Archive for the ‘Community’ category
January 17, 2020
WORDS FROM W.W. January 17, 2020
She came to me after the church worship service back in early December and said “Pastor Bill, I’d like to be baptized.”
“Okay! That sounds good!” Actually, I was taken back a bit by the request, not because of the young lady in front of me, but rather because I’ve known her for four years, seen her grow up, and hadn’t thought about this step in her faith journey.
Plus, I’m not really her pastor, although I sorta’ am. I share the Sunday morning speaking opportunities with my friend, Ed Stucky. So…we’re sorta’ unofficial co-pastors. The fourteen year old asked me to baptize her because I’ve been her middle school camp pastor the last two summers.
“So…when are you thinking of doing this?”
“Oh, like the last Sunday in December or around there.”
“Okay, let’s talk about what it means and your understanding of why we do it, and why you want to be baptized.”
We went through our scriptural understanding for why Baptists practice immersion…and then we went back and looked in the baptistry at the front of the sanctuary. That’s when I realized that the church hadn’t had a baptism for a while…like years! Old wooden doors were being stored in the tank. A few spiders had moved in for the winter. We also discovered the missing church crock pot, a leftover brownie (I think it was a brownie!), and someone’s missing hat and mittens…okay, just kidding on the last three!
For us to do a baptism required some rearranging. The wooden doors had to find a new home or doorways.
We prepared. Last Sunday it happened.
But here’s the thing! Simla First Baptist doesn’t have a heater for the baptistry, and the church’s hot water heater has the capacity of a tea kettle. The church moderator and his wife arrived at 6:45 that morning to fill the baptistry for the 10:15 worship service. They emptied the hot water heater and then started boiling pots of water on the stove. Bless them! Unfortunately, the tank holds a couple hundred gallons. I had visions of a YouTube video I had seen entitled “West Virginia Extreme Baptism”, where a couple of young boys get dunked in a creek where you can see the snow banks on each side.
When I stepped down into the water with my bare feet and an old pair of jeans I immediately thought of my 104 degree hot tub back at our home. I have never done “cryotherapy”, but thought this might be comparable. I smiled at our small congregation, trying to hide the discomfort. I thought of the comfort of Methodists sprinkling a few drops on someone.
I’ve had baptistry issues for a number of years. When I pastored in Michigan the heater was broken on a February baptism Sunday. One young boy getting baptized jumped from the steps to the ledge in front of the baptistry when his feet first touched the water. I literally had to pull him into the water before I was able to dunk him. It’s been a few years, but I think I remember holding him under a few extra seconds just out of my irritation.
And then there was the Christmas Eve when our baptistry was leaking and we placed an inflatable kid’s wading pool shaped like a whale inside our baptistry.
No leaks this time around, just a few ice cubes!
When I lowered the young lady into the water and then brought her back up her eyes became as big as saucers. It was an awakening experience in more than one way for her. The congregation smiled.
It was good!
And the doors will not be moved back in. We expect another baptism in the next few months…like August!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Baptism, Baptists, cold water, immersion, small church
Comments: 1 Comment
January 9, 2020
WORDS FROM W.W. January 9, 2020
It’s funny the things you remember decades later. There’s no reason why a certain conversation or moment in time should stay embedded in your memory, but for some reason it keeps being revisited in your mind.
The latest moment that keeps coming back to me is from an episode of Traffic Court, a TV show on the Columbus, Ohio CBS station one night a week back in the 1970’s, usually right after the news and before Jeopardy.
Think Judge Wapner for traffic violations!
For some reason I remember one man in one episode. He had been cited for failure to obey a stop sign. He stood before the judge and the judge asked if he had anything to add about his violation. He replied that in Indiana they had something called a “Quick Stop”. It was a stop, just real quick! The judge imposed the appropriate fine upon Mr. Quick and told him that in Ohio a stop sign means stop!
Lately, I’m thinking that a lot of Indiana people have moved to Colorado Springs because I’ve noticed a lot of “quick stoppers” driving around our streets.
