Archive for the ‘Parenting’ category
August 13, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 13, 2017
While visiting my dad in Ohio recently I drove him one morning to a doctor’s appointment across the river in Huntington, West Virginia. The waiting room for the physician was “intimate”, meaning that there were about eight chairs positioned in a way so that you could see everyone else, whether you liked it or not!
Two men unfortunately became part of this setting soon after we arrived. They were loud! Now, my six year old granddaughter is also loud, but she’s six! We remind her to use her inside voice! These two men, however, were loud and…stupid! They trumpeted their stupidity to let everyone know that they were “life stupid!”
I know, I know…you’re thinking that I’m being very judgmental here. I guess I am. Yesterday morning when I sat down to eat some scrambled eggs that had been sitting on the counter for a few minutes I made the judgment on the first bite that they were cold. Sometimes judging a situation is easier than deciding on a score at an Olympic diving competition. In this situation the two waiting room individuals made it known to everyone in the same zip code that one of them was about to enter into his eighth marriage, while the other hadn’t followed simple pre-visit instructions that were going to result in his sharing his life wisdom for the others around him for the next four hours. A woman who was evidently related to them kept referring to them as “Dumb and Dumber.” They seemed to take it as a compliment. These two did nothing to change the stereotypes that people have about West Virginians!
The problem in our society is that some forms of stupidity are disguised as how things should be. People don’t see their prejudices and bad behavior as ignorance. They think that’s how the world should be.
And so racism gets portrayed as natural, and white supremacists LOUDLY proclaim that their warped view of the world is normal. Last week someone or someones who were committed to being stupid in life defaced the outside of a Jewish synagogue in Colorado Springs. Stupidity doesn’t just happen east of the Mississippi or in a Huntington physician’s waiting room, or at a Charlottesville, Virginia rally. People do stupid all over the place loudly!
We could go to the bottom line of the Christian faith that says that all people have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but, quite frankly, that often gets used as an excuse for deep-seeded evil and deliberate cruelty.
Stupidity finds a comfortable home in a number of people, snuggles into their decision making, and reveals itself with a blow horn! There is nothing rational or reasonable about it, and yet multitudes seem to follow it’s enchanting call.
In the midst of our culture’s shouts of lunacy I keep repeating to myself the words of the prophet Amos, “…but let justice roll on like a river, righteous like a never-failing stream.” (Amos 5:24, NIV) In reading those words I envision the thundering sound of a rushing river drowning out the loudness of ignorance!
That is my prayer more and more these days!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Nation, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Charlottesville Virginia, Colorado Springs synagogue, Dumb and Dumber, dumb decisions, loud, loudness, prejudice, prejudiced, racism, speaking loudly, stupid decisions, stupidity, the loudness of fools, white supremacist
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August 7, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 7, 2017
I was having dinner with my dad Sunday night at Wyngate, his senior apartment complex. We sat across the table from his across-the-hall neighbor, Bonnie! Conversation was constant and the topics varied from vegetable likes and dislikes, to a former resident who now lived in a different state and was dealing with dementia, to the heat and humidity of Alabama.
Alabama took us to this story that Bonnie offered. Her four year old “great niece” lives in Alabama. When Bonnie was visiting her sister who also lives there a few months ago her great niece came up to her one day and told her that she had learned the “F Word” at her pre-school the previous week. She put her hand over her mouth to accentuate the shock of the new education.
“But I can’t tell you what it is!” she continued. Bonnie told her she understood and shook her head to communicate the unbelievable nature of this new discovery.
“But I can whisper it to you!” She approached her great aunt’s left ear, cupped her hand to the side of her mouth, and whispered the forbidden newly-discovered four letter word.
“Fart!”
Bonnie tried to express the dismay of such learned language, but as soon as her great niece turned away and headed out of the room she broke into a belly laugh that even made her arthritic knees jiggle and giggle!
Fart! That was the new F word! Bonnie thought “Oh, I wish that it were so!” Whereas another “F” word spoken can seem crass and demeaning, describing a moment of flatulence simply passes in a moment and is no more!
Categories: children, Grandchildren, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: bad language, F word, fart, farting, farts, flatulence, language, passing gas
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August 5, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 5, 2017
Long life seems to be congratulated, celebrated, and strived for. It is tacked up on the bulletin board as a goal, a destination.
