Letter to my unborn son

Dear Isaac,
You are being born into a crazy world, my son. Last night was historic, for many different reasons. The most obvious is the fact that our country has stepped out of its own shadows and elected it first African-American president. Many thought they would never see this day, both white and black alike. But it has come. And it is only the beginning. Our country, our world as we know it, is consumed with very divisive feelings. Everyone seems to have their own opinion about things, and very few are scared to share them. Our country is engaged in two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan. We seem to be at war with the economic structure and ways in which to preserve the environment as well. We are at war with each other over other issues, like abortion and gay marriage, hot-button ‘moral’ issues as they are called. There are strong arms on both sides of these battles. But there are many of us who find ourselves in the middle of all these struggles. It seems that we in the middle have had enough of the tension, being pulled back and forth between the right and the left, and have finally found our voice. Whites and blacks, young and old, came out in record numbers yesterday and declared in a loud voice, “Things have to change”. This will not be easy and it will not be overnight. The change we seek does not reside in the policies and practices of one man or one party. Instead, they are the very ideals of all people, all created in the image of God, coming together for the future of this nation and our world. The Psalmist warns, “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal souls, who cannot save.” God alone saves. So we put our trust and our hope in God, praying that whatever may come from this time, above all else we know that God is still in control. Never before have I personally felt as hopeful to see change coming than I am today. With God’s help, God’s people, in many different shapes, sizes, colors and creeds, are moving out of the long-forgotten center and onto center stage. I promise to do all I can to work with others to improve this world, living the life demonstrated by my Savior, Jesus Christ, loving God, my neighbor and all creation, so that you will never have to live in fear, so you can live the life that God intends for you to live, no matter what that looks like. While the world is crazy, it is the world that God created, the world that above all else God still rules. May you see the joy of your future, exactly how God intends it to be. You are truly blessed, my son, welcome to this world. Love, Dad.

I'm just not that important!

Two nights ago, as I was getting ready to get in bed, I realized that I had left my phone downstairs. I was faced with a choice. Either I could run down and get it and return it to its night-time location, on the nightstand next to my bed in case there is ever an emergency, plugged in so that it charges for the next day. Or I could just leave it and get it on my way out the next morning. Deep inside of me, I had this fear. This would be the one night that I didn’t have it and someone would call, needing me in the middle of the night and I wouldn’t be there to hear it ring. I bring this up, as sort of a confession and cleansing, as well as a plea to others. I think I am way more important than I really am, as if the world hinges on my availability and my ability to pick up the phone at a moment’s notice. I am not that important. Things are not that important.

I say this, because this brings up a larger issue. I am tired of hearing phones ring in meetings, gathering and especially in worship services. Now, let me preface this next statement by saying, we all make mistakes and forget to turn our phones off. I’ve done it, once or twice. Everyone has done it a time or two. I can forgive that. But what gets my goat is the fact that people constantly come into meetings, gatherings, even worship services and do not turn their phones off or put them on silence/vibrate. And if that is not enough, when the phone rings, they fail to immediately silence it. Normally what happens is the phone rings, they don’t realize it is their phone. Then when the shock wears off, they pull it out and look at it, trying to figure out who is calling. Then they answer it, while running out of the room, trying not to be rude. Oops. The damage has already been done. Why run out? You’ve already distracted everyone around. Listen, in all seriousness, if we as people are intelligent enough to own a phone, we better know how to operate it, meaning turn the ringer off immediately when it rings, or better yet, put it on silence or vibrate to begin with. If one does not know how to do that, then maybe one would be better served not owning a phone at all. Besides, are things ever really that important? I say this, and for the next five weeks I will be a slave to my phone, especially when my wife calls, for obvious reasons. But that is different. The day to day routine of life is never really as important as we think it is. When we go to meet with people, let’s do something revolutionary and actually meet with them, in a real, relational sort of way. Let’s put the noise of the rest of our lives aside and be fully present with them, giving them our undivided attention. Let’s make them as important as God intended them to be. Remember that whole, “Love God and your neighbor” thing? It has to start somewhere, right?

By the way, two nights ago, I ran downstairs and got my phone. Like I said, this is more of a confession than anything else. Maybe next time, I’ll just go to bed, realizing that the world will continue to turn, no matter where my phone is located. I’m just not that important.