Let me be so controversial as to say that “quick stops” are an indication of how our culture has changed. What???
A stop sign is a momentary halting of our progress and we have become a culture that does not like anyone or anything to tell us to stop what we’re doing. It’s a ripple effect of our sense of entitlement. Not obeying traffic laws is simply a sign of our self-centered idea that the world revolves around “me!”
Speed limits are seen as being suggestions.
Okay! I admit it! I have a tendency to go a few miles over the speed limit…to keep from dying! I’m going 49 in a 45 and cars are whizzing by me like I’m stuck in mud. And, of course, there’s the guy who hangs on your bumper to let you know that you’re impeding his excessive progress.
The number of pedestrians and cyclists killed in this country by drivers in 2019 exceeded 7,000. Fatalities and excessive speed has become such a problem in Colorado Springs that the City Council has made it a matter for their attention.
When entitlement becomes ingrained in our culture’s thinking there is a corresponding adjustment to expected behavior. We make exceptions to the rules and many take on an attitude that says the rules don’t apply to them. In essence, the thinking is that rules are for all those other people, but don’t apply to me.
And, like the Indiana man, we reinterpret what a rule or law means. Don’t get me started on how “Yield” has been reinterpreted, or the emergence of that creation of a crazed road engineer called “the round about!”
And how about texting and driving? One out of every four traffic accidents involve someone who is texting and driving. Wait a minute! Isn’t that against the law? No, it’s just another one of those suggestions from our law enforcement…er, law suggestion people!
Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Humor, Nation, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: cultural trends, driving habits, entitled, entitlement, pedestrian fatalities, speed limits, stop signs, Texting, texting and driving, Traffic Court
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January 3, 2020
WORDS FROM W.W. January 3, 2020
“On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor…Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:22-23,27)
It was a paper cut, but it must have been angry paper…paper with an attitude looking to inflict pain!
The cut only measured a couple of millimeters…I think! I could never understand those ways of measuring things. In laypeople language it measured itsy-bitsy, but it was on the tip of my right thumb. I guess you could say that “it stuck out like sore thumb!”
No big deal. It was only a tiny cut, barely big enough to put under the microscope. I had nine other fingers to take care of details. I never use my thumbs when I type, so there was one thing. I’m a three-fingered typist, two on my left hand and one on the right. Always have been. If I have to think about using more fingers than those three I’ll become frantic, like the person in the movie who has to figure out which wire to cut, perspiration running down his face, along with tears.
So, no big deal on the thumb, right?
Wrong! I started getting dressed to go to church and I couldn’t get the top button on my dress shirt buttoned. I’ve never worn a tie and had my top button unbuttoned, but that night— Christmas Eve, in fact— I had to resort to looking, as my mom would say, “slouchy!”
With great effort I was able to zip myself up, but I almost had to take my pants off first, zip them, and then “vaseline up” my legs and slide in.
It took me great effort to tie my shoes. I thought about wearing my loafers that I hadn’t put on since the 1990’s and have a hiding spot in the deepest part of my closet, but I struggled through the loops and would have won a shoe-tying race against my 3 month old grandson if need be.
And that’s just getting dressed with the mini-cut!
At Christmas Day dinner we had a delicious ham, but “the cut” made cutting my piece of meat painful. Eating a pickle was painless, but how many pickles can I person eat as others are piling their plates with ham, scalloped potatoes, corn casserole, fruit salad, rolls, and veggies? Picking up the whole slice of ham and jamming it in my mouth seemed to be unfitting for the occasion. I did that later!
A couple of days later I had to shovel the driveway. Oh, the pain, the pain!
I reached to turn the lamplight off beside the bed. Jumpin’ Jimmy!
I flipped the top open on my container of Old Spice “Steel Courage” Body Wash and grimaced. Where’s that Dove bar of soap when you need it?
You get the picture! A minute cut on the end of one finger had a ripple effect on the decisions I made, or didn’t make, for a good ten days. It’s still there, but I can at least button my shirt all the way to the top now and I’ve been able to put the Vaseline away without thinking about having to use it.
