Archive for February 2020
February 29, 2020
WORDS FROM W.W. February 29, 2020
“Lord, protect me in the moments of life that can bring devastation, nudge me in the moments where something extraordinary is about to happen, and remind me of those moments that brought blessings into my life.”
They can last a second, maybe a few of them strung together. They come when you’re taking a walk around the block that ends up being much more than a stroll, or in the midst of a concert when a song is sung that brings you back to a family memory burying deep inside you. They come upon a mountaintop and also in the overwhelming darkness of a valley.
Moments are sometimes like stop signs thrown up in front of you to bring the tires to a screeching halt. They can be either collisions or proposals spoken from one knee. Either one changes things, changes the course, brings in a detour to the plans, or new energy to the idea.
There was a collision a couple of days ago and a former student of mine was tragically killed. It was one of those moments that will bring heartbreak to friends and family. A car turning too late…another car broadsiding it…and then the chaotic seconds where life evaporates into death. I was talking to a teaching friend of mine about it, who had also taught the student the same year I did, and he told me of a similar event he had experienced in his life about fifteen years before that. In his situation, however, the collision was followed only by a visit to the ER. And yet, the memory of that moment is still fresh in his mind.
On the other side of life’s emotional spectrum, a former basketball player of mine posted her engagement picture on Facebook last week. It had been a different kind of moment, preceded by her fiancee’s planning and prep and followed by tears, laughter, and passionate kisses.
The thing is, each one of us has moments in our life that resemble a garden bed of flowers, varied and pretty, with a few uninvited weeds thrown into the plot.
We review our lives and are able to identify each of the moments in the assortment. Birth of a child, death of a friend; a cardiac situation and the completing of a marathon road race; when your best friend shows up unexpected at just the right moment, and the time you rescued someone from disaster. The list is different for each one of us, but each list becomes a summary of our defining moments.
I’ve always envisioned those moments when Jesus healed someone, like the leper or the blind man; or the woman who had a bleeding problem or his encounter with the man who lived in a cemetery. They were moments of transformation in so many ways.
I’ve come to pray for the kind of special eyesight that helps me see those God-given moments of life, to approach each day with a kind of anticipation and expectation.
Lord, what might come into my life’s path today that I hadn’t planned on!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Jesus, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: bad decisions, car accidents, circumstances, emotional moments, engagement proposals, meaningful conversations, momentary events, proposals, seeing the blessings, unfortunate happenings
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February 22, 2020
WORDS FROM W.W. February 22, 2020
The class was about to begin and I was fiddling with my laptop, trying to get a connection with the classroom projector. (Using the term “fiddling” is a hint of my advanced age. It’s not often associated with computers and other technology.) I finally am able to display the image from my laptop to the screen at the front of the classroom, and then the question is asked.
“Your first name is…William?” There’s a tone of disbelief in how he asks it, turning his head from side to side looking at the screen and then back at me sitting behind my desk.
“What?” I ask, not sure what he’s getting at.
“It says your first name is William.”
I stare at the screen and then notice in the upper right hand corner that my name appears on the slide I’m projecting: William Wolfe.
“Yes, it is,” I say with a calmness.
“I didn’t know that was your first name!”
“What, did you think my first name was Mister or Coach?”
“No, but I didn’t think it was William!” He draws out the pronunciation of the seven letters like a bungee cord. “Why is it William?”
“That’s like asking why the sky is above us?”
“I just never thought…you’d be William!”
He walks away amazed and dazed. Kids are often perplexed when their teachers are possessors of “normal things”, like hiking boots, trumpets, contact lenses that never get worn in the classroom, and families. They’ve associated their teachers with a classroom, a school, and an academic routine.
Suddenly, they meet their science teacher in the produce section of the local supermarket and their life equilibrium is thrown off. As Ms. Brown is checking out the peaches they stand there perplexed and, depending on the teacher, happy. Their teacher is being seen in another place! The student has a sudden release of endorphins that tells him he has been blessed in some odd way.
My oldest daughter, who teaches third grade, experiences this quite often when she goes to the mall and sees one of her students. It’s like a rare bird sighting for the youngster. Mrs. Hodges actually goes shopping!
