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Seventh Grade Love Letter Path

June 6, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                           June 6, 2014

      Some of my posts this month will seem a little different than the usual. Okay…maybe more different than different…like a Baptist pastor looking at a multitude of approaching rabbit trails. Each one takes me in a different direction. The reason for this is that I’m doing a month-long writing challenge through the blogging site, WordPress. Each day it gives the writer a theme to write about. Today’s post evolves out of their seed thought of discovering a life-changing letter on a path and wanting to get it back to the writer. the added twist for today is trying to keep it brief

                                              

 

School done!

My seventh grade textbooks were tucked under my arm as I headed home by the usual path. Twenty paces into the woods a piece of paper was pinned to a tree by a cropped off branch. My name was written in emphasized magic marker. I discerned that it was for me. I was the only Jethro that I knew.

The unclipped note in my hand was turned over to reveal the message:

“I really like you. Do you like me?”

                          Signed, 

                               The One Sitting Beside You in Social Studies

 

My heart rate sped up. Leslie Palmer! My hands sweat just sitting beside her in class. And now she wanted to know if I liked her.

That was a stupid question.

Yes!!!

She lived just a couple streets over from my house. I slowed my pace and headed in that direction, not wanting to beat her home from school. A few houses from her two-story I saw her walking. I ran ahead and shouted her name.

“Leslie!” She turned and looked at me curiously. I sprinted to the spot.

“I just wanted you to know that I do.”

“You do what?”

“Here’s your letter back. I do like you.”

Her face distorted, and she let loose with a loud “Ewwww!”

It was at that awkward moment that I realized that my secret admirer wasn’t the girl who sat on my right, but rather the one who sat on my left in Social Studies.

It was Lucy, not Leslie…and I immediately let loose with an even louder…

“Ewwww!!!”

Categories: children, Humor, love, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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Lost In Translation (Part 1)

June 5, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                        June 5, 2014

 

                                        “Lost In Translation (Part 1)”

 

I will be the first to admit to you that I am clueless on a lot of things, and in a number of ways.

But, in many ways, I’m clued in to the fact that I’m clueless. If someone starts talking techie stuff I’m present in the body but absent in the mind.

My life has been punctuated with clueless moments and conversations. One that stands out to me happened during my junior year of high school. It was Homecoming Week, that one great week in the fall of the school year where the popular students get picked to be on the Homecoming court, and the rest of us find out we’re not nearly as cool. (I’m not bitter!)

I had asked a beautiful young lady who I will fictitiously call Bridget to go to the Homecoming dance with me. She said yes and I was elated! I wasn’t quite sure what sexy meant yet, but she seemed to be leaning in that direction. Of course, most sixteen year old boys get excited just by looking at Betty Crocker. Bridget, however, was a ways on up the gauge meter from Betty.

We danced together and I can remember the scent of apple blossoms resonating from her body. She had long dark hair and the latest style in eyeglass wear. I wore my varsity jacket, which I hoped would give me some resemblance of being important and studly!

The evening went well until I lost the translation. It happened as I walked her to the front door of her home. There was a porch light on and Bridget looked at me and asked me if I would like for her to turn the light off.

My  masculinity suddenly took a vacation and before I knew what I was saying I replied, “No, that’s okay!”

Clueless! Idiot!

She had opened the door for a goodnight kiss and I had closed it shut in just a few oblivious seconds.

I called her the next week to ask her out on another date. There seemed to be an air of coldness as I tried to have conversation with her, and then I popped the question.

“Would you like to go out on another date?”

And then the words of rejection!

“No, that’s okay!”

Lost in cluelessness! I’m still haunted by the words!

Categories: children, Humor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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Songs That Sing To Me

June 5, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                   June 4, 2014

 

                                  

 

As a pastor I get tired of the “music wars”, the battles over how many hymns, praise songs, and contemporary music selections we sing in worship on Sunday morning. I doubt that David envisioned the polarizing that music would bring into a worshiping community when he sat with the sheep and composed Psalms as he strummed his harp.