The pain of the least of these amongst us has a ripple effect on all of us. In the Apostle Paul’s description of the functioning church he never talks about the over-effectiveness of one of its parts. There’s to be no strutting amongst the people of God. Instead, he focuses the health of the church on all of its parts functioning properly…even the tip of the thumb. When one of the parts can’t be counted on it causes the whole body to shift, to rethink how to get something done, and ends up overtaxing the other members. A small cut on my thumb brought that home to me.
The Body of Christ is a unique group. When it began back in the days after Jesus was crucified and rose again it emphasized the importance of everyone. Heck! Jesus emphasized that his whole ministry. Those who were considered “the tips of the thumbs” and “the toenails on the little toes” were given just as much attention and care by Jesus as anyone else. When the church becomes more like the spiritual form of a pyramid scheme the whole body uses its focus.
My right thumb is back to ninety percent now. All is right again in the universe, but I’m putting a sign up in my study “Beware of the Angry Paper!”
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grace, Holy Spirit, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 1 Corinthians 12, abrasions, buttoning a shirt, cuts, equality, function, healthy church, ineffectiveness, loss of purpose, slouchy, small things, thumbs, tying your shoes
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December 31, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. December 31, 2019
I was never picked first, never. Even in the progression of my siblings I was last. I was always afraid to ask if I was an afterthought, since Mom and Dad had my brother and then my sister. The tables seemed balanced…and then Billy Dean Wolfe came into the world. When you’re third in line you always wonder about things like that. Did my parents slip up one night and I was their surprise…or did they think my brother and sister were so cute why not try for another cutie? Did my mom use her infamous line on Dad, “Kiss me, slobber lips! I can swim!” and things went from there or I was a part of their master plan?
I was last, the last of the Wolfe’s. And guess what? Wolfe comes at the end of the alphabet, unless there’s a Young or a Zipp behind you. Just about every class I was in the teachers would arrange the students alphabetically. In U.S. History class I was even behind another Wolfe, Betsy Wolfe. “B-i” came after “B-e”!
My fourth grade teacher showed some compassion and had me move to the front of the class, not because she thought its was unfair that I always had to sit in the back, but rather because she noticed my squinting to see the chalkboard up front. I needed glasses. Being vision deficient qualified me for advancement from the end to the beginning.
My mom was obsessed with “the last.” The last little bite of food in the casserole dish. I can’t tell you how many times she hovered the broccoli cheese casserole by my shoulder and said, “Bill, you want this last little bite?” Telling her that I didn’t was the wrong answer. It led to a series of questions, like a car dealer trying to sell my dad a Ford (Our family drove Chryslers and Buicks!). My dad’s resistance was solid. Not so much though with my holding off the last bit of broccoli cheese casserole that Mom would inch ever closer to my plate as she tilted it. When she went to her patented “Just enough to dirty the dishwater!” line, I surrendered.
I think about last things a lot these days. I’m getting closer to the end of my journey. Carol thinks I’ll live to be 105 and be featured in the local newspaper as I shovel a spoonful of pureed veggies into my mouth, but I don’t know! This past year more of my friends arrived at the end of their lives. For a few death was the last thing on their minds as they started a new day, but accidents and heart attacks put a dent into the daily agendas.
I think more and more about what are the last words I want to say to people and how I end the journey. What last acts of kindness would I want to make priorities? What are the last things of my life that I need to resolve and be able to let go of? You know, what are the hurts that need healing and the wounds I’ve caused that need forgiveness?
And what if, like the broccoli cheese casserole, I’m life-stuffed and God says to me “Just a little bit left! Can you live a little bit longer for me? I’ve got just enough life here to dirty the dish water!”
