The Reason for the Season(IMHO)

On Lakeview Drive in the Rossville/Ft. Oglethorpe area of Georgia, this morning I drove past a Baptist church that I drive by quite often. Their sign read, “Is Jesus the reason for the season?”  This sign set me off (as most church signs do).

Even if Jesus is the most important person in the world to you, and Christmas is your most important holiday, and thinking about Jesus is the most important aspect of Christmas, it is impossible for “Jesus” to be the only reason for the season. The “holiday” season seems to start a week or so before Thanksgiving. Families make plans to travel or to stay at home and entertain family and friends. They do many things to celebrate Thanksgiving together. It seems to be okay to say “Happy Holidays” before and during Thanksgiving.  After Thanksgiving, though, there’s a change. The people who believe saying “Merry Christmas” is the only authentic way to celebrate CHRISTmas appear in droves. The “Keep Christ in Christmas” and “Jesus is the reason for the season” directives are displayed all over the place. It is no longer appropriate to say “Happy Holidays.” That phrase dishonors “Christ in Christmas”—the reason for the season.

For me it seems that “Happy Holidays” is inclusive and “Merry Christmas”, especially with the emphasis put on it by the “evangelicals, is exclusive. There are many “holiday” traditions that are celebrated around December 25^th other than Christmas. “Happy Holidays” is a way to honor and include these traditions during the “Christmas” season. "Merry Christmas" is included in "Happy Holidays".Some "holiday" traditions are sacred; others are secular. The “evangelicals” cry “foul”, though, that these people have no business embracing “Christmas” and that Christians have every right to insist that “Merry Christmas” is the only authentic way to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

But as I said, even if the birth of Jesus is the only reason December 25^th exists for you, then you still have serious problems with the adage that Jesus is the ONLY reason for the season. Try celebrating just Jesus without the trappings of Christmas. During Christmas you enjoy or endure family gatherings. During Christmas you enjoy, or at least participate, in the exchange of gifts. These gifts are wrapped in beautiful paper and adorned with string and bows. During Christmas you decorate your home, inside and out, with bright colors, trees, special ornaments and lighting and many other things. Some of these ornaments evoke love and joy for special people who gave them to you. And let’s not forget Santa Claus and now The Elf on the Shelf during this celebration. Santa arrives in his sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer and this elf moves around the house through the days leading up to the 25^th,  bringing surprises and playing tricks, and then on Christmas Eve disappears to return to the North Pole or wherever you tell your children he goes. All of this, even if you claim that “Jesus in the Reason for the Season”, is a part of the celebration.

Finally, even if you do none of these things—no family gatherings, no exchange of gifts, no holiday foods, no carols or candle light services, no Santa and elves,  no trips to Grandma’s house and only gather your family around the fire on Christmas Eve to read the Biblical narrative, especially Luke chapter 2, then Jesus is not the only reason for the season. In these old stories you’ll find, not only the baby in a manger of straw, but angels, shepherds, wise men,  Mary and Joseph, the natal star and others in the cast of places and characters that are a vital part of the story. If Jesus had just appeared in that manger with nothing or no one around Him, as a human being He would have died of exposure and starvation.

So celebrate “Jesus” during the season. Exclude, if you will, all other people and traditions besides what happens for you on December 24^th and 25^th, try your best to evoke a feeling of guilt in those who do other things besides “Jesus” during the holidays. But try as you will, you cannot escape the trappings that make Christmas “Christmas” for millions of people. And, please, at least say, “Jesus is my reason for the season” so as not to suggest that He is the only reason for all of us. 

A Very Short Speech

Do you have memories of events that took place even 49 years ago, and you still feel embarrassed about them? I had that happen yesterday.  Yesterday I was in Elba, Alabama and drove by the First Baptist Church of Elba. The memory was as raw and as clear as the night it  happened.

In 1970, at age 17, I was in the front end of a horrible time in my life. After reading the book, In His Steps, I decided, like the main character in the book, to ask before everything I did, “What would Jesus do?” or what is now known as WWJD. On the surface this seems like a good idea. It seems like it would help any Christian to discern the will of God and act on that discernment. My problem at the time, which was a huge problem as problems go, was that I took that suggestion literally. Before EVERYTHING that I did, I asked myself “What would Jesus do?” and based my actions on that answer.

During this time I also interpreted the Bible as literally as possible. I read specific Bible verses and tried to believe and act accordingly. In this case, the verse I read was "When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defense, or what you are to say”. Luke 12:11 In the first place, no one was putting me up against any rulers or authorities; I was asked to speak at a Valentine’s banquet for the youth group at the First Baptist Church of Elba, Alabama. In the second place, it is not logical to think that God would have a problem for me to prepare for that speech.  But I took that verse to mean that I was not to prepare and should trust God in the moment with what to say.  

The night came for the banquet. I dressed up for the occasion and drove the 25 miles from Enterprise to Elba. It was a typical Baptist banquet with a nice meal that was probably roast beef, green beans, mashed potatoes and a roll with some sort of cake for dessert. There were about 25 young people in that room all dressed up and looking forward to a nice talk. The meal was enjoyed by all, the youth director introduced me and I walked to the podium to speak praying all the way for the words to deliver. All eyes and ears were turned to me.  Here is the entire speech.

“On Valentine’s Day we talk about love. There are many types of love that we have for each other. There’s the love of parents for their children, children for their parents, the love of husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. But the greatest love of all is the love that God has for us.” That’s it. That was the speech. Since God gave me nothing else to say, I sat down. I wanted to melt into my chair. 

A couple of years ago, my brother ran into the guy who was the youth director at that time. They discussed the banquet and the speech, and shared a nice belly laugh at my expense. Since that fateful night 49 years ago, I have never failed to prepare for a speech. When I give any sort of speech, I talk from, not an outline, but a manuscript. I deliver it without reading it, but every word is in front of me.

It took about five years and an experience with a puppy and some turnip greens for me to begin to emerge from this black hole I had created for myself. Can you imagine how difficult it was for God to get through to someone who put Him first in all his thoughts, but in a very perverted way? And yet He did. The next time you find yourself in Elba, Alabama, drive by the First Baptist Church, think about that banquet and enjoy a good laugh. You’ll feel better and I will too.

Test post

Dear blog reader,
I am working through a technical difficulty so this is just part of that test. Had this been a real blog post, it would have been about something weighing on my mind and heart besides Blogspot. So please continue with your regularly scheduled activity. If you don't mind "liking" this post, I would appreciate it.

David
"Draw a circle of power around yourself and stand in that circle." Black Elk, Holy man of the Oglala Lakota Sioux(1863-1950) Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, S. Dakota

Dealing with Problems

I don't like to have problems. When I have problems, I immediately try to find a way to fix them. In this case, what I have done to fix it has created an even bigger problem, an interpersonal one with someone I care about deeply. Meanwhile, I have to cope with both problems the best I know how.