The dark side of long life is when everyone has dropped out of the race of life and you become the last one still running. That is, when your spouse for the life journey, all of your friends, and anyone else who used to come to your high school class reunion has passed on. All of those people you’d pick up the phone on a Sunday night to call, or would call you, and check on are now checked off. It is the harsh truth of the long-living.
I didn’t quite understand it in all of my years of pastoring the flocks of different congregations. I can remember the words of a number of elderly folk whose spouses had passed on. There was a longing for God to move them on as well. They were ready for this journey to be over and the next eternal journey to begin. I misunderstood that to be a longing to be in heaven where there is no more pain and suffering, but that longing was disguising the pain that comes with the loss of a special relationship.
My dad’s best friend, Bill Ball, passed away this week at the age of 92. The loss wasn’t unexpected, and yet sometimes we procrastinate coming to terms with its arrival. My dad is 89 and wherever he goes he is now usually befriended by either a cane, a walker, or motorized scooter. Having Bill Ball pass on was a wound to his spirit. About three years or so ago there was Dad, Bill Ball, and Ralph Carrico. Ralph passed away, a victim of cancer, and I saw how that grieved my father, but he had Bill Ball to grieve with alongside him. They supported one another through the loss of their friend. This time around he’s having to struggle through the journey by himself. Yes, his family is comforting him in the midst of the sorrow, but the reality of the situation is that the “long-living” experience a profound form of grief that grows out of the longevity.
My sister and I took Dad to the “viewing” of his friend on Wednesday night. There is something necessary for the living to view the deceased, and something painfully revealing. As my dad stood there beside the casket staring down at his old friend he wept. His body trembled as the tears found their way down his face. He knows that he is in the winter of his own life, but outliving your friends is a weight that he must drag with him for the rest of his days.
And there’s really nothing that his family…his three kids, seven grandkids, and eleven great-grandkids can do for him to make it okay.
I remember a song by Charlie Peacock from twenty-five years ago. It was entitled “Now Is the Time for Tears”, and it begins with the words “Now is the time for tears. Don’t speak! Say no words! There is nothing you could say to take this pain away!” Dad’s grief is not to be fixed, but simply to be present with.
We often talk about life as being a journey. The other part of that, however, is that life is to be journeyed with others. I can see the loss etched into Dad’s wounded face. He just finished another round of radiation treatments this week for another skin cancer episode on his nose. His nose and ears have been cut on and radiated so many times that his face has often looked like a battlefield, but this pain that I can see is not connected to any cancerous growth, or demanding treatment plan. It’s simply the look of loss, the mask of long-lived sorrow!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Alan Wolfelt, Bill Ball, cancer, Center for Loss and Transition, Charlie Peacock, friendship, grief, grief support, grieving, living long, long living, longevity, loss, mourning, outliving your friends, radiation treatments, the passing of a friend, This Is The Time For Tears
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August 1, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 1, 2017
God graces our lives with various saintly people who may simply say a kind word, give us a nudge in the right direction, or travel with us for a while in our journey of life. Those of us fortunate enough have some of these saints watch us grow up and become like “angels with skin on” who ponder our maturing and pray that our life has continued purpose and depth.
I’ve been blessed numerous times by the cloud of witnesses who have followed my wanderings. One of them passed on to Glory yesterday. He was one of my dad’s best friends…kind of like the last men standing, as Dad is now 89 and his friend, Bill Ball, was in his early nineties!
To me, Mr. Bill Ball was Mr. Encouragement! Our families attended the same church, even sat on the same side of the aisle, although Bill and Sue Ball sat a few rows closer to the back door and my parents were a few rows closer to the choir. As I progressed through high school my parent’s leash got longer and I was allowed to sit with my friends in another pew, but just about every Sunday Bill Ball would head towards me after the morning worship service and ask me how I was doing?