If that happens, my mom would have a big smile on her face and, though theologically I don’t believe it, I wouldn’t be able to get out of my mind the idea that Mom put the Almighty up to convincing me to the last little bite of living longer.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: broccoli cheese casserole, final days, last acts of kindness, last child, last days, last in line, last thoughts, last words, Old age, pureed food
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December 27, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. December 27, 2019
It’s the electronic version of breeding rabbits. One disappears and three others suddenly start hopping around to take its place. You should see the rabbit paw prints in my backyard snow. They resemble a bad Picasso painting, all in white.
I’m talking about my email! It seems to grow exponentially. Something piques my interest, like KiwiCo Toys, so I click on the Facebook ad. Now I get an avalanche of KiwiCo ads on Facebook and also in my email. Curiosity killed the cat, but 50 ads a day killed the interest of this “cat!”
I’ve done Trivia Today, an email I receive twice daily, but now my inbox is also populated with Trivia Daily, Trivia Genius, Trivia Draws, Trivia Today: This Day in History, Trivia Cafe’, and FunTrivia. I receive so many trivia emails I feel shallow, like I no longer am able to think deeply.
Now when Carol and I go somewhere instead of conversation about subjects like Jesus, family, and the latest advances in knee replacements we go through emails and delete them. I swear last night we eliminated 15 emails on our short drive home from Costa Vida restaurant, but 45 new ones then flocked in to take their place. It reminded me of feeding pigeons in the park.
We took a Viking River Cruise last May with our friends, Dave and Robyn Hughes. Viking now seems to think we want to take a cruise a week. Every day we receive an email with a “limited time offer.” Crystal Cruise Line must have gotten word of us as well because they come calling, er…emailing, every day as well.
Then there’s the political emails. It seemed to take me forever to get off the Tea Party list. And every time I asked to be unsubscribed it seemed like I attracted the attention of five other conservative watchdog groups. It reminds me of the lint in my pants pockets that just seems to come from nowhere.
I receive NRA, CNN, SI, NCAA, the NBA, and DSW emails on a daily basis. One time four years ago we ordered a tee shirt from fanatics.com and now they are fanatical about sending us the daily offer quadrupled!
I get an email each day that the latest copy of our local newspaper is available. It’s the same newspaper that I unsubscribed to in mid-September.
We keep unsubscribing and the emails keep repopulating. At least the “Russian Women Are Looking For You” emails have stopped. Of course, ancestry.com rushed in to take their place. Every time I order something from Amazon they send me emails about some other products that I might be interested in.
Perhaps I should do an “email fast”. Commit to not looking at email for a day, maybe a forty day fast. Maybe I should give up email for Lent.
If I did, guess what would happen? I’d be digging out for the next month!
Remember the good ole’ days when you’d get six pieces of mail in the mailbox, spend the next two minutes considering their value, and then get on with your life? We’d get the new copy of the TV Guide and then sit in front of our television flipping back and forth between the four stations we received. We didn’t know how blessed we were, did we?
And in writing these words I realize that it will require some of my readers to open an email! Ironic, isn’t it?
Categories: Community, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: advertising, Amazon, deleting emails, email, exponential growth, internet, junk mail, KiwiCo Toys, Trivia Today, Viking River Cruises, web advertising, web sites
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December 25, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. December 25, 2019
It brought tears to my eyes and it was only shoe polish.
As I dressed and got ready to leave for the 4:00 Christmas Eve service I went to the closet and retrieved the shoe shine kit. The black polish rubbed smoothly over the leather of my dress shoes. As I brushed the shoes into a shine I was taken back to the same scene played out again and again about five decades ago. Every Christmas Eve my dad would instruct me to shine my shoes. It was a tradition that I didn’t appreciate as a teenager. After all, my shoes would only be seen for a few moments. Otherwise they’d be planted partially underneath the pew in front of me at First Baptist Church in Ironton, Ohio. It seemed like busy work, just something to keep me from watching TV for a few minutes.
But to my dad it was important. There was always the unspoken idea of looking your best and, at church, giving of your best. Polished shoes were an act of devotion to Jesus. If our family couldn’t bring gold, frankincense, or myrrh we could at least show up with some shine and show the Christ-child that we had put a bit of thought into our preparation for worship.