Twenty seven years of counseling has paid off. I am now armed with a multitude of ways to deal with problems in a constructive and redemptive way. Here are some of the ways I find "help in times of trouble" (the Psalms). I recommend them all to you:
1. Recognize that either the problem will go away or that you will learn to deal with the problem and move on.
2. Employ "emotional resources".  All of us, on any given day, have limited emotional resources. At any particular moment in the day, we have to choose how to spend those resources. Emotional resources are built on elaborate brain chemistry. Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin and Endorphins(D.O.P.E. are our friends, but at any given moment, these neurotransmitters have a limited capacity to help us. We set those limits. If we block those resources with worry, fear, guilt, bitterness, grief, drugs and alcohol, then the good stuff in our nervous system is unavailable.  D.O.S.E are depleted and other body chemicals, such as cortisol and adrenaline,  accommodate our mood and your problems feel worse. Learn to focus on the good stuff you are experiencing in spite of the problem. Think about something else that you love and enjoy. Think of all the good things that are going on right now. These thoughts activate these DOPE chemicals and they flood your nervous system with good feelings of hope, redemption and grace.
3. Develop a "wait and see" attitude.  Once you have done all you can do to deal with the problem and its consequences, it's important to leave it alone and let it work its way out. Years ago while in the middle of a business problem where I had messed up, my boss put her hand on my shoulder and said, "David, things have a way of working out."  I have found this to be true.
4.Do something that you enjoy. Phone a friend. Go outside and take a walk, especially in the woods if woods are available. If not, a walk around the block or even a treadmill will help. These positive activities activate the D.O.P.E. chemicals and you find yourself feeling better in spite of the problem. In a way, at this point, you have no problems.
5.Be kind to yourself. When I consider the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", I think about it in a different way. "Treat yourself at least as kindly as you treat everybody else in similar circumstances. Include yourself in your circle of love and forgiveness for friends, family and strangers."
6. Finally, pray about it. Well, you may want to consider that first.  AA, in helping people with their addictions, includes invoking your "Higher Power" in times of stress and temptation.  Name your Higher Power and ask for help.Some things demand Divine intervention. The first Bible verse I memorized at Vacation Bible School when I was five years old, was "What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee." Psalm 56:3 KJV

A funny thing happened while I was writing this. My problems went away. Well, actually, now that I have finished writing, they are still there, but I don't feel as bad about them. Sooner or later they will be resolved. Meanwhile, I'm going to eat a Moon Pie, drink some chocolate milk and read a book--"a very present help in the time of trouble"Psalm 46:1.

"Enjoy your holiday."

I dropped by my bank this morning to put something in my safe deposit box.  As I was leaving the bank, the woman who opened my box said, "Enjoy your holiday."  The comment caught me off guard.

My first thought was, "What holiday is it?"  It's not Labor Day or Memorial Day. It's not Lincoln's Birthday or the 4th of July. "Then what holiday is it?", I wondered. And it set me to thinking. I didn't think very long before I realized that what most people say in her place is "I hope you enjoy your holidays." That makes more sense.

But then I thought, "I wonder if December 3rd is actually a holiday?"  A quick Google search yielded these results. Among other things, each year December 3rd commemorates at least these three holidays, The International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Giving Tuesday and the International Spirit of the Game Day. The first one "focuses on the empowerment of persons with disabilities." The second one encourages generosity, especially toward charities and needy people. The last one is "the mindful behavior practiced by players worldwide in a mutual effort to protect the basic joy of play".

Regarding "the holidays", the Thanksgiving and Christmas season has never felt to me like "holidays."  With one exception--as a student it was always a relief to get out "for the Christmas holidays." Not having to go to school and study at home for a couple of weeks was a respite that I always enjoyed. With that exception, "the holidays" have for me always required a lot of mental effort. During Thanksgiving and the days leading up to Christmas Eve were not "holidays." There's the wreath that I always put on the house. This requires climbing very high on an extension ladder, careful to not fall and hurt myself. I've never fallen. But I could. I never enjoy being on a ladder. The  "holidays" usually require a lot of travel. This year is no exception with three out of town trips on the docket. Travel then requires driving long distances sometimes with weather issues and traffic tie ups,  airports(TSA and boarding passes) and other necessary evils. Even when none of that is much of a problem, there's just the stress of the possibility of these things that "bugs me up" (as my brother says). None of this feels like any sort of "holiday" to me. Ho Ho Ho!

Regarding the "Spirit of the Game Day", if I'm honest I don't really "enjoy" a game I care about until my team is in a good position to win the game. I find watching very stressful up until that point. The problem with this perspective is that many games are not decided until the final minutes and seconds. My counselor tells me that my gut and my stress do not transfer through the TV and actually affect the players or the outcome of the game. The stress only affects me. Cognitively, that makes sense; emotionally that reality has never saved me from the angst of the game. During this year's Iron Bowl, Auburn, my favorite team, was not the clear winner until the quarterback took a knee with a little over a minute to play. Watching the replay the next day was far less stressful. I did enjoy that activity.

Back to the lady at the bank. Maybe she knew about the three holidays that occur each December 3rd. I doubt it, but maybe so. If not, I'm sure she sincerely hoped that I would enjoy all of the "holiday season." I wish I could relax and enjoy "the playing of the game" and watching "the holidays" unfold.  With a lot of good counsel and emotional effort, each year I am getting better.

Today, December 3rd 2019, is actually a holiday of sorts for me. Because of retirement, I have nothing on my schedule today but a doctor's visit and going to the gym. Neither of those things involve any stress or any great emotional or mental effort. And at the moment I'm writing, one of my favorite activities, while listening to beautiful music by Daniel Elder. Or is it the other way around--while I'm listening to beautiful music, I'm writing? Either way I find the experience both enjoyable and relaxing.

Among other things, Wednesday, December 4th is "International Cheetah Day." Am I supposed to run or just appreciate the prowess of this animal? Since I don't enjoy running, I think I'll just pause and enjoy the latter. Apparently, every day is a  holiday.

Buzz Kill

About fifteen years or so ago my son, my wife and I were going to dinner at a restaurant in West Lafayette, Indiana. When we got to the restaurant,valet parking was available but to save the money I parked in a a relatively empty parking lot across the street.  I did not notice the "No Parking" sign with the "towing" warning. We had a nice dinner together. After the dinner we put some take home boxes of leftovers in the trunk of the car and walked to a bookstore. Later the man at the tow lot told us that coming to the car and then leaving the car again is what prompted the towing. I don't know who was watching or why that mattered, but that's what he said. When we walked back to where we had parked, the car was gone. The large parking lot was still virtually empty. It was then that I saw the "No Parking" sign with the tow warning.  I had just not noticed it before that moment.