He became interested in my high school running progress. I can still remember him giving me a couple of pieces of coaching advice. Specifically, he told me to work on lengthening my stride just a bit. It was when I was heading into my senior year, and his encouragement to work on that one aspect of my race helped me break the school mile record that had stood for over a decade. But it wasn’t just advice he gave me! It was “encouraging advice!” Bill Ball showed me the difference. Encouraging advice gives the listener the confident belief that what is being told to him can become the soon to be reality! I can remember several times, when after a Sunday morning conversation with Mr. Ball, I wanted to go out for a run that afternoon. There are people who make you feel like the world is against you so why even get out of bed, and then there are people like Bill Ball who make you believe no mountain is too high for you to climb!
“Mr. Optimistic” had bought himself a new car about six months before his passing at the age of 92! He lived a life of possibilities. Each day was a new opportunity, a new adventure. Each time I’d come from Colorado for a visit Dad and I would try to get together with Mr. Ball for lunch at Rax Roast Beef or Frisch’s Big Boy. For some reason I still remember that he ordered a Brawny Lad the last time we had lunch together. Each shared lunch was another occasion of laughter, sharing old stories, and…encouragement!
I’m feel very fortunate to be back in Ohio visiting Dad this week. It means I’ll be able to be the encourager to his three awesome daughters, perhaps being able to share with them just a hint of how their dad motivated me to run faster and encouraged me to be who I wasn’t sure I could be!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, coaching, Community, Death, Faith, Humor, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: advice, Brawny Lad, Cloud of witnesses, coaching advice, confidence builder, encourage one another, Encouragement, encourager, encouraging, Frisch's Big Boy, Ironton Ohio, obituary, optimism, optimistic, running faster, saintly people, Saints, school record
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July 28, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. July 28, 2017
38 is a weird number…illegal for any basketball jersey except the NBA! Rarely…okay, never requested by one of my middle school football players! I went and asked Google who was the best NFL player to wear the number 38 and got George Rogers of the New Orleans Saints. A good player, but not exactly someone who easily comes to mind! #39 is Larry Csonka, that one I could remember!
But today is a special 38. It’s our 38th wedding anniversary. On July 28, 1979 Carol Falettu and I joined hands at the front of the sanctuary of Community Presbyterian Church in Clarendon Hills, Illinois. Much of the day was a blur for me. I knew what I was doing…and yet, I didn’t know what I was doing! You know what I mean? Kind of like when a young boy goes in for his first kiss. He knows what he’s doing, and yet he doesn’t…and back in my day there were no YouTube videos for instruction!
I met her at the front of the sanctuary. My seminary roommate and friend, Randy Saunders, performed the ceremony. Two weeks later I officiated at his wedding. Unfortunately, a few years later he and Marlene split up.
My six groomsmen lined up to my left as I looked down the aisle. David “Hugo” Hughes stood beside me as my best man. A year later I’d preside over his wedding ceremony. A couple hundred people were there…I think! Doug Loomer sang and played his guitar, like we were two flower children merging together. I remember Don Francisco’s “The Wedding Song”, a Summer of ’79 wedding favorite!
Carol was radiant as her dad escorted her down the aisle. I could tell she was nervous and excited, and maybe wondering what in the world she was doing marrying a Baptist minister who was going to move her to Michigan? Just three years before she had been teaching pre-school deaf children in a Victoria, Texas school. She couldn’t have envisioned this day three years later when Rev. William D. Wolfe would promise her the moon…or, at least, his devotion!
I brought…not much into the marriage. A ’66’ Chrysler Newport given to me by my parents, a bunch of seminary books, leisure suits, and a toaster. When I had graduated from Northern Baptist Seminary about seven weeks earlier I didn’t even have to rent a U-Haul to transport my belongings to my first full-time ministry position in Davison, Michigan. Carol was the one with the wealth! She even had a couch, a twin-size mattress, and a twelve inch black-and-white TV! She was loaded! Her Mustang Fastback was hot, just like she was! In essence, we were a two-car family. We didn’t have two of anything else except toothbrushes and forks, but we had two vehicles!
On that wedding day we looked into each other’s eyes, glistened over with moistness, and vowed words to each other that dealt with devotion, perseverance, wanting the best for one another, and journeying hand in hand for the rest of our life together. We were naive’ and completely in love, but not completely naive’! I was marrying the third daughter of an Italian-American father and North Dakotan Mom. In my family “whine” was prominent at the dinner table growing up as we surveyed the dinner of neck bones, green beans, and boiled potatoes. In Carol’s family “wine” was prominent at dinner, and I don’t think she ever had to look at a pot of neck bones!
