Words from WW Blog

“He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.” (Psalm 23:3)

God has a way of orchestrating a new song even when our hearing is cluttered with noise. That’s just how He is, ready to dumbfound us with the creation of a new chapter in our stories. Sometimes that new creation is resembling of the plot twist of a suspenseful novel or a tear-jerking love story. With our nearsighted vision we miss the signs, stumbling along the path, until suddenly there is a clearing, a clear moment of revelation and discovery.

And so it was on the second of my three flights as I head back to Colorado Springs from Ohio, the plane that would take me from Charlotte to Dallas situated in Seat 20A. My boarding group was 7 out of 9, always a mystery to me since I would be plopping down in the seat by the window. An older African-American couple was already in B and C as I finally made my way down the aisle pathway. I apologized for having to make them get up so I could scoot in. They didn’t mind so we took a few moments to get ourselves settled and resettled.

It didn’t take us long to start chatting. I told the lady, the rose between two thorns if you will, to nudge me if I started snoring, and the fact that I’d arisen at 4 AM to go to Tri-State Airport in Huntington, West Virginia. It broke the ice, so to speak, and we started gabbing about life. I told her that I had flown back to Huntington to surprise my sister for her 70th birthday, and then I asked if they lived in Dallas. She replied, “No, we live in Charlotte.”

“Going to visit family in Dallas?”

“Going back for our daughter’s funeral.”

Such words came out unexpected to my hearing. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” I paused, searching for the next words to say. “Was it unexpected?”

“Cancer. Three years, and then the Lord took her home.”

“Having a child go before you, that’s not how it’s suppose to be.”

“Yes, but she blessed a lot of lives and now she’s in the Lord’s hands.”

“Almost three years to the day I was on a plane back to Huntington for my dad’s last day before he passed.”

“How old was he?”

“Four months shy of 90.”

“Isn’t that something? My dad passed three last spring three months shy of his ninetieth!

“What is your daughter’s name?” She whispered her name through the veil of her face mask and I didn’t quite understand what she said so I said, “I’m sorry. What was it?”

She pointed to the front of her face mask. It had a picture of her daughter and her name. “Scooter. We called her Scooter.”

“I’ll be praying for you as you celebrate her life and grieve her loss.”

“Her life was a testimony for the Lord, and we know she is rejoicing in His glory.”

“For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” I said, quoting my favorite verse from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. We talked some more about Scooter and the memories. I found out that the lady had been a special education teacher and would be subbing for those amazing kids when she returned to Charlotte. I told her about my wife working with the same set of students and how she taught pre-school deaf kids when she got out of college. We marveled at God putting me in the seat beside her, the first and last time we would meet this side of Glory, to taught about life, death, and hope in the midst of death.

As they rose from their seats to exit the plane, I reiterated that I’d be praying for them as they gathered with Scooter’s friends and husband the next day and then escorted her remains back to Charlotte. She looked at me, grasped my hand, and said, “And may the Lord bless you!”

Sometimes God puts you in the seat next to the window not to look out, but to listen to the one sitting on your right.

My sister reached a milestone birthday yesterday. I won’t tell you which one, but it’s somewhere between 60 and 80 and it begins with a 7. I know, I know, that’s not much of a clue, but she might get upset if I told you what number it was that ends with a 0.

Her daughter planned a “card shower” for her…and let me tell you!…she may need to bake a cake for the postal carrier. It’s not often that he/she has to deliver such a stack of cards to one mailbox, so many that a giant rubber band was needed to keep them from cluttering up a city block.

So I decided to fly in from Colorado to Ohio with our card in tow and hand deliver it to her. The expression on her face was worth the trip, priceless! It’s posted on my Facebook page. The shock, the quivering hands, the realization that she hadn’t combed her hair yet that morning. The gift of surprise is the sugar in our too-often bland lives.

I love my sister, a wonderful lady who is so giving and caring of others, self-less to a tee! To bring her to tears in the rush of the surprise was emotional for me as well.

God blessed us with the gift of surprise. The gospel story, the ultimate encounter of good news, was punctuated with surprise and wonder. The birth narrative, the healings and life transformations, and the reconciliation that the cross of Christ made possible, the surprises of the Lord are beyond our calculations.