All of this happened on a Saturday night and my wife and I were planning to leave for home the next morning which was about a seven hour drive. We both needed to be back at work on Monday. It would have been a major inconvenience to wait till Monday to retrieve our car. I called the number on the sign. A man answered and I inquired about my car.  He told me that he had the car, we owed him $140 cash and that they closed at 7:30pm and that they were closed on Sunday. We had about 20 minutes to find an ATM, get the cash and then find the tow lot. We got there with the money with a few minutes to spare. The man at the lot was sitting behind a thick glass window with a half moon opening like at a bank. I asked him why they towed the car from an empty lot and he said something like, "The sign warned you that the car would be towed" without really answering my question. That's when he explained the bit about leaving the car for the second time.

As I handed him the money through the window and as he took the money, I tried to think of something really mean and hateful to say. Short of wishing him bodily harm, I said the meanest thing that I could think of. Before I let go of the money, I looked him in the eye and said, "I hope your dog dies." The look on his face was that he did have a dog.

Yesterday afternoon I saw the Mr. Rogers movie, It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood with my wife and good friends.  I could have been more kind to that man at the tow lot. People are doing the best they can do under their circumstances. He was just doing his job.

The Lizard Way

"The Lizard Way" is a physical path through some sand dunes at Laguna Beach, Florida. Laguna Beach lies about 17 miles west of Panama City toward Destin. Growing up my extended family owned a beach house there. I say, the lizard way  is a physical path. It would be more correct to say that it was a physical path. It is completely invisible now  as it is covered over by a multitude of things. A home to a multitude of lizards and other small creatures.

My wife and I were invited to attend a very significant 50th birthday party today at a local country club. We were honored to be included with the 15 people on the guest list. One of those in attendance was a young lady who was in  my youth group, 1983-1985, at the McFarland UMC in Rossville, Georgia. Those two years proved fateful for me in so many ways good and not as good. But I digress. This young lady (50ish) told me that I helped her in very many ways during my tenure there. I asked her to tell me one thing that I said that helped her (cringing a bit as it's hard for me to conceptualize that I was much help to anybody).  She said, "You told us that if we wanted our lives to be significant and worthwhile then we had to make good choices."  That's it. That's what helped her so much.

"The lizard way", though no longer a physical path, is now a significant metaphor for me. The lizard way is the people and places in my life that helped me make the choices that I have made and have made me the person who I've become. That beach house is a lizard way. That youth group is a lizard way. That path is a lizard way. That birthday girl and her friend are lizard ways. This place where I am sitting listening to Lauren Daigle and writing this will one day be a lizard way. Last week I paid the taxes on this property. I won't always pay  the taxes here. You have to be an owner to pay the taxes. My ability to think and write will be a lizard way. My life will be a lizard way for others to follow. I certainly hope it's a lizard way for others. "The only thing that matters now is everything you think of me" Lauren Daigle just sang. "You say", Lauren sings. "I believe oh I believe."

I haven't always made good choices, but my best choice was the choice to keep living. I actually made that choice over and over during the darkest days of my existence before June of 1992.  I plan to continue to make that choice. Years ago I decided to come up with my central life theme. What choice is my central choice?  That choice is "life is good." No matter what is going on in and around me at any given moment, life is good. We'd all be dead without it.

I say "the lizard way" is not a physical place. That's not correct either. I can take you to the very spot along Highway 98 in Laguna Beach, Florida and point and say, "There it is. The lizard way." It probably won't mean much to you, but it means the world to me. I thank God for those who gave me a meaningful path  to follow. I thank God for Lauren Daigle and for good music and good choices. "I believe. I believe."

Who is God, really?

My theology is undergoing a dramatic shift. First a definition of God.  I don’t like the word God; there’s just too much baggage attached to it. Are we referring to the mean and vengeful God of the Old Testament or the kinder, gentler Father of Jesus in the New Testament? And the problem goes from there. There are hundreds upon hundreds of names for God as people attempt to deal with all that baggage.  I’ll just type three of those words. One is the God of AA and then two Jewish names (of a multitude).  Since AA includes people of all faiths and religions and  those of no religion, since AA wants the membership to acknowledge a Higher Power to help them recover from addiction, the organization refers to the “Higher Power”. Ancient Jews referred to God as Yahweh or just YVWH. This name is so powerful and unique, the ancient Jews refused to utter it aloud.  Many modern Jews, to get around all possible associations with “God” simply write G-D (the dash is a place holder for Whoever God is and whatever “God” means to you).

For many years I pray to Wankan Tanka, the God of the Lakota Sioux.  That God seems much bigger and more beautiful than “God.”  “Wakan Tanka” then becomes a Universal place holder for Whoever God really is”. However, there is a problem with Wakan Tanka. Many Lakota Sioux, including Sitting Bull, believed that Wakan Tanka was the exclusive God of the Lakota Sioux. So then why would I use it?  Because Wakan Tanka is as good as any names for God. "Then why don’t you just refer to 'God' ", you ask.  Reread what I’ve written so far.

Another reality of this Lakota God is that whereas S/He is infinite in size, beauty and power, S/He is contained and not separate from the Universe. This is basically the God of Albert Einstein, a confessed atheist. He felt that there was “Something” behind Creation and the workings of the Universe. Can an atheist have any “god”? Well, Einstein did.

Then what is my evolving shift in perspective and belief about God? It’s simply that God (nearly as good as any name) is becoming separate from Her creation instead of being limited to this near limitless universe.  A God that is separate can be known and loved. More importantly this God can love me and take care of me.  Yes, S/He can help me find a parking place from time to time. This God can help me with some medical issues I am dealing with. This God can help my friends when I pray and ask Him to. This God can do things for me and with me that I can’t do for myself.  Lauren Daigle sings “Noel”. The refrain includes “Noel, noel. Come and see what God has done!”  Even without the “virgin birth” if that is your belief, God Himself did this wonderful thing through Mary and Joseph.  God Himself and all by Herself created this tiny baby now in the manger.  God creates every baby in every manger(maternity ward, NICU, etc.)  God does this.  This separate God is transforming my life. And what is with all this “Him” and “Her” stuff? Is that distinction really necessary?  Hey, that I’m talking about “God” at all is a huge step. Don’t make me do too much at once.  Besides in the creation narrative, the author of Genesis says, “God created man in his own image,  male and female created He them in His image".  Then if “female” is in God’s image then His/Her image can be female just as easily as She is male. I think She’s neither. He’s God. S/He’s not human. ?S/He, as far as we know, doesn't have sex organs.  It follows then that transgender people are created in God's image. Transsexuals are created in God's image.
Heterosexuals, homosexuals and bisexuals are created in God's image.   “She” then becomes this place holder for Whoever God really is. G-D refers to this same being who told Moses, “Tell Pharaoh that ‘I am who I am’.”