An unusual union, the two of us, but it’s worked in the midst of church drama and church celebrations, being surrounded by saintly people and people who ain’t! One of those saints, Rex Davis, loved a certain restaurant in Colorado Springs. When he passed away last fall at 95 and I was asked to do the funeral service, his family gave me a gift card to that favorite restaurant. We’ll celebrate our anniversary there tonight, thinking of him and all the other people who have graced our lives in this journey that has more often than not resembled Lake Wobegon comedy instead of Chicago drama!
Three kids, all grown and pursuing their purposes in life…three grandkids, who seem to have more energy than Colorado Springs Utilities…and an abundance, a multitude of friends who we cherish and love! Marriage is not just two people. It is two people taking the lead in a caravan of hundreds who have journeyed with them.
Both Carol and I would undoubtedly say we have been, and are, blessed! We have now been married sixty per cent of our lives to one another! There will be no “whine”, or neck bones, at our table tonight, but perhaps a bit of “wine!”
Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 38, anniversary, blessed, Clarendon Hills, Davison Michigan, Don Francisco, George Rogers, groomsmen, marriage ceremony, Northern Baptist Seminary, The Wedding Song, wedding anniversary, wedding ceremony, wedding vows, Weddings
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July 27, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. July 27, 2017
I had procrastinated more than a frantic income tax filer looking at his empty forms on April 15. There’s just something about having someone stick something up your butt that is a little uncomfortable to my personal space! And so instead of waiting ten years since my last venture into Wonderland it had been almost twelve years since I shook hands with my gastroenterologist! As he extended his hand to me I hesitated for a moment. I had memories of a story my dad has told me several times of an equine veterinarian back in Kentucky who always walked around with a cigar in his mouth. Some men had called him about a horse that was having problems. The horse doctor knew right away that the animal was just plugged up…in other words, constipated… and he reached his hand “up there”, helped the horse get cleared out, and then, with the same hand, took his cigar out of his mouth to say a few things before sticking it back in his mouth. The men who needed his assistance promptly went around to the side of the barn and threw up.
And so with that memorable story in my mind I hesitated for a moment before shaking hands. His right hand looked clean so I shook it!
When we leave on vacation we prep for it by packing our suitcase. For a colonoscopy I had to “unpack.” 128 ounces of Powerade with a bottle of powdered laxative called Miralax. Their parade down to my inners was preceded by taking four pills that must have been like “scouts” going ahead of the fluid army to scope out the territory.
Being a smart and wise person I had bought a pack of ultra gentle toilet paper earlier that day!
Before the scout pills and the fluid army began their assault, I had spent the previous day abstaining from pretty much anything that I would classify as normal food. Carol fixed a bowl of lime jello, which I stared at as it sat in the refrigerator. It is still sitting there in the refrigerator, firmly anchored away from my interest. I had a cup of chicken broth and pretended I was sipping won ton soup…minus the won ton! Always being a cream and sugar coffee person I drank two cups of coffee that morning…black! Just about everything in our refrigerator and freezer had received amnesty from being consumed by me! I could hear the package of Nathan’s hot dogs mocking me: “You’re no Joey Chestnut, that’s for sure!”
And then the first wave of the Powerade force marched through me with a vengeance. I played Word With Friends as I awaited the next assault.
A 4 A.M. initiative was planned for the second wave of Powerade infusion! The last remnants of whatever the assault fluid ounces were meant to clear out finally gave up the ghost. By 7:30 A.M. I was thanking God for the invention of ultra gentle TP! Feeling light on my feet we walked out to the car to make the journey.
As we entered the office of the gastroenterologist I noticed that they had a little merchandise section…kind of like Cracker Barrel, but without the smell of bacon in the air…with various memorabilia to buy to help you remember the experience. A tee shirt with the words “Up Yours!” was prominently displayed. A beer mug with “Bottom’s Up!” didn’t seem to be a threat to disappear from the shelf. I like jigsaw puzzles, but the one of the GI tract did not peak my interest! Neither was the for sale DVD on “The Inner Workings of a Colonoscopy!”