Sometimes the way He orchestrates the symphony of our lives is so peace-filled and wondrous. We simply need not worry about our hair or be in a hurry and be in the flow of His spirit.

And now this morning, some would say coincidentally but others would see the care of the Comforter, I’ll be speaking at my sister’s church. Their pastor, a wonderful man of God, called my brother-in-law yesterday as we were enjoying a birthday lunch at Outback, to say that he was ill and he needed my brother-in-law to take care of Sunday’s service. I’ve spoken at the church before and could sense that Pastor Rob would be delighted, even in his sickness, to know that I’d fill in for him. Just another example of the surprises of God. Instead of sitting in the congregation listening to Rob speak and teach on James 5, I’ll be graced with the opportunity to lead the congregation in the discovery and pondering of a miracle of Jesus.

God is good. God is gracious. God is graciously good.

Christians have always had a hard time staying Christ-centered. That is, keeping Jesus as the main thing, the central focus, what everything else revolves around. Followers of Christ so often have Christ following the other stuff, the issues that weren’t passionate about, the later trends, the church politics and the other politics. Jesus has an obstructed view from the back of the bus.

Why should it be different than the first century? Most of the letters that the Apostle Paul wrote to the emerging churches in various locations either hinted at Jesus being a side note to strongly chastised churches for losing their focus on what was to the center of their purpose. The early church, prone to be pulled in various directions, needed someone to redirect it. Like a basketball coach calling timeout to remind her team of what they were to be about, Paul had to call the fellowships together for explanations, exhortation, and out of exasperation.

There’s always been the uncomfortable rub between Christ and culture. The mission and the ministry of the church is about Christ affecting and influencing culture rather than the culture changing our view of Christ. The atonement is not changed by the tone of cultural whims and wants. The gospel is good news for all, not a select few or certain polling groups.

In a world where opinions and causes change like the wind, the gospel is a steadying constant, the anchor that holds firm as life swirls in violent ways around it. When there are a number of other things blowing around the gospel, our attention has a bit of squirrel-like behavior to it, jumping from one tree to the next and looking for the next nut. Jesus is the un-moveable object Who exemplifies our God Who is moved by our hurts, heartaches, and celebrations.

Stephen Covey said “Keep the main thing the main thing.” It’s easier said than done, but when it is done, church-wise that is, it is memorable. No, it’s transforming!

I received the COVID vaccination booster shot in about a month ago. About a day after I received the shot, the area around the injection point was sore and tender. You could have walked up to me and punched me in the right arm and I would have been fine, but simply touch that one spot on my left arm and I would have flinched, whined, and grimaced in pain. I guess you could say that I was a bit touchy about it.

The other day I was guest teaching in a class that I’ve subbed for quite a bit. I know the students and they know me. As I say, I know the suspects and the prospects. In the classroom next door to mine their was commotion, laughter, and loud conversation. It was apparent that a number of students were taking the opportunity to disrupt the classroom environment because there was a substitute teacher there. The noise was amplified because of the class I was teaching at the time who are usually on task and…get ready for it…quiet! Some of them were looking with dismay at one another as the next-door volume was resembling of an 80s boombox echoing through the walls of an apartment complex. Like the sore spot from my booster shot, it touched a nerve with me.

The instructor returned from the early morning appointment she had, to teach the rest of the day. She is an awesome teacher who doesn’t put up with such behavior. She filtered out the students who were on task from the ones who were clogging up the class and administered appropriate penalties.

But they had touched a nerve in me! Each class I had the rest of the day I talked about disrespect, taking advantage of the situation, and the need to become more mature. The interesting thing is that the day before I had put my wise saying of the day on the screen that said, “Self-control is the discipline to do what needs to be done now in order to be able to do what I want to do later.”

Perhaps getting my dander up was a ripple effect of the guilt I still carry with me about the problems i caused my substitute teachers back a few decades ago. My diatribe might be a form of penance for causing some serious grey hair production. I can still remember the disrespectful things we did to my high school Spanish teacher. They were an indication of the fallen nature of mankind.

But, on the positive, yesterday each of my classes were well-mannered. They even, I assume, learned some American History!

A few days ago the fragile nature of life came close to me. A Mercedes-Benz sedan blew through a stop sign going at least 50 as my CRV was already proceeding through the intersection. Less than two seconds separated me from being able to write these words and breathing my last.