My student remains amazed for the first few minutes of our class period together. It’s almost like his teacher is…human!
Categories: children, coaching, Grandchildren, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: endorphins, first names, middle school, middle school boys, middle school teachers, Normal, school classroom, school teachers, substitute teaching, surprises, teachers, teaching, teaching middle school
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February 20, 2020
WORDS FROM W.W. January 26, 2020
“Learning The (7th Grade) Language”
I never was very good at foreign languages. Being from Southern Ohio/Eastern Kentucky was like learning a second language in some ways, y’all know what I mean? It still was close enough to normal English that made it understandable. Spanish and Latin were my other attempts at learning a new language in high school and college. Let me just say that neither of them did much for my grade point average…well, except lower it!
Now I’m about to begin a new course of foreign language study: 7th Grade Language Arts. Okay, maybe it’s not technically a foreign language, but it is 7th Grade! That’s like a trip to a country located on the equator, full of smells and perspiration, unpredictable lunch combinations and wardrobe mistakes.
On Monday I begin an eight week teaching assignment with this interesting tour of kids that Triple A hasn’t created a road map for yet. I’ve substitute taught several days in the past three years for seventh graders, but they’ve been mostly one-and-done experiences. If I can learn this seventh grade lingo quickly I’m sure this will be an awesome experience, but I need to learn and translate at an accelerated rate. For instance, I need to learn all of those cultural symbols, like when a boy is wearing a scrunchy on his wrist. What does that mean? Evidently, it means that he has a girlfriend. Back in the old days a guy might give his class ring to his “squeeze” and she would wear it on a necklace chain around her neck. These kids entering adolescence do scrunchies, all fluffy and sometimes even pink!
So the conversation might proceed like this?
“Hey, you’re not wearing that polka-dotted scrunchy today.”
“That’s right!”
“Forget to put it on this morning or what?”
“We broke up!”
“Oh, sorry about that.”
“It’s all right. I’ve got someone else in mind. She’s probably going to scrunchy me at lunch today.”
“Why’d you break up?”
“She was too into herself, self-absorbed, you know what I mean?”
“Explain.”
“Yesterday she wouldn’t even share any of her Dorito’s with me. Had to have them all to herself.”
“That’s a killer to a long-term relationship. This new girl, is she more of the understanding and sharing type?”
He nods. “She asked me if I wanted one of her carrot sticks yesterday.”
“That’s a sign!”
All of that situation because of a scrunchy worn on a boy’s wrist! It’s just one of the “new world” learnings I need to cram for.
There’s also the hallway culture, a few crazy-eyed students who look like bulls released from the rodeo pins as they charge into the school in the morning; the espionage emphasis of others who look to sabotage the boy’s locker room with smeared deodorant sticks on the floor and walls; the “bourgeoisie” students who leave their trash for those of the lower class to pick up from the hallways and lunchroom tables; the silent minority who seem to walk in the shadows and not be noticed; the fashionistas who are more current with their wardrobe selections than their homework assignments; and the badge of honor kids who carry their band instruments to let people know that they are committed to horn-blowing and the jocks who wear the same pair of athletic shorts with a different Nike tee shirt everyday.
I will watch and learn, commit to memory new terminology and ways of rephrasing the same thoughts we’ve had, but in new ways. Maybe I’ll start talking in a new language, also, and then when I come home each day and see Carol she’ll tell me to “take a chill pill” and talk to her in our usual “AARP” language!
Yo! That’s what I’m talking about, Dawg!
Categories: children, coaching, Humor, Parenting, Uncategorized, Youth
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February 16, 2020
WORDS FROM W.W. February 16, 2020
There is a designated area in our middle school that is over-populated most of the time. It’s the school’s version of the Goodwill drop-off container, located in the parking lot of our supermarket, always overflowing with whatever people want to discard.
At our middle school, however, our crowded area is called “Lost and Found”. The name is mis-leading because rarely does the loser go to find their lost items there. Coats get left in classrooms on twenty degree temperature days and never retrieved. There are so many water bottles at the Lost and Found that the student council should consider opening a hydration supplies store.
T-shirts, mittens, stuffed animals, notebooks, eyeglasses and eyeglass cases, backpacks, shoes, sandals, pens and pencils, lunch containers, wristbands, headbands, and on and on.