You can only window shop for so long in a place such as that, and when I was called to come on back to one of the waiting rooms I breathed a sigh of relief. And then they gave me presents! A sweet little pair of shorts with an opening in the back. For some odd reason it made me think of that classic movie, Rear Window! They also gave me a nice pair of “no slip” socks that I decided I didn’t need. But, hey! Our wedding anniversary was just two days away so I had Carol’s present taken care of! Awesome!
And then they rolled me back, gave me an awesome anesthetic that put me out in fifteen seconds. Before I knew it I was back in my waiting room and it “was all behind me!” I had made it!
But (one “t”) now for the most important and the only serious part of the adventure! The doctor discovered a good size polyp in my colon. Because of that I’ll need to have another colonoscopy in two years, and he said this. “It was pre-cancerous! In another five to six years, if you hadn’t taken car of this, you’d be looking at colon cancer!”
So in July of 2019 I’ll gladly welcome another invasion of “Powerade and friends”, drink black coffee, stare at lime jello, and put another sweet little pair of shorts on…and I’ll consider myself blessed!
Categories: Death, Freedom, Humor, marriage, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized
Tags: butt humor, butts, chicken broth, cleaning out, colon cancer, colonoscopy, constipated, Cracker Barrel, gastroenterologist, laxatives, medical procedures, Miralax, plugged up, Powerade, ultra gentle toilet paper, Up Yours!
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July 24, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. July 24, 2017
I’ve noticed it more and more…like a bad body rash that keeps spreading! It’s called “The Suggested Stop”!
A “suggested stop” happens when a driver approaches a stop sign and slows and goes! There is not a stop in the process, because…it is only a “suggested stop.”
Stop signs have not changed with the times. They are as old-fashioned as they’ve always been. No modernization, or fancy new lettering. Not even a more up-to-date word or saying like “Easy” or “Have a nice day!” Not even an image like a smiley face! Just the same old four lettered word with a flaming red background as always.
STOP!
What has gotten lost in the Master Drive instruction somewhere is that STOP usually has a reason attached to it, like some possible negative repercussions if someone decides not to stop.
I noticed it this past year at a four-way stop close to the middle school a half mile from our house. At 7:15 in the morning it is a busy intersection. The crossing guard, a sweet lady that I’ve known for years, has considered wrapping herself in bubble wrap and developing waistline bumpers as she escorts students across the street with her STOP sign raised high for people to see. And yet she has very few days where she doesn’t have to deal with drivers from the “suggested stop” school of thought!
This morning as I headed towards my first cup of coffee at Starbucks I came to another four-way stop. As I slowed a BMW on the right approached the STOP sign, reduced his speed from 30 to 25, and then turned left in front of me while holding a cigarette out the window and sporting NASCAR sunglasses.
I’ve thought a lot about suggested stoppers and have decided that the whole idea fits with our culture of entitlement. People feel entitled to drive the way they want, to not take road signs literally. Kind of like those stone tablets that Moses carried down! You know the ones I’m talking about…The Ten Suggestions!
We simply live in a world where it is to your advantage…more than that, for your well-being and health…to follow the instructions and obey the signs. We seem to do that only when it’s convenient, like when the gas gauge has a red “E” on it. Very few of us see that and say to ourselves, “Oh, that’s just a suggestion to stop at a gas station and get some fuel!” Those who believe such logic are called “walkers” and “hitchhikers”!
With all the sophisticated new car technology perhaps the auto industry could put in some kind of automatic stopping device that reacts when the vehicle approaches a STOP sign. If a car can now be parked without the driver having his hands on the steering wheel surely an automatic stop technology can be invented for new cars!
Of course, if that happens the 1982 Chevette will blow right past you!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Chevette, crazy drivers, crossing guard, drivers, driving, entitled, entitlement, Master Drive, Moses, Nascar, STOP, stop signs, suggested stop, suggestions, Ten Commandments, Ten Suggestions
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July 17, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. July 17, 2017
One eight year old boy sees it at school!
The shoes that he wore to school each day were so worn out that they were held together by duct tape that was wrapped around them. His mom didn’t seem to be that concerned about it. The school social worker called me and told me about the situation, told me his shoe size, and I went to a shoe store and bought him a new pair of shoes. He didn’t know that the shoes had been purchased by our congregation…and that was okay! To this day he believes that the shoes came from the school…and that gave him hope! He saw that his school hoped for his best!