Another powerful song that is moving the needle for me is Andrew Peterson’s “Is He Worthy?”  His refrain is “Is He worthy? Yes He is.” Then G-D is worthy of my reverence and awe.

So am I going to continue to honor Wakan Tanka?  Yes I am. My Indian chants just wouldn’t be the same without Him.

Living in Joy

“Find a place where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”  Joseph Campbell

Our country is messed up. Our environment is messed up. Our world is messed up. Our emotions are messed up. If we’re waiting until all of this is fixed to feel joy, then we’re going to be waiting for a long time.

When I read the news or hear the news, I am deeply disturbed.  I do not remember a time in my life when I was as concerned about “the world situation”.  I do not remember a time in my life when comments about “the world situation” disturb me so much. The comments I read and hear affect me very deeply. On the other hand, when Auburn plays football, my gut churns until either Auburn is up three touchdowns with five minutes to play or the game is over. If Auburn wins,  I feel good for a while. If Auburn loses, I feel bad the rest of the day (and into the night). During those games nothing much else matters but what happens on the field. I can easily forget everything else.  When the game is over, win or lose, I start thinking again about “the world situation” and again feel bad about that. 

My counselor has recently reminded me that while sitting in my den watching an Auburn game on television, my gut churning doesn’t affect that game at all. The game affects me, but I don’t affect the outcome of the game or even any one play. He has suggested that I find a way to watch and enjoy the game regardless of how it’s playing out.  Cognitively, I understand that. Emotionally, I have not been able to pull that off.  When I’m watching any football game on television and the camera pans the stands, I see fans with their faces in their hands waiting on the outcome of a fourth and one or a field goal.  And I think how silly these people are to feel that the outcome of a play affects their lives in any way.  But with an Auburn game it’s different. It feels like somehow some part of my future is at stake with every play. I know that’s ridiculous. But it’s true.

As I am struggling to get to this place of peace of mind with an Auburn football game, it occurs to me that I’m dealing with the same thing in “the world situation.”  Although “the world situation” is so much more important than any football game, my angst about our country, the environment and the world as a whole does nothing to help that world.  Again, my angst affects me, but it doesn’t affect the world. My counselor suggested a therapy that is helping me with all of this.  He has introduced me to the concept of “emotional resources.” The idea is that we all have limited “emotional resources” and we have to choose how to spend them.  If I am burning up my “emotional resources” with angst about a football game or “the world situation,” then I have no resources left to enjoy my life at any particular moment in time. During that Auburn game, there are so many other things that really matter that I could be enjoying. During that news broadcast, no matter how everything seems to be, I can continue to focus on my own body budget and go about my day free of stress and anxiety. My stress and anxiety affect nothing but me. The world is no better off. 

The trick, as Joseph Campbell suggests, is to find a place of joy. Or as he puts it another way, to find a place of bliss. “Follow your bliss” he often said. To “follow your bliss” you need to know your bliss.  So find your place of joy and learn to live there. Your joy not only “burns out” your own pain, but lessens the pain in the world (since you’re a part of the world).

You may be thinking, “David, why don’t you stop watching Auburn games and do something productive with that time?”  Not on your life. How could Auburn possibly win a game without me?

Losing a Pet, Gaining a Family

My friend Caroline Wooten wrote this and I am posting it here.

"We lost a pet yesterday. Not in the sense that we don’t know where he is, but in the senseless act of a random stranger hitting him with their vehicle and fleeing the scene.  Seriously, who does that?! Not to mention that this precious animal was a gorgeous Great Dane.  That being said, he was 100lbs of muscle.  He did some damage to that vehicle; I am almost positive.  While we are saddened, that isn’t the reason for this story.  I want to talk about my sons. 

They went to school as usual yesterday.  They attended their respective elementary, middle and high schools and saw our dead dog on the side of the road on the commute home.  Hank, our dog, was an adoption gift to their sister Kylee.  She loved Hank so much.  She was obviously upset by the death of her companion, but she couldn’t take the time to fall apart because she had to work after school.

So, these boys came in, picked up shovels and got to work digging a grave for the beloved pet of their sister.  What is interesting to note, is that these boys aren’t all biologically related to their sister, or each other.  This wasn’t their animal. They hadn’t hit him with their vehicle.  By all accounts of the standard teenager, it quite frankly wasn’t their problem. 

I watched from afar, as they worked tirelessly together for several hours in 85-degree heat in a typical North Texas October afternoon.  Not only did they accomplish the task before them, but they did it with JOY!  I don’t mean happiness.  Those words don’t mean the same thing.  Happiness is externally triggered.  But these boys, my sons, have a peace with who they are, and that their creator finds pleasure in them.  I watched them encourage and teach each other.  I watched them praise one another. I watched them pick each other up. I watched them give selflessly for their sister with nothing short of the pure joy of a servant’s heart.

I am so proud of who they are and who they are becoming.  I am so thankful to God for allowing me to witness their transformation into Godly young men who mirror the image of Christ.  I take no credit for them; they are products of the relationship they have with Christ Jesus". 

Distracted Driving

Spotify is my primary platform for listening to the music I love.  YouTube is important too, but since Spotify goes everywhere I go, it means more to me.

Many people at the gym listen to  music while working out, especially while walking on the treadmill. And I do the same. However, if I’m completely honest (and I always strive to be completely honest), for me it’s more like I’m walking while I listen to music instead of  listening to music while I walk. Most folks in the gym like to listen to “thump thump”, high energy music to help them work out. My music, instead, is music that I enjoy listening to. Thus my tendency to walk while I listen to good music. And my tendency to seldom work up a sweat.

One of the things about Spotify that I enjoy the most is the ability to make playlists.  I have about twenty five or so playlists saved to Spotify. I listen to  those playlists while I’m on the treadmill. Today I decided to listen to one that I have not listened to for a year or longer. The playlist simply reads, “Top 15 Songs”.  Technically, there are only thirteen songs on the list, but close enough. Since it has been so long since I’ve listened to it and since I didn’t look at it before booting it up, every song was like opening a Christmas present. Every song came loaded with memories and emotions.  I not only enjoyed listening to the music, but since “the song remembers when”, the music took me to far away places and distant emotional responses.  Some of the songs took me back just a year or so when I was introduced to them, but other songs took me back over thirty years.