At the end of one of my classes this week I noticed a jar of Vaseline under one of the tables. The top part of the jar lid had been cut out so that the opening was uncovered. I’m not sure if I want to know why a 7th grader has a jar of Vaseline in class. I put the jar on my desk and waited to see if anyone would claim it the next day. When I saw Sherri, our evening custodian, I brought her into my classroom and explained to her that the Vaseline was not mine so she wouldn’t think I was weird…well, maybe just weirder!
No one owned up to losing the jar so I tossed it. Even the Lost and Found shouldn’t have open Vaseline jars in it!
One thing that students don’t lose in my classroom: Candy! I have yet to find a Snickers bar left behind, or a half eaten bag of Cheetos. What they do leave behind are the wrappers. A couple of classes will lose their eating privileges next week because of a couple of students who consumed rolls of Smarties but weren’t smart enough to dispose of the wrappers.
I suppose losing items in middle school is one thing that hasn’t changed since I roamed the halls fifty years ago. I left jackets behind but, as I remember, I was more concerned about the wrath of my parents than I was with actually looking for the missing garment. I simply tried to avoid detection, sprinting out the door in the morning when Mom wasn’t looking. Discovery Day, however, would come at some point and I’d be asked the feared question: Where’s your jacket…your new jacket that we spent our hard-earned money to provide for you?
I can’t remember if I had used the time between lostness and being found out to come up with an excuse, like someone stole it or cafeteria catsup was dumped on it and it became unbearable, but the bottom line is that keeping track of my possessions was not a skill that I possessed.
Parental guilt didn’t make it better. Putting my name on everything from shirts to underwear didn’t seem to help either. At some point, I just became more responsible, or at least there were glimpses of responsibility.
This past Friday there were a few items left behind at the end of classes that were not lost. A few students had placed candy on my desk…Valentine’s Day candy!
What a treat!
Categories: children, coaching, Freedom, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 7th Grade, 7th Graders, Cheetos, Goodwill, irresponsible, leaving things behind, losing, losing items, lost and found, middle school, middle school boys, middle school girls, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, Smarties, substitute teaching, Vaseline
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February 15, 2020
WORDS FROM W.W. February 15, 2020
A good friend of mine, Leo Swiontek, who I’ve known ever since he was my son’s high school JV basketball coach twenty years ago, is coming towards the finish line of his basketball season. He is the varsity boy’s coach at The Classical Academy on the north side of Colorado Springs.
Leo is an incredible coach. He is high energy, enthusiastic, cares about his players, and has taught me a lot. Even with a 14-5 win/loss record this year, following a 17-7 record last year, you can see the weariness in him. High school basketball is almost a year-round sport, taking breaks for April and July, but otherwise filling up the schedule with camps, open gyms, weekend tournaments, and individual evaluations.
When Leo gets finished in as little as two weeks or as much as four, he will look back at what was and know that he put everything into it. What I hope he hears from his parents and players is how he impacted them and guided them.
I recently completed my middle school girl’s basketball season, a quick two month-long experience from beginning to end, and I received a letter from a grandparent of one of my players. It was like ointment for a tired body. I carry it in my backpack in the envelope it arrived in. It contains words that any coach hopes to hear at the end of a season.
I’d like to share just some parts of it.
“I’m the proud grandparent of one of your players and have had the privilege of watching her play basketball for many years. Her Grandpa and I watched her play under your guidance and I think your coaching skills are the best…I didn’t hear you raise your voice a single time at any of the players or the referees. You handled everything with such professionalism. All the girls played, regardless of their skill level, and I heard you when you had your chats with them. I was impressed with how you handled everything. Her team is so lucky to have had you as their coach!”
Those words, not forced but volunteered, took me by surprise. As a coach, you hope you’re making a difference, not only in the lives of your players but also in the impression you’re communicating to their parents…and grandparents.
I’m not a hall of fame coach. I’m just a coach who’s been given the opportunity to use a game to teach his players about life.
I’ll see Coach Swiontek this morning and I’ll applaud his example. I’ll tell him what a great job he has done and is doing, and I’ll look into his tired eyes and remind him that the prize is in sight. He deserves it!