My six year old granddaughter sees hope in her mom!
Each night her mom kneels beside her bed and prays with her. Her mom reads her stories and tells her stories. Her mom tells her that she is very talented and very intelligent and whatever she does when she grows up she knows that she will do it well. Hope echoes from her mom’s words and actions. When our granddaughter hits a wall of uncertainness and apprehension her mom helps her climb over it and step up to a new level of accomplishment that hope has been a foundation for.
Where do our children see hope? Seeing is a bit different than finding. Seeing hope is the introduction for believing hope. They say that seeing is believing, but what are our children seeing?
One friend of mine made the point that our kids see or don’t see hope in us…the grown-up generations. They watch our reactions, they monitor our language, they investigate our consistency. How does my life convey hope to them?
Let’s be honest, our news stories and our Facebook posts quite often communicate cynicism, sarcasm, and negativity. When I watch the national news on TV in the early evening I usually am blasted with 27 minutes of what’s bad in the world, followed by a 3 minute feel good story. I’m thankful for the 3 minutes, but I wish that there were a few more stories of hope that inform my spirit.
How do children see hope in churches? Jesus gets talked about as being the hope of the world, but how do kids see that in the flesh and in action? Last Sunday at the small town small church I speak at most weeks a married couple gave five dollar bills to each of the four kids who were leaving for church camp that afternoon. The kids were told to use it however they wanted, and for whatever they wanted at camp. It was a gesture of their generosity that hoped for a great week for each of the campers. Their church is becoming a place of hope and blessing for them, not a place that mandates and controls.
I have to ask myself that question also: how do children see hope in me? Does my life paint a pitiful picture of what it means to be a follower of Jesus? Have the brush strokes of my days left a canvas of grace, peace, and hope or a rough portrait of bitterness, hatred, and spite?
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grace, Grandchildren, Jesus, Nation, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: bedtime prayer, bitterness, desperation, duct tape, hope, hopefulness, hopelessness, motherly love, negative people, negativity
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July 12, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. July 12, 2017
I was at my granddaughter’s t-ball game last night. It was a calm event, appropriately applauded by parents and grandparents alike. The game’s highlight was when the first baseman actually caught the ball that was thrown to him. Other than that it was a time of watching six year olds more interested in the plane flying overhead than the baseball that just rolled by them on the ground, baseball caps turned backwards, and kids carrying mitts about half their height. Six year old t-ball is meant to be about learning, having fun, and getting the post-game snack. A kid can belt four home runs in the game, but if he misses the post-game snack he will go home totally devastated.
Then there are the other games! In Cortez, Colorado several parents got into a fight at a t-ball game. Video circulated from the event showing women going after one another, profanity thrown around like candy, and, ultimately, the police called with one parent cited! If this was an isolated situation we could just assign it to “Ripley’s Believe It or Not”, but unfortunately it isn’t just a blip on the screen. It happens quite often.
One team in my granddaughter’s age group has parents who follow the attitude of their children’s coach…a bit arrogant and cheering that is a bit over the top. One player who fell and went to the bench crying…as any six year old well-adjusted child would…was reprimanded by the coach who yelled at him that he had two minutes to get his act together.
Being a basketball official for sixteen years I remember having a mom removed from a sixth grade boy’s club game. She had been sitting along the baseline yelling to her son, “Kill him! Kill him!” When I had her removed she protested that she had paid to get in.
What is it about their son and daughter’s athletic contests that make parents become prime examples of human depravity? It seems to be the fertile ground from which their sinful nature grows like a weed. The Apostle Paul had it right when he wrote to the people of Galatia that “…the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.” (Galatians 5:17)
He goes on to clarify what the acts of the sinful nature are, and while not specifically naming “being a parent at a youth sporting event” he does list associated acts like “hatred, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, and dissensions.” Ahhh…yes, sounds like some of the ingredients of some sideline parents I’ve seen.
Last summer twenty adults got into a fight during a four and five year old tee ball game in Florida over a disputed call of the umpire’s. National youth sports organizations get calls weekly about parents or coaches…or both…who have gotten into fights at games.