You would think that thirteen songs would take about forty minutes since most recorded songs last about three minutes or so, but since some of the Tori Amos songs last six minutes or longer, this playlist lasted somewhat longer.  Just like I confessed that I walk while I’m listening to music, this afternoon I did something else related to that. Instead of stopping listening when I got through walking as I normally do, I decided to keep walking until the playlist was through playing.  When the music stopped, I had been walking for exactly one hour. Well to be more exact, the playlist and my walk lasted 59:57.

One of the songs, “Yours to Hold”, by Skillet, took me back several years ago to a particular place on I-65 north of Indianapolis, Indiana. I was alone in my car at a little after midnight listening to the Skillet CD. When the music cycled to “Yours to Hold”, that thing that happens sometimes while listening to music late at night happened to me.  All of a sudden all the cogs of the universe seemed to be turning in synchronicity with the music and the beating of my heart. My soul expanded from my body into space. I was fully in control of the car and my faculties. I did not put myself or anyone else in danger, but some part of me was traveling far beyond I-65 north.  As I listened to that song this afternoon, I was not only remembering that moment and feeling some of that emotion, but thinking about something that happened later  that weekend In West Lafayette, Indiana.  I won’t tell the story now, but it was a significant event involving my son and my then two year old granddaughter on Easter Sunday morning.  That very special memory actually brought me to tears on the treadmill. “That old familiar pain” as Dan Fogelberg called it.

Many states, including where I live in Georgia and neighboring Tennessee, have passed laws against distracted driving. The laws apply particularly to any sort of hand-held cell phone use while driving, but the laws apply to more than that. Any sort of physical distraction is forbidden.  I applaud these laws and the efforts of highway patrol  to enforce them. But I can tell you that just like what happened to  the Apostle Paul, it is possible to be in the body and out of the body simultaneously. I was not distracted that night on I-65.  I never took my eyes off the road. I also applaud those people at the gym who listen to “thump thump” music and work up a sweat.  But Planet Fitness advertises, “No Judgement”. So I won’t judge you and you don’t judge me. What happens at the gym stays at the gym. But what happens on Spotify is amazing.

A Clutch Decision

I could have Googled how a clutch actually works, but I decided just to wing it. When a manual drive car is in gear and moving, the clutch is engaged. A plate is against another plate (it’s either the flywheel or somehow attached to the flywheel). So these two plates are engaged with each other, they turn the flywheel. The flywheel is then magically and mysteriously attached to the transmission(or the other way around) and something or nuther turns the axle. The axle,through the differential turns the wheels. The wheels touch the pavement and make the car go forward (or backward as the case may be).

The “girl” I was dating in 1975 had just reached “girlfriend” status. We had been friends for over a year, but had decided to be out with our feelings for each other. My car at the time, which looking back, is my favorite car of all the cars I’ve owned. Anyway, that’s not a complete sentence. My car at the time was a yellow 1973 Mercury Capri.  The Capri was a “German built” American car. With its twin cam engine and four on the floor, it would fly. Those twin cams emitted a high whine that made it sound real cool when accelerating. And that German built stereo system was the most balanced stereo of any car I’ve owned.  I so enjoyed driving that car. And  since my friend had reached girlfriend status, I decided to let her drive it too. She was a good driver and I wasn’t concerned about her crashing my car, but she had a very bad habit.  She rode the clutch! Now back to my mechanical expertise.  When you depress the clutch pedal those two plates separate and they disengage and the car coasts  to a stop.   So when you “mash the clutch” pedal you’re actually separating the clutch from the flywheel. As I said above, when you let the clutch pedal out, the plates engage and the car moves. This is why you depress the pedal to disengage the engine when you're changing gears.  When you’re stopped on a slight incline (or a severe incline), you have two choices with what to do with the clutch. The first choice, and the best one is to depress the clutch pedal (which disengages the clutch), depress the brake (which stops the car from rolling into the car behind you or back down the hill) and  let the engine idle.The tricky part is when you move your brake foot from the brake to the accelerator at the same time, the car starts rolling backwards; you gradually release the clutch pedal at the exact same time you're pressing the accelerator with the brake foot.  Beginners will either stall the engine, burn the tires or actually roll into the car behind them.  It’s more of an art than a science. The other option, which is too horrible to consider, is to “ride the clutch”.  To “ride the clutch” instead of doing the right thing you leave the pedal out about halfway and let the clutch and the accelerator hold the car instead of the brake.  One thing that happens fairly soon (which should be an indication that it’s not a good idea) is that you will smell the clutch “burning”. The first couple of times my girlfriend “rode the clutch” I gently told her that she needed to fully depress the clutch pedal and hold the car with the brake and not the clutch.  She either didn’t understand what I was saying or just ignored me since at the next opportunity she was still “riding the clutch” !!  Since I was now secure in our relationship, I yelled “Please stop riding the clutch!!”  Both of us were shocked by my response.

So did she stop riding the clutch? I remember that was among the last times she “road the clutch.”  And was that our last date?  If she’ll have me for four more weeks, we will celebrate our forty third anniversary. A big part of the secret to such a long and happy  relationship is that every car since the Capri has had an automatic transmission. I could tell  you  how that works, but I’ll spare you that explanation. For the record, I understand that now many manual transmission cars have a feature that doesn't allow the car to roll backwards. Where's the fun in that !?

Homecoming

Yesterday,  my wife and I attended a significant “homecoming” at a significant church. In June of 1983 I was as despondent, discouraged and depressed as I had been in my life. I didn’t have a job or any job prospects. Two weeks prior I had not only walked away from my church, as far as I knew at that moment, I had walked away from the vocation that I had spent seven years in college and seminary preparing for.  Four years prior I had graduated with honors with a master of church music degree  and  then landed at the First Baptist Church of Rossville, Georgia as Minister of Music and Youth. While in my personal and vocational stupor, my phone rang and my friend, Reverend Gary Grogg, was on the other end of the line. Gary was then the pastor of the McFarland United Methodist Church in Rossville. The church is just across the street from Rossville First Baptist.  After a brief conversation, Gary asked me what my wife and I were going to do about going to church.  I told him that we had visited one church, but had made no definite plans.  He then said, “I was wondering if while you’re trying to figure out what you want to do, if you would come be our youth director”. I said, “Gary, I don’t think that I could be of much use to you right now.”  And then he said the words that would change the direction of my life. “David, I thought that we might be of some use to you.” So I took him up on his offer and got right to work as their part-time youth director.

I learned quickly that Baptists and Methodists do things a bit differently. At this time McFarland had both a Sunday morning service and an evening service, which was kind of unusual for a United Methodist church. It was not unusual for me as I had been going to church twice on Sunday my entire life (I think it was a former Southern Baptist who insisted that they have an evening service). So I did what I had always done and brought the youth group to the church service on Sunday evening.  After a time or two Gary asked me why I was bringing the youth group to church on Sunday night. I said, “Why wouldn’t I?” And he said, “That’s why we hired you as the youth director. Take them bowling.  Take them to the Pizza Hut. Do anything but come to church. They do that on Sunday morning.” For a while I felt like I was playing hooky, but we started doing all sorts on fun things on Sunday night.