The thing about music is that its eternal…if we allow it to be. How foolish it is to use music as a battlefield! We all have preferences. I’m not into rap, but I can still envision the Almighty tapping his toes to a song that has more rhythm than I could ever harness.

As I look back over my life I see songs popping up at different times that have stayed with me, and have melted into my spirit. Here’s three:

“Pass It On!” After my sophomore year of high school I spent a week of my summer vacation at church camp at Judson Hills Baptist Camp in northeastern Ohio. It was a great week that included living in a teepee, having a girlfriend, Clara, who lived across the street from me back in my hometown (A little awkward after we broke up a few days after returning to civilization!), and learning about God. At our evening campfire we would sing “Pass It On!” Forty-plus years later I can still hear the mix of the soprano voices of the young lady campers and the strange voices of the boys who weren’t sure if they were heading to the “bass section” but weren’t committed to being tenors either.

It was a defining summer that headed me towards considering the idea of one day being a pastor.

“Color My World!” My high school prom theme was also the Chicago hit. I can remember strolling through the gym with Mary Cronacher on my arm dancing to the soft music and realizing that young ladies smell good! Underarm deodorant became a friend of mine about that time. A guy couldn’t be a jock and be able to dance closely for very long with a young lady who had a scent of apple blossoms blessing my nostrils. I can still hear the brass of the band as they played that song.

“Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?”  Larry Norman’s song that was rocking and rolling as I was graduating from high school. Nothing like that had ever come close to the ivory keys of the church’s piano, and Norman’s long flowing blonde hair made it even more radical for our Baptist young people’s group. That summer after high school I learned that it was okay to not look stoic as you sang in church. Some of the parents of our youth group members were not so sure, and I would lay money on it that our church’s deacons’ meetings included some serious discussion about the road paved to hell by rock and roll!

Three songs that still sing to me and remind me of where I’ve been, the boy I once was and the approaching of manhood that they hummed me towards.

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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A Room With A View

June 3, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                    June 3, 2014

 

                                       

 

I sometimes enter it early in the morning to be saturated by its quiet. I take a seat in the third pew on the right and settle in. In my world of changing agendas the sanctuary offers me one constant agenda.

To be still.

It is a hard thing to learn, to incorporate. The rest of my day is not based on my stillness, but rather on my movement. I move from meeting preparation to hospital bedsides to answering emails. Movement can sometimes take over our lives and push the stillness out.

Towards the end of the forty-sixth Psalm God whispers his desire to David. “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Ps. 46:10a, NIV)

Perhaps people have a hard time finding God these days because we have “ants in the pants” of our lives. We have un-learned stillness.

I sit in my pew and take in the room. The cross hanging on the front wall…empty…steady…reminding me of the One who conquered death itself; the cross that blesses me with a hope deep within my soul of what my life is about.

The stained glass windows echo stories of people’s lives…the great cloud of witnesses that have gone before. As I take each one of them in I glimpse the glory of days gone by and lives that impacted future generations.

The pews are solid in their weighted wood. To move one is a recipe for back problems. Their weighted anchoring reminds me of a faith community that has a foundation that can not be shaken. Through tempests and turmoils our anchor has held.

And then my eyes settle on The Lord’s Table, the place where two days earlier each of the sinners had taken a piece of freshly-baked bread and a little cup of grape juice and been told that these two elements were to remind us of the price of our spiritual freedom. Some folks cried tears and others stared with stoic expressions on their faces, but each had been freed.

Sitting in my pew I recall the moments of blessing and forgiveness, repentance and testimony.

My room gives me a view for the rest of the day. It allows me to breathe in and breathe out…

…And be still!