Pastor of a Champion

I love my calling. Now, there are definitely days in which I am not so quick to thank God for calling me into the ministry, but it seems that I am always fed just enough to keep me energized and excited about what I have been chosen to do. I get to see things and be a part of some very interesting things. Today, I found myself in some uncharted territory. I called to ask several of my friends if they had every experienced what I saw today. The conversation went like this, “Have you ever seen a pumpkin seed spitting contest?” “Um, No.” “Well, then that means you have never seen a pumpkin seed spitting contest in which all fifteen competitors were 90 year old women.” That’s right friends and neighbors, I got to experience a group of 90 year old women spitting pumpkin seeds. How great is that? While I was visiting one of our more experienced members at her assisted living community, the activities coordinator came around to gather up the residents for the fun. You should have heard them. They were fussing and complaining. “I don’t know how to spit.” Not true. Everyone knows how to spit. It’s one of the first things we come out of the womb doing (I’m sure I’ll learn more about that in about five weeks.). And sure enough, it didn’t take long for the women to get the hang of it. And not only that, in spite of the complaining, several actually enjoyed it. They would spit and then giggle, like little school girls. It was hilarious. And the best line I’ve heard in quite some time, “Now, don’t spit so hard your dentures come out. The nurse wouldn’t like that at all.” When it was all said and done, my church member actually won, she spit her seed the farthest. She was the champion. Never has there been a more proud pastor. God sure does have a great sense of humor.

The Spirit, she’s amovin

One of the great things about God is the fact that you never know what’s going to come your way day in and day out. I love how I can come to church and have absolutely nothing on my plate for the day and plan on getting some much needed paperwork done, only to find out that the Spirit is moving and God has plans that I did not even know existed. Take today for example. Out of nowhere, I was able to meet two guys from The General Board of Global Ministries spending about two hours with them at the church and over lunch. We talked about mutual friends who are doing amazing work as well as discussing plans for a very exciting and innovative conference/summit/gathering that hopefully will occur in Columbia around May of next year. It was refreshing, to think yet again about the fact that our calling as Christians is so much larger than just what we see in front of our eyes in our own community. And to think, I thought today was going to be boring.

More than a professor, a friend

About two years ago, Megan bought me a madras jacket, the one above. She had no idea why I wanted one, just that I had said several times I would like one. So finding one on ebay, she ordered it and gave it to me as a present for some occasion. The real reason that I wanted one was because Dr. Larry McGehee always wore them at Wofford.

Second semester my junior year, if I recall correctly, I signed up for five classes. This was a break from the norm for me, a slack student who always signed up for the bare minimum. It’s still any wonder how I ever got out of school on time. But this particular semester, I had decided to reach out and to extend myself a bit, taking fifteen hours, rather than twelve. I received an invitation from a fairly odd faculty member named Dr. Larry McGehee, asking me to take his Religion 340 course, Religion in America. Being a religion major, he felt like I fit the mold, whatever that was, to take his seminar style class. I walked in for the first class, meeting in the Presidential suite in Gibbs Stadium to find a class mostly dominated by seniors. I was extremely intimidated. Finding my seat, I immediately realized I was in over my head. I was taking a second semester of Greek as well as several other classes that were challenging at the time. So my only option, or so I thought, was to politely drop out. I can remember that feeling, when I told Dr. McGehee that I was going to drop his class. I knew it was a privilege to be invited to take the class, but I just didn’t believe that I was up for it. He was sad, you could tell. I felt terrible, like I had let him down, like I had disappointed him. You know that feeling like when you let your parents down by making a bad decision.

As the semester passed, and fall of my senior year came and went, a week did not pass in which I did not have some interaction with Dr. McGehee. It was as if he was stalking me for not sticking with it, not in the bad kind of way, but in the supportive, ‘I’m here for you’ kind of way. I will never forget the surprise I felt that when I started to sign up for my final semester at Wofford, when he approached me about yet again participating in his seminar class. Now that I knew him, there was no way I was passing up another opportunity.

That was so like Dr. McGehee. He believed in his students, way more than we ever believed in ourselves. He constantly sought us out, wanted our opinions, desired to learn from us, rather than just sitting back and teaching us all he knew, which was the world. He could have spent hours upon days upon weeks and years, sharing his knowledge, he had that much, but instead he invested his time and energy, learning with us, experiencing life with us. Never was a man his age more proficient in the ways of technology, leaving his students trying to catch up with him. He was always quick with a small and something funny to say, lightening the mood whenever he could. The only thing he loved more than learning was his family and the Wofford community, which most of the time, you couldn’t tell the two apart, except for ‘the Queen Mother’, his wonderful wife Betsy, who knew us probably just as much as Larry did because I’m sure he shared everything with her.

Dr. McGehee was first and foremost a word-smith, a vocabulary genius or any other way you could describe someone who has complete mastery of language. Here’s an example. These words were the last I, along with many others, received from Dr. McGehee. They came via an email thank you following this year's Homecoming. “When I arrived at Wofford in 1982 and for every day since, Wofford College has laid her hands upon me, levitating, elevating, and otherwise ever uplifting me. She embraced me so tightly that I went without vacations, holidays, and Saturdays and Sundays, for a quarter century. I was unaware of how dependent, Antaeus-like, upon being on campus I had become, until late April of this year, when some virus complicated my existing fibrosis condition and laid me low. I have been unable to return to campus since then, and have given up my office. The daily lunches with colleagues in the faculty dining room, lunch once or twice a week with students, Acorn café coffee visits, and post office runs are missed sorely, making me ever more mindful of the Wofford magic kingdom that inspired me and sustained me. I am thankful for Wofford College.”