It was around the issue of Sunday evening services that I learned another huge difference in Baptists and Methodists. As a staff member I was a member of a committee called The Council on Ministries. During one of those meetings the issue of Sunday night church came up. After some discussion the consensus was to discontinue the night service. Growing up as a Southern Baptist and having only served Baptist churches to that point, I was accustomed to monthly business meetings. Although any member of the church was welcome in those meetings, there was usually a small majority of members in attendance. But no matter how many showed up, this body could vote with a simple majority on various issues and that vote was binding for the whole church. Since the business meeting was open to the entire congregation, those in attendance were considered to be “the church.” Without a formal vote, the Council on Ministries decided to suspend Sunday night services. First of all it bothered me that there was not a showing of the hands majority vote and it bothered me more that these few people made this decision for the whole church.  I asked the group of about eight people, “Shouldn’t we take this decision to the church?”  Gary said, “We are the church“. In other words the congregation empowered its small committees to make decisions that were binding for the entire body of believers. The decisions didn’t have to go through the deacons or the business meeting.

As the weeks turned into months, I forgot how miserable I was and got into the business at hand with my youth group of about fifteen souls.  They were a great group and responded positively to the teaching and activities that I provided.  During my years of youth ministry as a Baptist it was not unusual for me to more or less manipulate the group to tears with an emotionally touching activity. During an informal meeting with Gary, as my pastor and overseer, he said, “I notice a lot of crying as your group leaves your meetings.”  I said, “Yes, it is not unusual for that to happen”.  Gary again made a comment that proved to be a lifetime teaching moment for me. He said, “David, isn’t laughter a valid emotion?” Point well taken.

After two years, which became my rehab assignment, I was tempted to accept a part-time music leadership position at a local Baptist church. This larger congregation gave me an opportunity to use my music skills. They also offered me a much larger salary.  I would not learn for several years how hurt this youth group was with me for leaving them in the middle of a meaningful ministry for us all.  I was to remain at that church, the Signal Mountain Baptist Church,  off and on for nearly twenty years.  After resigning that position, my wife and I took some much deserved time off from church and then a member of the McFarland UMC invited us to visit McFarland again. We did just that and stayed there for seven more years. The first three years I was just a member. Then after their music director left, I led the music there for another four years.  That was a marvelous time for all of us. I retired from music ministry from that church about four years ago.

At homecoming yesterday, my wife and I took a seat on the pew behind one of my “youth.” Before the service she introduced us to her children and said, “David is my old youth director.”  I didn’t mean to embarrass her, but I did with my quip of “Yes, her very old youth director.” Her face turned a little red and I immediately regretted my unnecessary quip and tried to make up for it as best I could. The guest speaker for that service yesterday was none other than Reverend Gary Grogg. He brought a sermon on keeping “the main thing the main thing.” With controversy raging among United Methodists over the issue of gays in ministry, the “main thing” he concluded, is love and inclusion of all people. I’m sure he carefully considered taking a public stand on the issue at hand with United Methodists. The woman in front of us was not the only “youth” in attendance and it was so good to see them and talk about “old” times with them and their grown children.

The depression I was experiencing in 1983 was not to be diagnosed and treated for nine more years. It’s a wonder that I had done as well as I did in those two churches over all those years.  

Last thing. “Homecoming” took on a much deeper meaning yesterday when one of the saints of McFarland UMC passed away yesterday morning. That death put a pall on the service and it was a muted celebration. Who knew that when Gary told me, “We hoped that we could be of use to you” that all of it could mean so much for so many people. Rossville First Baptist Church closed its doors about three years ago. The Signal Mountain Baptist Church has since also closed its doors. But with the significant deaths of a person and two churches, life goes on. For that I’m deeply grateful to still be among the living.  And yes, tears are also a valid emotion.

In a Different Light

“I have said that I don’t know what I should have, and you probably don’t know what you should have. But I think one of the most powerful things we can do for one another is to tell our stories. This is what I have; this is what I give away; this is what I feel is right for me at this moment. But let me really tell you in detail. If we start telling these stories to one another, and if we listen to the stories, I believe healing will take place, and we will be given insight as to what is appropriate and what is right.”

–Gordon Cosby, “How Much is Enough?” in By Grace Transformed

Several years ago I hired a social media specialist to take a look at my Blogspot blog. Several years before that, when I started blogging here, my son helped me with its title--”In a Different Light”. “Light” can be looked at in so many different ways. There’s visible light that allows us to see. There’s ultraviolent light that would kill us except for the earth’s protective ozone layer. There’s the spectrum of light as seen in a prism or a rainbow. There’s light as it travels as a particle and a wave (thanks Albert Einstein). There’s “the speed of light”, 186,282 miles per second. There is the origin of light, our sun, that takes eight minutes to travel from itself to the earth. Then there is the metaphor, to see something in a different light.

The specialist read several of my blog posts and had this to say about them. He did not mean what he said as a compliment; he meant it as a criticism of my writing.  He said, “David, a blog needs a theme, a purpose. It needs to be a blog about dogs or cats. It needs to be a blog about science or photography. It needs a central theme. Your readers need to know what to expect when they open your blog. Your blog is just ‘a slice of life’ “.  After I paid him and after he left, I gave his comment a lot of thought. I considered to just stop writing altogether or to write and not post it to Facebook. And then it occurred to me that the theme of my blog, davidrhelms.blogspot.com, is in fact “a slice of life.”  That’s the way it started with the life and death of my beautiful mixed shepherd, Maggie, and that’s the way it continues today. The central them is me. My experiences past and present, my thoughts, my feelings, my hopes and dreams, my science, my music, my photography, my opinions, my, my, my. So am I a literary narcissist? Is my ego as big as the sun? Isn’t there something my blog could be about besides me, myself and I? Sure, it could be about hundreds of things, but it’s not. When you read “In a Different Light, “ you read about me.

Recently Blogspot changed something important. If its analytics are correct, my readership dropped from several hundred readers to less than twenty. As I stated a few weeks ago here, I again considered “What’s the point of writing if so few will read?” And then my counselor helped me to remember how it started with Maggie’s death.  I was not writing for you; I was writing for me. Isak Dinesen so wisely stated,  “Any sorrow can be borne if it can be made into a story”. Although I have tried to interject into this “slice of life” much joy and humor, a central theme has been my own pain, my own losses and grief.

