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Driving Miss Reagan

May 13, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                          May 13, 2014

 

                                         “Driving Miss Reagan”

 

It started as soon as I entered the house through her front door.

“Granddad, I’m having waffles for breakfast.” (I won’t pepper my writing with her pronunciation, but breakfast comes from her lips sounding like “bweckfust.”)

I had volunteered for this chauffeuring duty, filling in for Miss Reagan’s dad, also my son-in-law, who was working out of town for a few days. Driving my three year old granddaughter around for a few minutes each morning sounded great.

For a three year old, Reagan can talk more than a stumping politician. Her “l’s” and “r’s” still sound like “w’s”. Last week when I showed her a scratch on my arm she asked, “Did it bweed?”

Without her older brother to share chat time with she is all out…constant…dizzying chatter!

“Granddad, would you cawwy my waffle…and be very careful, because if the wind gets it I will not be happy!”

     “Yes ma’am!”

      The twelve minute car ride to her other grandmother’s house has more topics of conversation than Time magazine has articles each issue.

“Granddad, do you like fire twucks?” 

      “Sure…it’s good to have a fire truck when there is a fire that is burning.”

      “I was in a fire when we stayed at a hotel.”

       “Oh…really!”

      “It was scawy!”

       “I can imagine!”

       “I wike wooking out windows. Do you wike wooking out windows?”

       “Yes. Windows are good.”

       “Does Grammy like windows?”

       “I suppose. We haven’t really had much conversation about it.”

      From behind my driver’s seat I can hear her taking a long sip of apple juice from her sippy cup, ending with a faint “ahhh” sound of satisfaction.

“Granddad, there’s a Chick-fil-A!”

      “Yes, there it is! Maybe we’ll go there for dinner this week. I think I’ll get a chicken salad.”

      “Noooooo….not chicken sawad! You’re siwwy, Granddad!”

      “Why is chicken salad silly?”

      “You have to get chicken strwips!”

      “Is that what you get?”
“Yes, with honey barbecue sauce and waffle fwies!”

      “Oh…okay!”

      “Do you like to dweam, Granddad?”

      “Sure…I guess I do. You mean when I’m sweeping…I mean, sleeping?”
“Yes, I dweam about Puggles and wearing new shoes and cotton candy.”

      “Oh…that’s nice. Are all those in the same dream?”

      “Noooooo…….Granddad, don’t be siwwy!”

      Being silly is a necessary element of a grandfather’s conversation with his three year old backseat passenger. The journey ends and Miss Reagan dances an original step in front of me to her “Nana” Hodges’ house.

I ring the doorbell and she bangs on the door. Nana greets her and Reagan is ready for the next conversation.

Granddad gets back in the car and leaves younger than I was fifteen minutes before!

Categories: children, Humor, love, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized
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Mother’s Day Without Mom

May 11, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                May 11, 2014

 

                                    “Mother’s Day Without Mom”

 

     This is the first Mother’s Day I’ve ever experienced without a mom on this side of Glory. Mom passed to the other side last September, the day after Labor Day. So today I’m in a new place just as she is. I’m walking through it with a mixture of grief and gratitude, a strange mixture…kind of like putting ketchup on top of your peanut butter, you’re not sure if it’s good or bad!

The last two Mother’s Day with Mom were grief in process. Her health had declined to the point that she wasn’t able to carry on a conversation. Calling here on the phone was a painful experience with me being in Colorado and her in Ohio. Her health difficulties had reduced her verbal capabilities to a bare minimum…and my mom was always one to be vocal!

I would send her flowers for Mother’s Day. It was the best I could do for her. She loved the floral arrangements and foliage plants that FTD would deliver…once they were able to find the house! That’s another story for another day!

I remember my mom for who she was before her afflictions took her health away. On this Mother’s Day I remember with a grateful heart the stories, the influence, and even “the look!”

“The look” could stop a freight train. It was convicting! I remember that look one afternoon when I was about ten. Mom had told me that I could go to the park in Williamstown, West Virginia where we lived, but that I could not cross the main street in town to go to the little grocery store. Back in those days before aluminum soda cans a kid could find empty pop bottles and return them to the store for three cents a piece. Two pop bottles could net me a Pay Day or Mallo Cup. But on this day my mom had explicitly forbidden me to cross that main street.