I have replayed those moments quite often in the days since. I can see the bushes on the other side of that intersection and at the entrance to our subdivision. The blur of the speeding car coming from my right, perhaps never even being aware of how close to the edge of life he/she can come.

We sometimes take the rules of life for granted. More than that, we take life for granted…and then something interrupts it. A sickness, a virus, a fire, an accident, a mistake. Any one of them throws our plans into a rolling bundle of chaos.

We have a tendency to treat life like the electricity in our homes, just there…always…not even a part of our thoughts. When I flip the wall switch as I enter a room I just assume that the lights will turn on. Life is like that, taken for granted, assumed. Our calendars are an indication of our presumptions. Not that planning ahead is a bad thing, but rather an instrument that keeps our attention off the slippery existence of life.

Let’s be honest! Many of us were surprised that Betty White passed away, even though she was just a few weeks shy of reaching 100. We just assumed she would always be around, doing Snickers commercials and being the featured entertainment on Saturday Night Live. This life, however, has a punctuation point at the end to indicate its conclusion.

A streaking car, operating outside the traffic laws, makes a person not only think twice about crossing an intersection, but also about his life direction, his purpose, and his relationships. Does what he’s doing in his life make sense or is it nonsense?

Sometimes the careless living of someone else causes a person to do a careful evaluation of where his own life is heading.

Besides the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Baseball League, Ernie Banks played 19 seasons for the Chicago Cubs from 1953-1981. Voted the greatest Cubs player of all-time, Banks said this about loyalty:

“Loyalty and friendship, which is to me the same, created all the wealth that I’ve ever thought I’d have.”

Loyalty seems to travel great distances these days to find a place willing for it to reside. I guess it’s always been that way. After all, Adam and Eve had been planted in a great place to live a fruitful and happy existence, but the lure of a piece of forbidden fruit was too much for them to resist.

Remember back to those days when you shopped at the same stores, bought the same brands, and rooted for the same teams in the good seasons and the bad? I guess I’m showing my age when I bring up a past that included those things.

How about this? Remember when a college football team would see that playing in a bowl game at the end of a season was like the hot fudge on top of vanilla ice cream? It made all those sprints, drills, and hours of preparation worth it. Well, that’s now losing its sweetness as well.

Four Ohio State football players are opting out of playing in the Rose Bowl, rather than risking injury and hindering their pro football draft potential. The Rose Bowl! Not the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl or the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. The Rose Bowl! Speaking of the Potato Bowl, Wyoming’s quarterback who was voted MVP of the game, promptly announced he was entering the Transfer Portal to play somewhere else next year.

Like I said, loyalty is finding that there’s no room in the inn. It’s a trait that is seen by most people as being admirable until it reaches a crossroads where an easy right turn with promised power and/or riches are just up ahead.

And it’s not just with athletes who have been told their value reaches to the moon. Corporations close factories that have been the lifeblood of communities. Spouses walk away from the one they said their vows to because someone else has convinced them it can be better in their arms. Christian folk trade churches like Topps baseball cards. Someone who is thought to be the best friend disappears when the road gets bumpy.

Loyalty is what we hope for in others, but when it comes to its ramifications for us we often use the excuse “That’s different!”

On a family vacation to Italy a number of years ago, my father-in-law and I took a day to drive over to Assisi, view the cathedrals and walk the streets of the town. On the way back to where we were staying in the Tuscany area we pulled off the highway at a roadside espresso cafe. It had no tables or chairs, just a counter, like in the old western movies. We ordered two cappuccinos, spent about three minutes sipping on the small cups, and climbed back in the car for the rest of journey home.

The Christmas break for schools commenced in our community on Friday at 2:45 p.m. At 3:00, after the hallways and byways had cleared, the teachers pulled into their “roadside espresso cafe”. It’s their respite for traveling the first half of another long and uncertain school year, a welcome distraction from the fact that there are five months still to be slowly walked through.

The teachers need an Italian espresso break. I’ve heard the deep sighs of weariness and experienced the searching for wisdom in handling situations that only a Mission Impossible scriptwriter could dream up.