There are plenty of blogs about dogs and cats, science and photography, children and grandchildren, but you can’t find my “slice of life” anywhere else but here. “But I think one of the most powerful things we can do for one another is to tell our stories.” I hope that at least every now and then reading my stories has been as powerful for you as it has been for me while writing my stories. When I posted recently that I was thinking about hanging it up, a reader from my high school days said after reading the next essay, “If you had stopped writing, then we could not have read that” (what I had just posted that apparently meant something to him).

In the quote above, Cosby said that as we tell our stories, healing takes place. I know that telling them has brought healing for me and I can only hope that my stories have encouraged you to tell your stories and that healing has taken place in you, as well. When we think about it in a different light, we realize that our memories, our stories are all we’ve got.

“A slice of life”, a moving slice of me. All due respect to my social media specialist, but I believe my theme has been useful. It certainly has been useful for me.

Your God is Too Small

“I walk in a space of gratitude.” Jurnee Smollet-Bell

I read J.B. Phillips' Your God Is Too Small as a teenager so I remember little or nothing about it.  Just the title, though, still gives me pause.  No matter how big you think God is, S/He is much bigger than that. I use S/He just to make the point that She is not He and He is not She. God, as far as I can figure, is not a human being and therefore isn’t of either human gender.  Then what is S/He?  Who knows?

Pantheists believe that God is no more than “everything that was, is and is to come”. Then to a pantheist God is not a person, but an accumulation of more things than be counted(think atoms and galaxies).  Astronomers tell us that our known universe contains billions upon billions of galaxies each of which contain millions and billions of stars. But my dad once said to me, “Even if we could send a man or a probe to the farthest reach of the universe, its very edge, at a distance that can’t be comprehended, then what would be beyond that?” But since God, we believe, created everything that is from nothing, then doesn’t S/He have to be bigger than that? From the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2 we see that God created everything. So then God pre-existed “His” creation and is bigger than that.

For eons humans and organizations have struggled with a name for God. To make the point that “God” can’t be contained with a name, “S/He” has been called thousands of things.  Alcoholics Anonymous, a secular organization, struggles with this and refers to God as “your Higher Power” (name “Him” whatever helps you). Eastern religions, instead of referring to the Christian “Trinity”, refer to the “Higher Power” as “the God of 10,000 things.” The native tribes who still practice their native religions tend to refer to the Christian God as “The Great Spirit”. Moses struggled with what to say to the Pharaoh as to Who sent Him and God said, “Tell him that ‘I Am’ sent you.”  Therefore, God Himself said “Just tell old Pharaoh that ‘I exist’!”

Biblical names for God include YHWH (Yahweh), Elohim, Jehovah and dozens of other names. Modern Jews sometimes refer to God as “the Name” or “G-d” to keep from spelling out a name that is too small. Taoism refers to this “Higher Power” as the Tao (pronounced dow). But this “religion” says that if you can name “the Tao” then it’s not “the Tao”. This “Entity” can’t be named or contained. In the Jewish creation story God says, “Let Us make man in ‘Our’ image.”  Even God struggled with what to call Himself so S/He just said “Our”.

Several years ago, to use a name larger than “God”, I adopted the Lakota Sioux name of Wakan Tanka. My prayers included an invocation to Wakan Tanka. However, recently I learned that the most famous of all of the Sioux, Sitting Bull, suggested that Wakan Tanka was the exclusive property of the Lakota Sioux and that other tribes shouldn’t use it. Then so much for that name! That God is very small.

So what does any of this matter to you? It should matter everything to you. When you bow your head in prayer, you need to be invoking the Presence of Something that is bigger than you. Otherwise, why bother to pray? If, “God” works for you then by all means pray to God. If your “God” is bigger than that, then you’re back to the problem I’m referencing. Even with its limitations, I still gravitate to Wakan Tanka, who is at least as big as the Universe, and that’s big enough for me.  I don’t think it’s all that important what you call “God” as long as you call this “Higher Power”, this “Great Mystery” something that is big enough to take care of you and those that you love.

There is a three year old boy in my life who, until recently, referred to himself as “here my am.” So I offer up  “Here My Am”  to be as good as any name for G-d and better than most. “Dear, Here My Am... Please hear my prayer today. In Your name I pray. Amen.”

What to do in case of time...

“Time is the measure in which events can be ordered from the past, through the present into the future, and also the measure of durations of events and the intervals between them.”  Internet sources.

Two weeks ago I gave up the last vestiges of a job.  Over the past few years my vocational life moved from full- time (40 hours) to part-time(32 hours) to more part-time (24 hours) to a commission job (with no set hours) to no job at all. People already are asking me, “Won’t you get tired of that?”

 

Years ago I was on a fishing trip with my dad. This was one of the many fishing experiences that I enjoyed with him either at my granddad's pond or in Florida. When we went to the family beach house at Laguna Beach, Florida (west of Panama City), he fished all day every day that we were there.  I always joined him for at least one of those days. This particular day instead of fishing for speckled trout, we were fishing for flounder on East Bay (near West Bay). Flounder fishing involved catching live bait (small fish) in a net and then heading to his favorite flounder “fishing hole”(a particular place on the bay). We took the boat above where we intended to catch the flounder, shut off the engine and drifted through the “fishing hole.” We repeated this process all day until we caught enough fish to take back for my mom to fry for the family. She always served the fresh fish with grits and plenty of sweet tea.  It was a day much like most days on East Bay; it was absolutely beautiful. While watching  my father fish and considering that he did that all day every single day that we were in Florida, I asked him, “Dad, don’t you ever get tired of this?”  He didn’t say a word.  He slowly reeled in his line, saw that his hook was empty, reached into the bait well and baited his hook, threw the line into the water, sat back in his seat, lit a Salem, took a couple of draws, slowly and deliberately looked all around at the water and  the sky, looked back at me, smiled  and asked, “Crockett, what’s there to get tired of?”

So to answer the question posed to me, “Won’t you get tired of that?” I say, “What’s there to get tired of?” I live less than three miles from the Catoosa County Library, less than five miles from Barnes and Noble, less than one atom from my computer that offers me Barnes and Noble, Amazon and Abebooks. This computer has a word processor that allows me to type letters, essays for my blog and books.  My synthesizer is in the next room. We(two people) have three televisions connected to a cable with a service that offers several hundred channels, On Demand movies and Netflix. We are less than six weeks to the MLB playoffs and three weeks to the college football season. There is enough music on YouTube and Spotify to satiate all my listening needs. So staying at home or driving within a five mile radius there is enough to keep me busy for the rest of my minutes, hours and days on planet Earth. And all that is before I drive to the airport less than eight miles from here and fly to anywhere in the United States or the world. I don’t expect to get bored of living anytime soon. All of a sudden with nothing better to do, there doesn’t seem to be enough time in a day to do not much of anything in particular. I just have too many good choices for how to spend my discretionary time(it’s all discretionary time).