“No problem!”, I thought! What she doesn’t know won’t hurt…me! I made the journey and was munching on my Pay Day on the way back across the street when in the distance I saw a car coming that looked like our family car. I sprinted back into the park and hid behind a trash can until I was sure she had passed. Finally I raised up…and there she was…sitting there, and giving me “the look!” I was toast!

Besides the look, however, my mom would care for us. My brother and I always got new underwear for Christmas, just in case we were in an accident and they had to cut away our blue jeans. It was important to have intact pairs of “Towncraft tighty whities” on.

She could cook! And the thing is, she would cook dinner each night after working a full day at J.C. Penney’s. Not packaged meals, mind you! Home-cooked masterpieces…skillet cornbread… green beans that I didn’t appreciate back then, but now miss greatly…fried chicken…squash casserole…need I go on?

My mom had a certain scent. It’s hard to explain that, but it stayed in the nostrils of your memory. Recently I traveled back to Ohio to help my dad get some things taken care of in preparation for his move to a new senior adult independent living complex he’s moving into. Going from his three bedroom house to a one bedroom apartment has made these past few months a time of sorting for him. What will he take? What will he leave behind? What will he give away? My oldest daughter, Kecia, asked me to bring back a few specific items that she remembers about my parents’ house. A couple of the things she requested were some of MaMaw Wolfe’s dish towels and hot pads. Why? Because they have MaMaw’s scent that is special. When we would travel home to see my parents “the scent” would be a comfort, a welcoming, almost like entering a room with bread baking in the oven.

I’m grateful for “the look”, “the caring”, “the smells”, and “the scent.” Although Mom is gone, those things will stay with me…and on this different kind of Mother’s Day they make me happy!

Categories: children, Death, Humor, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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Saying Goodbye to The Fifties

April 30, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     April 30, 2014

 

                                  “Saying Goodbye to the Fifties”

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

April 28, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                        April 28, 2014

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I didn’t!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

April 24, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                 April 24, 2014

 

                                      

 

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

“You will?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Loooorrrdddd, have mercy!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories: children, Community, Humor, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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Bringing The Cross Back Inside

April 10, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                              April 10, 2014

 

                                 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

March 27, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W. March 27, 2014

 

This is vacation week. I love vacation…and yet vacation is hard for me at the same time. That’s because it is hard for me to mentally vacate. After all, that is the meaning of vacation…”to vacate.”

Even when I vacate I have a tendency to only physically vacate. It is very, very difficult for me to totally check out. This week I’ve been thinking a lot about this coming Sunday’s message. We return Friday and I preach on Sunday. I’m not the type of person who can throw it together on Saturday with no forethought. The scripture and ponderings concerning it have whispered their way through this week. I don’t really mind that. It is part of the calling.

At least that is how I can justify it. My personality and work style would probably come to the same conclusion if I was a teacher, a lawyer, or a barista. If I was working at Starbucks I would probably be thinking about something related to caffeine. This summer I’ll be taking a month-long study leave. My congregation’s Leadership Team and Diaconate members have told me “to vacate the premises.” They know that I will be too easily pulled into things if I’m around. A study leave is suppose to enable you to leave in order to study. I’ll write a blog post each day, read books that I’ve been staring at on my shelves for so long they have gathered dust, pray, ponder, rest, and, of course…drink coffee.

But for it to have meaning I must vacate. It is not optional. It is just part of it. Part of the experience for me will be “learning to vacate.” How can I “not be present?” Many people are good at that. They can turn it on and off like a light switch. I’m more like a fire pit. The fire may be out, but there is some smoldering that is going on for a long long time.

One of my other “issues” is the guilt of vacating. Will people think less of me as a pastor if I scurry off? Do others think I am taking a long vacation that will be filled with sandy beaches, sun screen, and baseball games? Pastors have this need to be needed. Will my self-worth take a dive if I vacate for a while? Whose bedside can I pray at if I’m not around? Will people be able to function without the pastor on site? I’m convincing myself, although I’m not entirely on board yet, that they will do just fine without me around…that others in our church can say a kind word and utter a soft prayer for strength just like the one who has been ordained.