No, it is we, who are thankful of you, Dr. McGehee. I didn’t know Dr. McGehee nearly as well as some of my peers, for they were much better students of the master than I was. But I did learn from him that it didn’t matter what kind of student I was because he loved us all. Dr. McGehee passed away last night from his recent illnesses. I, along with all the others that he touched over the years, will miss him greatly. I, for one, will think of him every time I slip my jacket on, you can count on that.

My idealistic ways

I was out the other day and noticed a young child in a stroller who had a bottle of milk in her mouth, propped up on the side, just sitting there. Wanting to impress my wife and my mother, I said to them, “You know, you are not supposed to do that with a child because it could lead to problems later on.” I had read that in one of the books that I am desperately digesting in preparation of Isaac’s arrival. I know, I know, books are nothing like the real thing. But, what will it hurt in trying to be better informed? Books are a guide, they are not the concrete rule. Anyways, my mom’s response to my comment, which I thought was a very insightful assessment of the situation, was to roll her eyes, like she often does with me, and claim, “You are so idealistic.” Shaking her head she says, “Just you wait.” I love my mom.

For the second time in a couple of days, this idea of being idealistic verses realistic has come up. I had talked with a friend of mine about ministry and new ministers. He had commented about how when talking to new ministers, those just starting out, candidates for ministry even, that you find a level of excitement that you do not see everyday. “Before they become jaded by the church”, he says, which I can totally relate with. You learn things in school and you see the church a certain way when you first start out and then when you get into the church, you find things that you are not prepared for and you end up dealing with things that are totally different than anything you ever imagined. This is not just in ministry, it seems to be pervasive throughout our lives. It seems that this struggle is on-going, the battle between idealistic and realistic. Does it always have to be this way? I mean, in order to be realistic and in the moment, must we give up a desire for things to be better, to be idealistic? We feel this when we are young. The idea that the world is ours to conquer, we can do anything and we can be anything. And then, something happens, we get a little older, we have an experience or two, and the next thing you know, our idealism is gone, and we think, “I guess this is it. This is what they warned me about.” And then, and this is where it really gets bad, we start raining on other people’s parades. We think, well, if I cannot be idealistic, neither should you. And then we become cynical and jaded toward other people and their idealism.

I believe this goes much deeper than just being optimistic or pessimistic. For me, if optimism sees the glass half full, then idealistic means working actively to fill the glass the rest of the way up. Now, if this metaphor holds true, and if pessimism sees the glass half empty, does being cynical and jaded means that you are actively trying to pour the rest of whatever is in the glass out? If we live our lives jaded and cynical, do we not fall into the trap of trying to hold down the dreamers of this world because our dreams have not been realized? Possibly, if we are not careful.

The prophet Joel once described the Day of the Lord by quoting God saying, “I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughter will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young me will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit on those days (2:28-29).” This message was so important that Peter repeated it in his first sermon at Pentecost (see Acts 2). What’s truly important is that we do not let the day to day junk that we deal with take away from our desire to be better and to live differently than we are right now. We should never stop dreaming and we should never forget about God’s Spirit that resides with us, throughout all of our junk. Realistically, we should live in the world in the most idealistic way possible, dreaming dreams and visioning visions of the way things can be. God wants nothing more and demands nothing less than for us to a little bit better today than we were yesterday.

"O God of Every Nation"

In celebrating World Communion Sunday yesterday, we sang the hymn “O God of Every Nation”. I am not sure if you are familiar with it or not, but I found the words to be extremely powerful and moving, especially when thinking about war and our world and America’s role in it all. It may be my new favorite hymn.

O God of every nation, of every race and land, redeem your whole creation with your almighty hand; where hate and fear divide us, and bitter threats are hurled, in love and mercy guide us and heal our strife-torn world.

From search for wealth and power and scorn of truth and right, from trust in bombs that shower destruction through the night, from pride of race and station and blindness to your way, deliver every nation, eternal God we pray.

Lord, strengthen all who labor that all may find release from fear of rattling saber, from dread of war’s increase; when hope and courage falter, Lord, let your voice be heard; with faith that none can alter, your servants undergird.

Keep bright in us the vision of days when war shall cease, when hatred and division give way to love and peace, till dawns the morning glorious when truth and justice reign, and Christ shall rule victorious o’er all the world’s domain.

It reminds me of Israel. When we were over there, we said on several occasions, “The only thing that can change this land and bring peace is Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.” As we look over the landscape of our world, specifically our nation, and see the divisiveness that exists everywhere, it appears Jesus is the only answer for all of us.