Categories: children, coaching, Freedom, Grace, Grandchildren, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: basketball coach, basketball coaching, coaches, coaching, inspiring, leading, letter of encouragement, middle school basketball, setting an example, words of encouragement
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February 8, 2020
WORDS FROM W.W. February 8, 2020
At our small town Baptist church we have a machine that plays the organ music for the hymns that we sing. Our youth do another song during the worship service where they play a praise song on their Bluetooth speaker and the congregation sings along with them. For hymns, however, we sing with the machine.
Here’s the thing! Sometimes the volume of the music machine is not loud enough for us to hear if we are on the right note, word, or line. Sometimes it runs ahead of us, like an unleashed dog with a wide open field in front of him. Sometimes the machine lags behind, like a shy kindergartener being pulled into his first day of school.
Last Sunday we sang that great hymn, “Amazing Grace”. The music lagged behind and the singers scampered ahead, leaving grace in the dust. It wasn’t loud enough or dominant enough for it to be pursued. Instead, as we finished the first verse, it had become the pursuer.
By the final stanza we had slowed down our hurried vocal pace and seemed to be more in step with what it was that we were singing about. If “Amazing Grace” had three more verses we would have felt synchronized with the emphasis.
It seems that’s how it is with grace. We run ahead of it, run away from it, and run despite it. Our actions sometimes suggest it, but our thoughts betray our lips. The volume of its potential gets turned down and fades into the background of our beliefs.
Finding the rhythm of grace in our lives is challenging. When the crowd sings too quick, staying in step with grace requires resolve and conviction. When some of the group decide it’s not worth singing about at all, grace-filled people decide to stay the course, sing the next words that others find antiquated.
“…I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see!”
I have found in my years as a Christ-follower that the most amazing moments in a journey with other believers happen when a church finds it’s grace harmony. Repentance and forgiveness seem to join hands and the transformative power of the grace of God seems to make singing the hymn freeing.
It’s like last Sunday! After we finished the last verse that John Newton wrote, and finally got in step with the music, we added an additional verse of our own. We sang two words over and over again to the same “Amazing Grace” tune. Two words again and again.
“Praise God, praise God! Praise God, praise God!”
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Amazing Grace, forgiveness, grace, grace-filled, harmony, hymn singing, hymns, John Newton, music machine, singing, small church, synchronized
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February 7, 2020
Exciting! Long time coming! Knock on wood! Break a leg! Mom and Dad would be proud!
There are a lot of thoughts going through my head as I look at the Amazon page with my first novel on it. The paperback version of Red Hot: New Life in Fleming became available for purchase this morning. The Kindle version went public two days ago.
After sending the manuscript to several literary agents and publishers and being turned down, I decided to give it a go on Amazon. In the changing environment of the publishing world it has become more and more difficult to have a novel get picked up. After all, publishers need to make a profit, and so many of their books don’t.
A few weeks ago I read a newspaper article about an author who put her first book on Amazon. It did well and a publisher became interested in further novels she wrote.
Who knows? It got me thinking. So…if you’re interested you can find the novel on Amazon. My author name is W.D. Wolfe.
Categories: Novels
Tags: Red Hot Series
Comments: 1 Comment
February 2, 2020
WORDS FROM W.W. February 2, 2020
Christians follow the events of Jesus during Holy Week— his entry into Jerusalem, his last supper with his followers in the Upper Room, the betrayal, his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, arrest, trial, beating, and crucifixion. The Holy Week events go hand in hand with Jesus being referred to as “a man of sorrows.”
As an African-American preacher once preached, however, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!”, and he laughed deep and delighted. His words brought grins to the faces of his congregation and shouts of “Hallelujah!”
Some followers of Jesus seem to have been convinced that Jesus was a man of sorrows from birth unto death, that he would have been described as a solemn child who never cracked a smile. It may be an excuse for the dreariness and dryness of their own spiritual journey.
I remember in my first years of ministry having someone scold me about the fact that she had walked by the room where the Wednesday Night Youth Bible Study was being held and heard laughter. How could I teach the Bible to these kids and let them laugh? I wanted to ask her why her face always looked like she was sucking on a lemon…but I didn’t? I was the rookie and she was one of the church pillars, stone cold and unyielding.