Alan Wolfelt, who has written extensively about grief and its effects on the grieving, has said that grief needs to be expressed in some way. Different people grieve in different ways, whether that means overeating, acting out, not sleeping, not talking, or compulsively buying unneeded items.

School kids these days have been doing a type of grieving. They’re grieving the loss of normalcy and the dependable. That is, the way school has been is no more. What they had come to expect has been blended together with the unexpected. Masks, hand sanitizer, quarantines, COVID-19 tests, social distancing, new variants and new paranoia…it’s a whole new chapter in the educational handbook.

The first half of the school journey this year has been punctuated by students acting out in unacceptable behavior, as if they ran out of common sense filters. Things have happened that would be great material for Jerry Springer episodes. Teachers at times have been more like ranchers, just trying to keep all the horses in the corral. At other times they’ve been like foster moms and dads, providing comforting words, being a dependable presence, and offering advice.

In the midst of the expectancy of the unexpected happening each school day, they’re trying desperately to teach kids math, science, social studies, language arts, art, and woodworking. It’s a Herculean task, keeping little Johnny engaged in U.S. History, when he just wants to escape to the fantasy of his iPhone video game. Or teaching Brenda about the laws of gravity when she is grieving the loss of her grandparent.

Yes, it’s time for an espresso, a pull-over, a respite, a break to rejoice in all the things that have been pushed to the side in the rush to make sure the school to-do list has been achieved.

Take a sip. Reflect. Rest. Play.

Yesterday out middle school did the play production of “Beauty and The Beast”. It was a rousing success, filled with great performances and the little snickering moments of a middle school play. As I thought about it, the idea came to mind for another production that has potential. First there was High School Musical. Now there could be Middle School Hallway Drama.

Between classes as students stroll, roam, and occupy the school corridors, it is entertaining and revealing to watch their behavior, conversation, and avoidances. I notice the squirrel-ish sixth-graders, the beagle-ish seventh-graders, and the fowl-ish eighth-graders. It’s the school version of the animal kingdom.

There is more communication, verbal and non-verbal, in the five minutes of hallway occupation between class periods than there is in the sixty minutes of classroom instruction. Girls who refuse to say a word in class suddenly explode with a fountain of conversation, intermingled with gazing at their cell phones to see if any incredible messages have arrived in the last ten seconds. Boys assert their manhood by banging into lockers and talking about anything that is not connected to academics.

Hallway drama includes the revealing of secrets. Mr. Brown yelled at Johnny Thompson for falling asleep in class. Jimmy Green was caught cheating on the math quiz and sent to the office. He didn’t come back! Probably suspended for like a month! Judy White’s new hair style makes her resemble a ferret. The mac-and-cheese they served in the cafeteria at lunch tasted like lumpy paint.

Hallway eighth-graders are revealing of the class Casanovas and their romantic targets. Certain boys are in search of hugs from young ladies that they long to be close to…for longer periods of time! Hallway hugging may be the source of more middle school kids passing along infections than any other cause amongst their age group. There is minimal concern about breath so bad it could kill a cow as there is for the need to be embraced.

Less romantically-interested students congregate together to watch Billy Ray conquer level 368 on his cell phone video game. It’s amazing to see six boys following the action that is occurring on a screen that is 3×6 inches. Instructive tips are shared by the viewers to the gamer, as well as ridicule and laughter about gaming failed moves.

A few students actually talk to their teachers in the hallway. That is, to the teachers who aren’t in need of a five minute break from a community of adolescence. Students talk to me because they know I have a stash of Smarties available for students who deserve a few moments of sugar. I get asked questions such as, “What are we doing in class today?” Answer: Stuff. And, “Mr. Wolfe, I’m one of your favorite students, aren’t I?” Answer: “Yes. You’re in my top 500!”

Areas that are rarely visited during the five-minute passing periods are the restrooms. The urge for a student to do his/her necessary business is reserved for class time. Why waste valuable hallway time to do something as meaningless as emptying one’s bladder?

Hallway drama…or comedy reveals the kids who see the school setting as their primary social environment, the students who don’t want to be there, and the emerging teens who are trying to figure out who they are. There are tears of betrayal and rejection, and laughter caused by antics and funny sayings. There are kids rushing to get to their next classroom and others who lounge around until the last possible moment. There are fashion statement and misunderstandings, boys who have over-indulged on the Axe body spray and others who have not yet discovered what deodorant is.