As you can tell, this whole area of “vacating” is a little uncomfortable for me although I’m looking forward to it. To draw a rough comparison, I had been looking forward to swimming in the ocean on vacation. After arriving at our beachside residence I turned on the TV. The sound of the ocean waves was softly waltzing into our room from outside, but on the TV was a nature film about seals and whales. It was very interesting until the scene appeared of a seal splashing around in the water juist a few feet from shore and an orca suddenly rising from the waves and snatching him in his mouth. Suddenly the excitement of swimming in the ocean was tempered a little bit!

Some things in life are like that. We approach them with excitement, and yet we fear that some teeth may be closing in on us. Once again, it is evident that I’ve got a lot to learn about vacating.

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Church Mascots

March 19, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                   March 19, 2014

 

                                      

 

March Madness is one of the best times of the year. I am justifiably biased in that opinion, being born ten miles from Lexington, Kentucky and growing up listening to Cawood Ledford broadcasting UK basketball games on the radio.

One of the lesser highlights of March Madness is discovering some new mascots of some of the lesser known universities that get invited to the NCAA tournament. Such as “The Great Danes of University of Albany”, or “The Chanticleers of Coastal Carolina.”

Although not in the tournament, I have a UC- Santa Cruz tee shirt with their mascot on the front, the banana slug. The Banana Slug, also known as Sammy Slug, was voted as the school mascot in 1981 when the institution started offering intercollegiate athletics. The school chancellor supported the sea lion as the mascot, but a student referendum brought the mascot name up for a vote and banana slug won.

Mascots are interesting, but sometimes the history behind the mascot is even more interesting. For instance, the James Madison University “Dukes”, whose mascot is “Duke Dog”, a gray bulldog who wears a cape and crown. The history behind the mascot name, however, is that Samuel Page Duke was the school’s second president…which makes it interesting to be a member of the women’s basketball team…”the Lady Dukes.”

In thinking of mascots, however, it got me pondering the idea of church mascots to mark pivotal points in different congregations’ histories. It might create some March momentum heading towards Easter, the church equivalent of Final Four Weekend.

How about “The 95’s from Grace Lutheran Church?” Or perhaps a more battle-ready name, “The Nailin’ Theses” of GLC!

I like the ring of “The Splittin’ Charismatics of New Wine Fellowship Church!”

Here’s a few others I think would increase attendance:

*The Fighting Deacons from Community of Joy Baptist Church

*The Glutanteers of Faith-Full Gospel Chapel

*Wine and Cheese Fanatics from Unity Tabernacle

*The Truth-Slugs of First Institutional Baptist

*The Three-P’s (not to be confused with “three peat”) of Trinity Presbyterian Church, who are firmly anchored to every Sunday mesage having three points and a poem.

*The Dunkin’ Donuts of Weigh-side Free Methodist

 

Perhaps you can think of others to join the list. Maybe your church should come up with a mascot…”King Jamers” could become “King Jammers”…just think of the possibilities! Churches that now stand lifeless and unnoticed on street corners could suddenly draw attention to themselves as a logo with an intense looking preacher with flames coming out of his backside gets attached to the outside church sign.

New outreach possibilities are now coming to my mind. I’m seeing things now, imagining things.

Some would say I’m too much into March Madness!

 

 

 

Categories: Christianity, Faith, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Saying Dumb Things

March 18, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                    March 18, 2014

 

                                       “Saying Dumb Things”

 

I am a man!

That means that I often don’t think about what I say until the verbage has left my lips. I wonder if James had just said a dumb thing right before he wrote “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…” (James 1:19) Had he just made a comment to his wife…if he was married…about the chicken being too dry or the rice not cooked enough?

I notice he addressed the words to a bunch of guys. There were probably some heading that were nodding in agreement as they read it.

I remember one time in college I had a first date with a fine young lady. I was trying to impress her with flattery about her physical features (never a good thing to do on a first date…especially at a Christian college!), so I made the comment that she was lean in some places and not as lean in others. I can still remember saying that dumb thing outside of Volkman Hall on campus. James was not speaking quick enough to my inner hearing. I didn’t hear him saying “Be slow to speak” quick enough. In the Amplified First Date Version that verse says “Better sometimes not to speak at all..especially when talking about physical features!”

Needles to say my date thought I was saying she was lean in the wrong places and not lean also in the wrong places. My hope of a second date was about as possible as Weber State’s running the NCAA basketball tournament table.

We all say dumb things, but really dumb things stay in our memory storage facility for a long time. For me in that situation, that means…40 years now!