Years ago we had a men’s team play in a church basketball league. I used to say that the teams would pray together before the game and pray together after the game…and play like we were demon-possessed during the game!
Let’s face it! Sports bring out the best in us…and the worst in us! Parents have a hard time keeping things in perspective. Winning is worshiped. Having character is devalued. It is no longer about enjoying the sport, it’s about annihilating the competition. Common sense has exited the ball park!
Some leagues have toyed with not allowing parents to attend. Others have gone to the extreme of not allowing parents to say anything, even cheering. Associations of sports officials are seeing decreasing numbers of referees. One of the main reasons given is the behavior of parents!
Going back to Paul and his instruction to the Galatians he contrasts what the “fruit of the Spirit” are with the previously mentioned acts of the sinful nature. That is, what are the evidences of someone being directed by the Spirit of God, as opposed to “that other me” that seems to emerge form time to time. In his list he mentions things like “joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.”
Just an idea! They may not get it, but it’s an idea! What if parents start receiving a list of positive elements, like those just mentioned; and another list of unacceptable behaviors and attitudes. Perhaps some of them would recognize the spiritual connection…and file a law suit, citing religious discrimination! But maybe, just maybe, some of them would have their dusty light bulbs click on that would tell them how things should be, and one playing field intended to be a place of play would regain some of its purpose.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, coaching, Community, Grace, Grandchildren, Holy Spirit, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: adults brawling, Baseball, coaches, Cortex Colorado, Galatians 5, losing perspective, out of control parents, parents fighting, Ripley's Believe It or Not, six year olds, sports, sportsmanship, T-ball, t-ball games, tee ball, the acts of the sinful nature, the fruit of the Spirit, winning at all costs, youth coaches, youth sporting events
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July 10, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. July 10, 2017
My wife Carol says that I’ve been a lot happier since I retired eighteen months ago. I’m not going to disagree with her and say, “No, I’ve been totally depressed!” If that was the case she would vote for more depression time in my schedule.
I have been happier…for some reason! I get to read more, walk more, hang out at Starbucks more. I laugh more and tend to spout some really bad puns.
But when I get behind the steering wheel I tend to take on a different personality, one that wishes ill will on some of the other drivers I encounter! I wish I understood it, but I don’t! Perhaps the inside of a car is a quarantined area where the fruit of the Spirit…love, joy, peace, patience… can not enter.
I pray for motorcycle cops to appear right when that oversized pick-up truck roars by me doing ninety! When the motorcyclist cuts over three lanes in a crazed burst of speed I long for flashing lights to come from behind.
When Mario speeds by me and we’re coming to a stop light I pray that God will change it to red so that we’ll end up at the same place and I can look over and smile. When someone races by me and then cuts in front of me I stretch my hand out towards him in a way that communicates “Go ahead, if that makes you feel special!” I’m hoping that whoever the driver is that he/she will be looking back at me as I make the mocking gesture!
Yes, I do all those things! I even yell at someone who sits stationary at a stoplight even after it changes to green. I say things like, “Come on!”, “Idiot!”, and “Wake up, fool!” I’m especially unchristian towards speeding BMW and Mercedes’ drivers. I’m guilty of praying for hail to pummel their vehicles! It’s not road rage, but rather the justified vengeance of God. I admit that I have a tendency to ask God to lower the boom on certain people that irritate me!
When I drive I am a different person! I am a firm believer in our need for grace, but I show no grace when I’m in the driver’s seat! I hear the words of Paul in my mind. “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” (Romans 7:15)
I’ve tried to remind myself that we are all sinners saved by grace, that there was a time when I drove my 1974 Gremlin a hundred miles an hour down a two lane Illinois backroad. I’ve tried to remind myself that I’ve fallen short and driven fast, but then about that time another Beemer goes racing by me and the vindictiveness rises to the surface again.
Oh, what a wretched sinner I am! What am I to do with myself!
I can hear Carol whispering, “Sit in the passenger seat!”
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: BMW. Mercedes, careless driving, doing what I do not want to do, driving too fast, patience, Romans 7, Romans 7:15, saved by grace, speeding, the fruit of the Spirit, the wrath of God, unsafe driving, vengeance
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