, substitute teaching
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May 9, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 8, 2017
I arrived with my friends Ed and Diana at First Baptist Church in Simla, Colorado this past Sunday for morning worship. We parked in one of the “parking suggestions”…that means there are no lined spots to steer the vehicle into. You just park it in the general vicinity!
Thelma, one of the church saints, was standing on the front steps. And then it hit me! I didn’t have a key, and Thelma, who had arrived early to prepare communion, didn’t have a key.
“Do you have a key, Pastor Bill?”
“No, Thelma, I don’t! And I’m assuming that since you’re standing here on the steps that you don’t either.”
“No, I came early to get communion ready.”
“Oops!” I walked around to the area on the other side of the steps that disguises itself as a landscaped garden of shrubs and plastic flowers. In the past it also had served another purpose. A key to the church was hidden underneath one of the rocks that decorated the area. I commenced to turning each rock over and seeing if a treasured key was to be discovered.
Polly came walking around the corner with a cane, but no key.
“Good morning, Polly!”
“No key!”
“Not yet! We may have to worship on the front steps this morning.”
“That would be okay!” she replied. One of the wonderful things about this small congregation is that no one gets bent out of shape when a crisis…like no key…happens. In a town of diminishing population and limited opportunities…life happens! Polly had been gone from the church for years and has recently returned. When she attended years ago she didn’t have to have a came along wth her, but now mobility issues abound. Her church family offers her encouragement for the slowed-down journey.
I came up empty on my hidden key search amongst the rocks. John and Sherry pulled up and we all looked towards them with limited hope.
“Good morning, John! Good morning, Sherry!”
“No key?” they question.
“Not yet!” The probability of worship on the steps was increasing! John and Sherry were okay with that. They’ve headed up a summer experience called “Cowboy Camp” for years. It meets in the midst of someone’s pasture for five days in late June. People from miles away bring their campers and lawn chairs for the preaching, teaching, and music. It’s all outside, so John and Sherry might feel more at home on the steps than in the pews. John’s cowboy hat is an indication of this.
“I wonder if Henry and Mildred have a key?” Thelma asks. “I know they did years ago.” Henry and Mildred are the ninety-somethings of the fellowship. They are about the dearest people you could ever meet, now in the last years of their journeys. Henry has limited vision and Mildred has limited hearing. Mildred went through a tough time recently when their family dictated that she could no longer drive. It was a hit to Mildred’s independence and purpose. Struggling through each day with limited energy, driving the Town Car around town whispered to her that she could still do things. Taking the car keys away, even though it was a decision made in love and a needed development, edged Mildred towards the pit of depression.
“I think Angie is picking them up today, so we’ll see soon,” Sherry said.
Our growing cluster stood around the steps and chatted about communion grape juice, rain showers, and the Methodists. I was formulating a revised worship order in my mind that could be accomplished on the steps. We could pick out a couple of songs that we all were familiar with and go to town A cappella with them. John’s cowboy hat could be the makeshift offering plate. It was doable!
But about that time Angie arrived with her two kids…and Henry and Mildred.
“Good morning!” everyone greeted one another.
“Any of you have a key?” Thelma asked.
“I do!” replied Angie.
“Praise the Lord!” echoed a couple.
“I’m not sure if it fits the front door or the back door.”
“As long as it fits a door that’s all right,” I chirped.
It fit the back door! Angie’s daughter, Lena, made her way from the back of the church to the front and we all laughed and gleefully chit-chatted our way into the sanctuary.
I thought to myself that whether a key was found that day or not, we still were going to have church…and we were the church!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: church life, congregational functioning, congregational life, doing church, fellowship, fellowship of believers, followers, Saints, Simla, small church, small churches, small town church, Sunday worship, the benefits of small churches
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Words from WW Blog 