To my dad it wasn’t just for looks or to impress anyone. It was part of his faith identity. He’s the one who taught me how to put the proper knot into a necktie…and it was another part of the Sunday church prep. To this day I can’t put on a necktie without looking into a mirror. It’s how he taught me to tie it and I’m sorta’ necktie dislexic!
The memories of those moments washed over me as I moved the brush back and forth over my Oxfords. Christmas is about happy kids, joy-filled moments, and the glad tidings of the season.
But Christmas is also about remembering the parts and the people that have made up the journey. In the joy of the Bethlehem birth, for me at least, there is the moan for the passing of the past. All I can do is honor its memory by continuing its practice.
And so I slip on my shoes and then stand in front of the mirror and make the loops of my necktie. My dad would be proud. He always figured that if he was proud of me Jesus would think I was all right also! After all, in so many ways he was a reflection of Jesus.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Christmas, Community, Death, Faith, Humor, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: dress shoes, family history, family memories, family stories, family traditions, looking your best, neckties, Oxford dress shoes, reflecting Christ, shoe polish
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December 21, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. December 21, 2019
I agreed to it. It wasn’t like I was entering a dark unknown cave unaware of the dangers and unexpected holes sending me into the great abyss. I knew I was agreeing to substitute teacher on the last day before the school’s Christmas break. Some of the students had requested me. I’m still trying to decide whether that is a good thing or a warning sign, kinda’ like the army recruiter who smiles at the young buck standing in front of him and making him believe the next four years of his life will be simply a more mature version of Disney World.
The last day of December school is frequented with sudden fits of stupidity as young adolescents all sugared up feel compelled to commit head-shaking acts of frenzied unintelligence because of their excess consumption of candy bars, peppermint candy sticks, and Starbucks Frappuccinos.
Teachers hold up surrender flags in the form of “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2”. In reality, by 9:30 they’re wishing they were home alone and wondering why they didn’t take a sick day?
The sound of shoes sprinting down hallways is common. Students wearing red Santa hats and adorned with tinsel is the norm. Ugly Christmas sweaters and students in Santa suits pass by almost unnoticed.
In a couple of classes a few students suddenly broke out in song…off key, but still festive. One student blessed me with a candy cane and another with a container of baked goods that were meant for the teacher I was subbing for. When he saw that the teacher was gone he said, with great disappointment, “I guess you can have them!”
The political correctness of our culture leads some students into some degree of uncertainty as to what the right greeting/blessing is. Do they say “Merry Christmas!”, “Happy Hanukkah”, “Have a great break!”, “Happy Holidays!”, or “See ya’ next year!” I wanted to say “May the coming celebrated birth of the Christ-child be experienced in a deep way by you and yours!”, but I knew the typical middle schooler’s attention span wasn’t that long so I shortened my greeting to “Merry Christmas!”
The teaching staff did hallway countdowns as the day went on…”Three classes to go!” “Down to two!”, and words of encouragement “You can do it!”
When the final bell rang the walls of the school expanded as the entire staff exhaled in the realization that survival had been accomplished.
Timberview Middle School, where I hang out, is a great school, great staff, mostly great students with a few warts thrown in that grab most of the attention. I almost always enjoy my days there, but Christmas break is longed for by everyone. It’s like the opposite of the college student who comes home on Christmas break. Coming back and living with the parents is okay for the first couple of days, but then everyone is looking forward for the second semester to begin so Junior can leave again.
Categories: children, Christmas, Community, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Christmas break, Christmas vac ation, middle school, middle school boys, middle school girls, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, school days, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching middle school
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December 15, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. December 15, 2019
I’m not against the mega-church. It has its mission, purpose, and place. A lot of my friends are involved in mega-churches in various locations around the country. I’m just not a big church kind of guy.
Most Sundays I’m sitting in a rock hard pew instead of watching a band rock out on stage. The church I attend is about a 45 minute drive from the half-million people city where we live, in a small town of 500 people. The church is about as unsophisticated and un-seeker sensitive as you can get…and yet there’s something that touches my spirit when I worship there with about 15 other people.