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Clutter

June 3, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                   June 2, 2014

 

                                                 “Clutter”

 

I’m a cluttered person. No matter how organized I try to be the clutter keeps coming…like an ocean wave that keeps arriving over and over again!
My study desk is cluttered. On my left I have unread TIME magazines, all brimming with intriguing topics that I hope some day to read…just not today! On the right there is now my empty Starbucks latte cup available for a refill, and a wristwatch that I never wear but always with the correct time.
This morning I put the trash out- both regular and recycled. I’m trying to convince myself that our Monday trash day when we have more recycled than regular trash is a good thing…a positive thing, but then the afternoon mail arrives and the clutter of a new week begins again.
My email is now cluttered! I seem to find my way on to more email shopping lists every week. Towards the beginning of each day I find it necessary to un-clutter my email.
My clothes closet is cluttered. About the time I had things downsized my brother-in-law sent me a dozen shirts that he had never worn. Never worn! “Never worn” means I would feel to guilty to just toss them…although he found it convenient to toss them in my direction. I’m Baptist! Guilt comes easily for me!
Clutter is the new affliction in a culture of consumption. Last week there was a lady who got a dozen bottles of mustard for a quarter. It was such a deal that they featured her on the TV program. But I ask you, who needs a dozen bottles of mustard? My one bottle is already three months past its expiration date and it isn’t even half-used.
We’re scheduled to have a rummage sale in a onto or so, but guess what? The freed up space will be filled with other people’s clutter from their rummage sales shortly thereafter.

Categories: Humor, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized
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The Hushing of Honesty

May 30, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                          May 31, 2014

 

                                       

 

The media was all over the Donald Sterling story. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t have been, but Rome wasn’t built in a day…and an eighty year old man’s racism wasn’t created in a secretly recorded comment.

The whole situation is sad. Sterling’s interview with Anderson Cooper left me shaking my head. For once Sterling didn’t need to hire someone to dig a hole. He was doing it deeper all by himself.

What disturbed me was actually the criticism that was leveled towards Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, for comments he made that were honest and heart-felt. Cuban who gets as much camera time during games as Jerry Jones does for the Dallas Cowboys, shared how he felt. Unlike some people, I don’t think that Cuban “is all that”, as they say, but in this situation I appreciated his honest sharing. His choice of images might not have been the greatest, but he was admitting that he prejudges certain people by their appearance, or by their appearance in certain situations.

The media was all over his comments like sweat on foreheads of a July afternoon in Georgia. In blasting Cuban’s comments honesty dug a deep hole and disappeared for a while.

In essence, what the situation had taught us is that it is dangerous to be honest. It is easier to be shallow and unrevealing. If I keep my true feelings and thoughts hidden life will be easy, uncomplicated, and…meaningless!

I take this situation into the church, where it is easy…oh so easy…to not be honest! In a place where we talk about the priority of grace and forgiveness it seems that honesty is threatening.

Honesty reveals the deep darknesses of our heart, and we are incredibly uncomfortable with that.

And so we take communion with the saints while we harbor bitterness towards the one who is passing the tray; and we struggle with prejudices while we preach love and acceptance. We shy away from honesty about our struggles because we fear other people of the faith will hold our inner battles against us.

Sadly, it is more convenient for the fellowship of believers to hush the honesty and focus on the irrelevant, to ignore the elephant in the room because there’s a fly on the screen of the window.

                                        

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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Jesus In the Trunk

May 30, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                          May 30, 2014

 

                                    

 

      The trunk of my car is used for transporting various things. At the moment I have a dirty sweatshirt crammed to one side, a bag of weed and feed, and a dozen orange cones for use at basketball practice.

At other times it carries our suitcases on the way to the airport, or my golf clubs for any infrequent trips to the golf course. Once in a while when soda pop has been on sale I’ve even filled the trunk with cases of pop. (Since I haven’t had a can of pop for two weeks now that event may very well be a thing of the past!)

Trunks are useful, but they don’t control the car. They are in the back…except for some Volkswagens. They bring up the rear!