Some might say that God led my lips to say such idiotic words in order to guide me to my future wife as a result of closed doors in other directions.

That’s almost as dumb!

Last Sunday in church I told the congregation that Carol ands I were going to vacation, but I didn’t want to say where we were going. My reason was that it was a warm spot with beaches and I didn’t want to look to uppity!

Dumb!

And then in my message I was talking about the teachers of the law questioning the authority of Jesus because he didn’t have the credentials. I equated it to what the church will have to decide on what is important the next time they do a pastoral search. How important are credentials? I was focused on the questioning of Jesus.

The congregation, however, was questioning where i was going on vacation and what I would be doing. They were thinking there was a reason I was talking about the next search for a pastor and not telling them where I would be vacating to!

Wow! James was whispering too slow to me again!

Dumb.

I think dumb words stay with us longer than words of wisdom. One of our young guys was telling me about something I said in a message a few months ago and how it impacted him. I can’t remember the message and the words. Evidently I had a fit of wisdom that invaded lack of forethought comments.

I wish those times would rise back to the surface more often than they do. They are like the cream. Dumb things said are like the sour milk. Open a refrigerator and it’s the sour milk that hits your nose a lot sooner than the cream.

Last week I was coaching a basketball game and I was pretty critical of one of my players. He made a couple of mistakes that cost us baskets in the midst of a tight game. My words defeated his spirit more than awaken his intensity. Yesterday I intentionally found ways to affirm him in the midst of the game…his defensive intensity…his decisions…and his level of play went way up.

Sometimes dumb things said cause damage in ways that are hard to recover from.

Since I’m six weeks shy of sixty I’m a little better at saying things now than I was as a pimply-faced college student…but I still have those moments when things exit my mouth and head directly towards “Trouble!”

Before Carol and I leave on vacation I’ll be able to tell our senior’s Bible study group, appropriately named “The Ageless Wonders”, that we’re going to a resort located on a beach. They will get the word out that the pastor of the past fifteen years is not being interviewed in another town by another church.

Most will be relieved. Perhaps a few will mumble “Shucks!”

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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The Perfect Bracket

March 14, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                              March 14, 2014

March Madness is almost to the halfway point. State high school finals in many states are this weekend. College conference tournaments get finalized on Sunday.

And then the fun begins! Brackets for the NCAA tournament get announced late Sunday afternoon…and people will begin to fill in their bracket predictions.

Tough choices have to be made. Do you go with Gonzaga to reach the Sweet Sixteen? Will Mercer have a storybook ending to it’s banner season? Is Wichita State legit?

People have been just as successful in predicting winners in the NCAA by the cuteness of their school mascot as by the team’s RPI rating.

The ESPN Bracket Challenge has not had a single perfect bracket submitted in sixteen years. Thirty million brackets have been submitted in that time.

Perfect = Zero!

This year Warren Buffett and Quicken Loans have teamed up to offer $1,000,000,000 to anyone who submits a perfect bracket. That’s one billion in case I didn’t put enough zeroes in there.

The generous benefactors are pretty confident. The odds of someone turning in a perfect bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808.

The odds are you don’t even know what to call that number. I didn’t. But, in case you need to know, it’s “quintillion.”

So confident that no one can be perfect that Quicken will not be rushed in moving money to a special account.

It ain’t happening!

Such a situation gives me a new appreciation for “perfection.” Perfection is a dream…a Disney movie outcome! It is so easy to pronounce, yet impossible to achieve.

This may be the first time that Jesus gets connected to Bracketology. The impossibility of perfection was trumped by Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us “God made him (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Jesus not only did the impossible, he was the impossible. He had no sin…he was perfect!

Caution point! This does not mean that if you seek Jesus guidance in predicting the winner of Coastal Carolina-Creighton game that he is going to impart a fresh revelation to you.

What the perfection of Jesus does mean is that he took your imperfections upon himself…he atoned for your errors…and made you perfect in God’s sight.

Spiritually you have beat the nine plus quintillion odds.

Buffett won’t be sending you a check with a one and nine zeroes, but…after all, you can’t take it with you!

P.S. #1 Sign that God isn’t that interested in the NCAA tournament outcome: Louisville won it last year!

#2 Sign: Michigan was the other team in the championship game. I think God was interested as long as Wichita State was still playing. Thus, the interest of God might have returned. WSU is 34-0!

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Faith, Humor, Jesus, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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