It’s my small town, small church Bethlehem, off the beaten path and unnoticed, a block from the Methodist church that is equally unnoticed and set back in time.
In our city’s newspaper this morning there was a special section that focused on the demise of the small town. It was like a eulogy for what used to be a main fabric in the Americana tapestry, but is now slipping into being part of a memorable past. There was a yearning in the article for a return to the richness of small town communities and weeping words about its fading away.
The same obituary points could be stated about the small town church. Most of the people who move to Simla, Colorado— the few that would apply to, that is— are either running away from something or arriving to disappear from the hustle and bustle of urban life.
Most of the visitors who come through the doors of our church aren’t quite sure what they are getting themselves into. There’s no church nursery, children’s church, organist, pianist, or welcome center. The congregation is rarely singing the right notes that the “music machine” is playing and last Sunday we didn’t have a single Christmas carol where the number of verses in the hymnal was exactly the number of verses that the machine sounded out.
And yet I’m drawn to its homespun charm and chatter. The coffee is weaker than even Mrs. Folger’s would make it, and someone’s niece that we’ve been praying for this past year is always referred to in the bulletin as so-and-so’s “neice.” It is a church that functions out of an unwritten but defined structure and readily admits that we’re all cracked pots or crackpots.
It has never been lost on me that the birthplace of Jesus was a small town, a village, and that the first visitors were shepherds from the countryside. It took the Magi, representatives of royalty and the upper crust, much longer to show up.
Perhaps my eastern Kentucky rural roots have had too much influence on my perspective, but I hope small towns and small churches can continue to be part of the spiritual journeys of the folk I rub elbows with on Sunday mornings.
We’ll worship together on Christmas Eve, a special service that they asked me if they could have. I told them that they didn’t need my permission to have a Christmas Eve service and they replied, “We know, but we need you to speak.”
Okay!
The last Sunday in December a young lady is getting baptized. It prompted two questions that needed to be answered. Who’s going to move the old wooden doors that the baptistry is being used for their storage space; and two, does the heater still work? Actually, the second question was more like “We sure hope the heater works!” Since my tootsies will be submerged in the water, I’m offering up a prayer for warmth as well.
Could it be that, just like in first century Bethlehem, God might bring new life and new hope to the the proclamation of the gospel through the unlikely rebirth of the small town, small church Bethlehem.
Bethlehem, after all, means “house of bread”, and the church in Simla, along with the weak coffee, has cookies just about every Sunday after worship. It’s usually a sweet ending to a morning of being blessed.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Christmas, Community, Death, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, love, Nation, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: mega church, Mrs. Folger's coffee, small church, small churches, small town church, small town demise, the demise of small towns, the small church
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December 14, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. December 14, 2019
Dear Santa,
I’m sending this letter through the air, kinda’ like your sleigh. I don’t know how my letter will get to you, but I also don’t understand how your sleigh can get to New Guinea and Newfoundland in the same day either. Makes me wonder if you have a business arrangement with Amazon Prime.
Anyway, I was never much for sending you letters when I was a little kid. My parents hid the postage stamps and my penmanship really sucked. I knew that the things I had circled in the Penney’s catalog probably wouldn’t end up under our tree. I never ever circled Towncraft underwear and socks and they were ALWAYS under there. Towncraft didn’t seem like it was your brand, but it was the brand of the company my mom worked for. I didn’t know there was any other kind of underwear but Towncraft “tighty whitey’s” until I was like…60!
Back to this Christmas, my list is short and sweet. Well, Enstrom’s Toffee would be the sweet part, that is!
The short part…well, you being up at the North Pole most of the time may not be aware of this, but do you have some kind of toy or device that would make me, and others, better listeners? I mean, there’s all that virtual reality stuff that you’re delivering this days, like those goggles that people put on that somehow take them into a different world like Avatar. (Back in my day we just had the ViewMaster that I used to watch an “episode” of Donald Duck in 3D!)