Once when I was growing up we had a group of young people go to the Drive-In Movie Theater. Since admission was paid on the basis of “visible” people in the car a couple of teens hid in the trunk until we got to our parking spot. It was dishonest, but we felt it was kind of a “grey dishonesty.” Wrong, but we justified it by how much the theater charged for popcorn.

Riding in the trunk got our friends in, but they also had no say in where we were going to park, and even when we were going to free them from the tomb they were trapped in. When we did let them out…they didn’t go back in!

I think I’m guilty…and possibly most of you who are reading this are guilty…of putting Jesus in the trunk. He’s back there with the car jack- only to be called on in an emergency.

BUT he’s in the car! He’s with us, just not in control of us.

In Luke 18 we read the story of Jesus being engaged in a conversation by a rich ruler. The dialogue focused on the requirements for inheriting eternal life, and after some back and forth discussion the man walked away, as it says in the scripture, “…sad, because he was a man of great wealth.” (Luke 18:23, NIV)

It’s right after that Jesus talked about the difficulty of a rich person entering the kingdom of God. The point, however, was not so much about rich people. The point was that it’s difficult to surrender our agendas, our control, and our lives to the Lord.

Putting Jesus in the trunk allows us to say that he is with us, that “I’m a Christian.” Unfortunately, that name has become so watered down that it doesn’t mean that much. It may not help that much, but I refer to myself as a follower of Jesus because it indicates that he is out in front, not tailing along behind with the suitcases.

Surrender is hard! Stubbornness is easy! Yielding makes us grind our teeth. Dictating keeps things uncomplicated.

Where is Jesus riding in your life? If he’s in the trunk, let him out from under the “weed and feed” and at least sit in the car!

Categories: Bible, Christianity, Faith, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Pop Fast Update and Finish

May 25, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                               May 25, 2014

 

                                  

 

Today is Day 9 of my 7 Day Pop Fast!

Yes, my week without soda pop ended, but I’ve continued to fast from it. It’s more like a routine now. I’m sure I’ll have a can of pop sometime, but what has happened in the past “week plus” is that I’m feeling better. I don’t ache when I get up in the morning nearly as much as I used to. I played basketball yesterday and felt good! I’ve been drinking a lot more water. Perhaps I’ve even lost a couple of pounds…I don’t know…I don’t hover around the scale like its a lottery number that’s about to be revealed.

When I turned sixty on May 5 I felt sixty-five. I just didn’t feel good! I realized that i was whining a lot to myself, like that’s going to help.

I’m not saying that soda abstinence is the answer to all of life’s ills, but I have been thinking more about what I eat and drink. I even let my McDonald’s coupons expire without using them!

I friend of mine wrote me that he had given up soda for Lent this year. He said the first few days were the hardest, but then he didn’t feel the urge nearly as much after that. So…perhaps I’ll keep chugging the bottled water and got for a few more days without an Orange Crush in my hand.

 

Categories: children, Christianity, Freedom, Humor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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Pop Fast Hump Day

May 20, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     May 20, 2014

 

                                      

 

It’s the fourth day of my week-long fasting from drinking soda pop. I’m still alive! In fact, my body did not ache when I woke up this morning. I doubt that I can give credit to my unsoda-ed life for that. It may just be the one day this month when my knees and joints did’t feel like The Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz when I woke up. Whatever…I’ll take it!

The past three days I’ve also cut down on the amount of sugar I’ve put in my coffee. Since I drank it without doing Larry from the Three Stooges facial contortions I’m going to keep limiting the sugar packets.

Why am I doing this? I’ve asked myself that question several times during the past few days, especially as I’m passing a Pepsi vending machine. I’m trying to be strong! I did have a dream last night about a Coke being poured into an ice-filled glass, hearing the fizz, and seeing myself floating on one of the ice cubes with sunglasses on.

I thought if I blogged about it once more it would make things easier, but now I’m thinking about an A&W frosty mug in my hand.

Pray that the images of an orange being crushed won’t await me in my sleep tonight.