Scripture tells us that Jesus got upset with his disciples when they rebuked parents for trying to bring their children to Jesus. Children delighted Jesus. He said that the kingdom of heaven belonged to such as these.
In my years of being a pastor I gave hundreds of “children’s sermons”. I can only remember there being one time when I didn’t laugh at something that one of the kids said in the midst of the story. That ONE TIME was the Sunday I had the ingeniously idiotic idea of doing two children’s sermons in the same worship gathering. During the second sermon it was like herding cats. The kids were crawling behind the communion table, trying to escape, and looking curiously at the musical instruments close at hand. It was…memorable! Now, years later I chuckle every time I remember it.
I can not imagine Jesus being the man of sorrows as children gathered around him.
In the seriousness of the world Christians need not just the vital image of the Suffering Servant nailed to the cross, but also the joyous Jesus who grinned in the hallelujah moments of His journey.
I find it interesting that science and psychology are doing more research about the effects of laughter. The findings have revealed how laughter relieves stress, boosts the immune system, and relaxes the muscles.
It seems to me that Jesus-followers should laugh the loudest and longest. After all, we know that after Jesus’ death on that Friday his burial tomb was empty on Sunday and the stone had been rolled away. In essence, He had the last laugh!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Freedom, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: children's sermons, following Jesus, Holy Week, Jesus' resurrection, joy, joy-filled, laughing, laughter, man of sorrows, open tomb, smiling, solemn, the effects of laughter
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February 1, 2020
WORDS FROM W.W. February 1, 2020
I looked at the class, my eyes wide open and fully caffeinated. The 29 students, most of whom have some distinctive characteristic (hair style, short and tall, reserved and animated) or possession they always have with them (Think smart phone, air pods), stare back at me.
“I know you’ll have a hard time believing this,” I begin, “but I look forward to coming here each morning and being your teacher.”
The confession causes eyebrows of each student to lower, like they’ve just been told by their parents that their family is going to move to a remote area of outer Mongolia.
“I know, I know, that sounds weird to you. You’re wondering what is wrong with Mr. Wolfe. Is my life so lame that I need the company of 115 seventh graders each day?”
Heads nod in agreement to my statement of lunacy.
“But, believe it or not, I get excited to come to school each day. It energizes me!”
For eight weeks I’ve been given the opportunity to teach these 12 and 13 year olds, while their teacher takes care of a family member. Perhaps in these two months or so I’ll be able to convince them that someone can be energized in a way that doesn’t have to include a can of Red Bull. Perhaps they can catch some of my passion for young people and discover what they’re passionate about.
This week they’ve learned that I’m funny, use sarcastic humor like I’m doing standup comedy, and that I have high expectations.
They’ve also discovered that I can be like a military sergeant. If class is to begin at 8:04, I tell them, they are to be there at 8:04…or earlier! Not 8:04:15. The four that came waltzing in 30 seconds late owed me the first minute of their lunch period that day.
For most of them, I realize I expect more than they expect from themselves. Perhaps it’s my penance for the sins of my 7th Grade Language Arts year with Mrs. Blauvelt back in Williamstown, West Virginia. I still clearly remember doing an oral book report for her on the book Swiss Family Robinson and being “found out”. That is, I had seen the Disney movie version of the book, which is nothing like the book, and tried to make Mrs. Blauvelt believe I had read the book.
Perhaps my expectations for these 7th Graders is to atone for my sins and to allow Mrs. Blauvelt to rest in a more comfortable eternal peace.
I’ve learned so much this week. As my teaching teammates have welcomed me, they’ve also welcomed my many questions. Most of those questions deal with technology. “How do you do this thingy right here?” “Why do they call it power point when I feel so helpless trying to do it?” “Where did MY SCREEN GO?”
As we say, “We’re no longer in Kansas, Dorothy!” I’ve learned there’s a new state I’ve been blown to called Discovery.
Categories: children, coaching, Community, Freedom, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, love, Parenting, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: energized, language arts, middle school, middle school boys, middle school girls, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, Passion, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teachers, teaching, teaching middle school
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Words from WW Blog 