How much more difficult would it be to have a device or “persuasion”, that would increase our ability to listen to the essence of what someone else is saying without formulating our rebuttal in the midst of their words?
Maybe this would be something that sorta’ looks like one of those new hearing aids that you can hardly see. The advanced model could even give a shock to someone who decides to get into a word battle before the complete thought is given.
I admit my hearing has taken a dip from time to time. Just the other day I thought a young lady at one of my basketball practices said “my bad ass stinks”. I looked at her, somewhat confused, and asked what she had just said. “My passes stink,” she responded. I was relieved to know that was it, but, like I said, I’m misunderstanding and not hearing people as well these days as i did a few years ago.
I know, I know, St. Nick, there’s a lot of talking these days. It’s hard to separate the gibberish and noise from the messages and opinions. It’s like a middle school hallway during a passing period. You just want to run to a quiet room!
But perhaps we can make a short stride in a better direction.
That’s it! You don’t have to worry about any Towncraft products anymore. Since my mom passed away five years ago I don’t feel guilty wearing Fruit of the Loom’s or Hane’s.
The Enstroms’ though…
Categories: children, Christianity, coaching, Community, Grace, Humor, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Dear Santa, difference of opinion, Enstrom's Toffee, Fruit of the Loom, hearing aids, Hearing device, hearing what is being said, J.C. Penney's, letter to Santa Claus, listening, listening skills, opinions, Penney's catalog, tighty whity's, Towncraft, underwear
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December 4, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. December 4, 2019
I had a dream the other night that, strange as it sounds, caused me to tear up. In the confusion of the moment perhaps it was as I awoke from the dream that the tears came, but, whatever the progression, it was an emotional moment.
The dream centered on those who have passed on. Some of the saints whose funerals I’ve officiated at— Charles Slusser, Rex Davis, Ralph Kothe, Jim Newsome, Ben Dickerson, Rita Morris, Phyllis Smith, Greg Davis— came back to my mind in the dream.
And then my mom and dad. In the dream I could not discern whether my parents were still on this side of eternity or had crossed over. They seemed to be speaking to me as I sat in a church parlor talking to Charles Slusser’s son-in-law and daughter, Dieter and Tina.
This morning I made the connection between the vividness of the dream and why I experienced it. On Thanksgiving Day our oldest daughter, Kecia, opened a container of my mom’s that had been handed down to her after my dad passed away almost two years ago. When she opened it she remarked on how the scent reminded her of my mom. Or, as Kecia refers to her, MaMaw Wolfe. She hovered over the container and inhaled several times.
My mom’s possessions—dishes, linens, clothes closet— had a distinctive scent that I can only describe as smelling like a combination of southern, cared for, and homey. Kecia closed the container after a couple of minutes in order to preserve the memory. MaMaw has been gone five years and the scent still blesses us.
I lingered over the container for a few seconds myself. Visions of family dinners and savory casserole dishes came back to me. The memory of my mom always greeting our kids with the words, “Give me some sugar!”, and then the giggling when Kecia brought her two sugar packets as we arrived on one visit.
The sweetness of those memories triggered the “deep into the night” emotions. I miss my parents, the Sunday night phone conversations with Dad, Mom’s questions that sought to find a five letter word for “fast” to fill in on her crossword puzzle, her pickiness and my dad’s patience. I miss their practices and their peculiarities.
It’s interesting how a scent from a container can bring the blessings of memories, and life back to those who have long since been lowered into the ground.
The sense of smell comes out as a strong theme in scripture. Some of the sacrifices that the Jewish people offered God are described as being aromas pleasing to God. The Magi brought gifts to the newborn King, Jesus, and two of them had strong scents that communicated something about who Jesus is.
Kecia closed the container back up and put it away until the next time our family gathers at her house for a special event. When that takes place the scent of remembering will descend upon us again and we will experience the blessings of those who have been pleasing aromas in our journeys.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Christmas, Community, Death, Grandchildren, Humor, love, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: aromas, family memories, funerals, memories, remembering, scent, smell
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