I need to go by and see my dentist soon to pay off our balance, but I’m afraid I’ll call her Dr. Pepper if I see her this week…so I think I’ll wait!

I’ve learned that eliminating elevated amounts of sugared beverages if a little tough, but today is “hump day.” I assume that I’ll be sliding towards the celebration of a fluid finish line.

But “hump day” could also mean that I’m about to plummet to a sugar-depleted depression!

Optimistically I’m choosing the first option!

Categories: Christianity, Faith, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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The Pop-Fast

May 17, 2014

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                May 17, 2014

 

                                              

 

To be honest I’ve already cut back in recent weeks!

But I’m going cold turkey for a week. No soda pop, soda water, Coke, water with sugared fizz…whatever the term is that you use to describe that can in your hand that you just popped the top on.

A week doesn’t seem like much…when you are on Hour #1 of Day #1!

Day #4 in the evening when my wife has just popped some popcorn is a different matter. I was raised with the idea that popcorn could not be eaten without having a cold Pepsi at the same time. It’s the difference between eating a plain hot dog, or a dog with mustard, ketchup, and relish on it.

Hot dogs…there’s another item that I probably need to fast from!

In recent weeks I’ve been thinking more about what I eat and drink. I have a coupon for a free chicken salad at Chick-fil-A to be used this month. I think about that each day at lunch time. It would be a lot healthier for me to have for lunch than some other choices.

What did I proceed to do last week? Used a “buy a Whopper, get one free” coupon one day. Take a year off my lifespan right there! I did get the “Satisfries!” They are “less bad” for you! Notice the terminology we use to justify our bad choices.

The next day I did Panda Express. For some reason Panda seems healthier than Burger King. I’m not sure it is, but I rationalized, and I was hungry when I was rationalizing.

I did penance the next morning and had yogurt with a “cutie”…the orange kind, noy my wife!

Choices! I make them every day. Some days the choice that helps the health of my body is easy. Other days I’m humming the McDonald’s jingle more and more as lunch approaches.

Back to “the pop!” I’m laying off!

I know that it will be a item on sale this coming Memorial Day weekend at the supermarket. I’m even laying off filling my shopping cart with eight cartons each time I go. My daughters remember a Thanksgiving weekend when pop was on sale at K-Mart and I went about ten times during the weekend and got five cartons each time.

I’m going on a “pop-on-sale fast” as well!

I heard one of those statistics on how much sugar we put in our bodies, and the fact that in a few years one out of every three children will end up being diabetic. Perhaps I heard it wrong. It WAS in the midst of the promoting of a new “Wake Up” kind of documentary film. It did, however, catch my ear.

I’ll start with pop. The test for me is whether I can stop putting sugar in my coffee. When I started drinking coffee back in seminary during a semester I was taking Hebrew (An agonizing experience that resulted with my learning how to drink coffee much more than knowing the Hebrew alphabet) I retrieved from my memory bank how a person drinks coffee. My parents drank it each morning with cream and sugar. Thus, that’s how I began drinking it. Perhaps I should go back to drinking Folger’s black. It’s a fairly weak coffee experience anyway!

This week, however, I’m pushing the Sprite to the side. A benefit will be a reduction in the bill when Carol and I go out to eat. I’m so used to getting a Coke or a Sprite that I have barely noticed that most restaurants now secretly take you for two and a half to three dollars. Good Lord! Sheltered Bill still thinks that’s how much a beer is in a restaurant.

For those who are wondering, I dislike beer as much as I love soda pop! I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a Baptist, the son of Baptists, a Baptist minister, or because I simply abhor its taste. 

If you see me in the next few days and I’m looking ragged you’ll know why. I’m coming off a “sugared lifestyle.”

But one question! If I’m fasting from soda pop is it okay to drink something different out of my Coca-Cola glasses, A&W mug, or Orange Crush tumbler?

Categories: children, Christianity, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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