Hallway drama is an experience that entertains all of the scents and causes the teaching staff to smile, frown, and shake their heads in disbelief.

Yes, this has major theatrical production possibilities!

The middle school girls’ basketball team that I coach began on Monday. Three days of tryouts will be followed by the posting of an 8th-grade team roster. The team that I have this year has the potential to be very good.

That’s the upside. The downside is the gap that has appeared this school year amongst athletes. Since there was a minimal amount of middle school sports in our area last year, many of our participants lost a year of skill development and game understanding. It showed during the recent 7th-grade boys’ basketball season (We play it early in our area!). In our first game three different players ran right onto the court when I told them to go into the game. They didn’t realize that you needed to go to the scorer’s table first. It looked more like a line change in hockey!

The athletes that were a part of a club basketball team last year are now a year ahead in game understanding, skills, and maturity. Sure, there are other factors like some kids are naturally more athletic and others have growth spurts or develop coordination later on. Those have always been uncontrollable factors. When Jimmy is beginning to have a five o’clock shadow in seventh grade, it usually means two things: he’s physically and athletically more developed than the others and…he ain’t getting much bigger!

However, this year’s gap made more evident by last year’s lack of opportunities has amplified the gap between those who have the resources to pay fees for their child to be on a club team and those who can’t afford such an expense. Club team fees can range from several hundred (Cheap!) to several thousand. A family with more than one child playing club ball incurs incredible expenses. In most situations the coaches of club teams are able to bring the athlete to a higher level of performance and understanding of the game.

Thus the gap!

What I’ve also noticed is a hint of arrogance that has seeped into some of the club players attitudes. It comes out as they play alongside of participants who missed that year of development. They know they’re better. Sometimes their frustration is evident as they are told to play on the same court or field as lesser-talented teammates. In some cases, their parents have told them how much better they are than the others. The child is encouraged to shoot and dribble the ball more and pass it less.

Thus, a significant challenge for me as a coach this year is helping my players understand what it means to be a team, develop the concept of teamwork, and value each of their teammates. The challenge, more evident than usual, is creating an equality among players who are unequally talented. It’s not a new situation, just one that, like a picture hanging crooked on the wall, needs to be straightened out.

And maybe, just maybe, the gap between the haves and the have-nots will be narrowed a little bit, and things more important than statistics and the won-lost record will be learned and taken to heart.

By now most of us have seen the film footage of an organized mob storming a Nordstrom’s around closing time and making off with merchandise worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. An estimated 80 thieves hit the store fast, blocking off a city block, grabbed whatever they could get, and fled.

Now it’s happened in other cities as well, causing shoppers to think twice before heading to a place of business. Add to that neighborhood thefts of Amazon packages delivered to front porches. Packages, mind you, that the thief has no idea what is inside!

There has always been crime, and waves of crime, but it seems that we now have a new classification of crime. That is, unlawful acts that some folk don’t consider unlawful. Perhaps we could call it “entitled crime”! Some blame it on the pandemic. Others say it’s a ripple effect of our culture’s addiction to drugs. In other words, there are a lot of excuses for why it occurs. The Bible calls it what it is…Sin! Sin is an assorted deck of offenses and neglects. If it isn’t pleasing to God it’s probably sin. If it causes a sigh to sound in the heavens it’s probably sin. If I knowingly do something that I know is not right…it’s probably sin.

In our time, however, what is considered wrong has been blurred. It’s like my annual eye exam where my optometrist places a device in front of my eyes and asks me to say what I see. He intentionally makes my vision unclear to begin with. I can only guess as to what the right answers are. That’s how it is with our current view of right and wrong. It’s blurry and subject to a person’s opinion.

However, scripture makes something crystal clear. “As it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one…All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:10 and 23)

If, in this unsettling time, our culture does not accept that we’re all fallen creatures, then our starting point of what is wrong has no anchor. It’s subject to how a person feels in the moment, to circumstances, and even to individual interpretation.

We shake our heads when we see a band of hooded thieves stealing sledgehammers and power tools from Home Depot, but we’ve inched our society toward that action in the blurring of what once was clearly wrong.