But with all that said, the hardest question for me to answer these days is, “So what have you been up to lately?”

The Miracle of the Turnip Greens

From 1970 through about 1972, I  lived inside of a one person religion that I created. I thought, as all people who create a religion think, that I had stumbled into the ultimate relationship with God. I thought that I was on the path of personal righteousness and of ultimate truth. The actual truth is that I started down a path toward my own destruction.  With the encouragement of my youth director, I read the book In His Steps by Charles Sheldon. The book is fiction, but it reads like it could all have happened as recorded. After a dramatic encounter that changed his life, the pastor in this book admonished his flock that before every action they should ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?”  Or as we have come to know it, WWJD. On the surface this seems like such a good thing to do. This seems like the obvious thing a true follower of Jesus would do, i.e. if I want to know what to do next, just ask myself, “What would Jesus do?”  Nothing less. Nothing more. So that very day, I decided to do exactly that.

I dove in and was in over my head in a matter of days. When I asked myself “What would Jesus do?” and applied it to my life at the time, I found several problems right out of the gate. For starters, I was the lead singer in a local garage band. And we were pretty good as garage bands go.  When I asked myself if Jesus would sing rock songs in a band, the answer was a definite “no!”. My inner voice of Jesus told me to not only quit the band immediately, but to tell them why I was quitting. At the next rehearsal after we were all set up and ready to go, I got my friends’ attention and told them that God didn’t want me to sing in the band any longer.  They looked at me like I was from outer space. Dan, the organizer of the band asked me, "David, can't God use you through this band?" And I said, "No."  Billy, the drummer, looked at the others and said, “I told you he was going to do something like this.” As I got in my car to leave, I was on cloud nine! I had now rid my life of everything that Jesus wouldn’t want me to do. It was the official beginning of a life of eternal bliss in the "perfect will of God."

But by the time I got home I had thought of something else. I had the male lead in the school musical Annie Get Your Gun.  As Frank Butler, I was the hard living, gun slinging, whiskey guzzling hero of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. The only person badder than me was my side kick Annie Oakley who could shoot circles around anybody. In one song, “I’m a Bad, Bad Man” I sang, “There’s a girl in Tennessee who’s sorry she met up with me. Can’t go back to Tennessee I’m a bad, bad man.”   I asked myself, “Would Jesus play this role and have this ‘testimony’ before His school and His community?”  Of course not?  What does a play like this and a role like this have to do with the Kingdom of God !!? Nothing.  All of a sudden it didn’t matter that the curtain would go up in just a few weeks. It didn’t matter that there was no one else in the school as musically qualified to sing that role, as gifted as I to act that part, that even if there was there was no time for him to learn the part.  All that mattered was that Jesus would not be Frank Butler and I needed to quit the play.

Once I was standing in the parking lot of a transmission shop in my hometown of Enterprise, Alabama. The man I was talking with asked me to pray for him.  So we both got down on our knees in the parking lot and prayed out loud as customers drove in and walked past us.  Jesus must have been proud of me. But  during my senior year at Enterprise High School, it got worse and worse. Would Jesus study American history? Would he study trigonometry?  No he wouldn’t. So I stopped studying and read my Bible instead. My grades suffered and my relationships with my classmates and teachers suffered. My mother went to my youth director and said, "I want the old David back." He told her that I was indeed on a "path of righteousness" and to not worry about it. I could  go on and on about the things I said and did during those years of WWJD. Some of it was very strange. All of it was very uncomfortable.  I descended into a private hell on earth. It was a spiritual black hole. Light went in but no light got out.  All in the name of Jesus.  I could go on and on with the things I said and did in the name of WWJD, but I think you get the idea.

The irony of my attempts at being Jesus is that Jesus never asked me to be Him. He asked me only to allow Him to be Him in me. I couldn’t do what Jesus did. Jesus healed the sick, turned the water into wine, raised the dead and walked on water. I couldn’t have done any of that. But there is one thing Jesus did every day that I could have done. On any given day, in every situation, Jesus did the loving thing. So instead of WWJD, the question becomes WDJD, What DID Jesus Do? He loved people. All I needed to have done through those horrible years was to love people. To always do the loving thing in every situation.

If you’re God and you love someone in agony of his own making trying to do the will of God, how do you get through to him?  Several things happened over a period of weeks, months and years, but the most dramatic occurrence involved a bowl of turnip greens at my kitchen table. My little sister sat at the end of the table (so was always asked to get the tea). My mother sat beside me. My brother sat across from me and my father sat beside him across from my mother. As usual in the summer, mother had prepared a dinner of meat from my grandfather's cattle farm out the New Brockton Highway and fresh vegetables from my Granny’s farm out the Damascus Road. Yes, the Damascus Road.  As Mom was passing the turnip greens to me, and I loved turnip greens, the thought occurred to me, “Do I know that it is God’s will for me  to eat turnip greens?” Since I wasn’t sure, I passed them across the table to my brother. My mother took note.  My brother was not as holy as I was. He was not on a path of WWJD, but was a college student mostly away from home doing things that college students away from home do. My mother asked me, “David, you don’t want any turnip greens?”  And I just said “No”.  As my brother passed the turnip greens to Dad, he said the most ridiculous thing that I had ever heard in my life. He said,  “Nah. God doesn’t want me to eat any.”  I thought, “Why would God care whether or not my unholy brother ate turnip greens?”  And then I thought, “Why would God care if I ate turnip greens?” I asked my Dad to pass me the turnip greens and I ate a huge helping. That day at my kitchen table with my family and that bowl of turnip greens was the beginning of an awareness and a healing that continues to this day. “What would Jesus do?”  If Martha had fixed turnip greens, he would have eaten them. It would have been the loving thing to do. Martha, Mary and Lazarus were his friends. Mary may have sat at His feet, but Martha had gone to a lot of trouble for Him. 

For reasons that I won’t get into, I stayed in that play.  I didn’t quit. But instead of enjoying the three performances, I was very concerned as I sang about not being in “the perfect will of God.” The next weekend I sang in a revival at a local Baptist church.  I sang “I’ll Tell the World that I’m a Christian.” During the “invitation” the student who had done my make up in Annie Get Your Gun “came forward” and “professed Christ as her Savior.” After the service she told me that it was because of my influence that she had “accepted Christ.” As much as that helped her and me at the time, now I don’t try to convert people to Jesus. I just try to love people and leave the rest to Him. As I read the gospels, Jesus didn’t try to convert people either. He just loved people and tried to help them. Jesus was a Jew. He never became a Christian. Why would Jesus need to be a Christian to do the things He did? He was Jesus.

That play was in 1970, 49 years ago and yet I’m still embarrassed for myself that I behaved the way I did.  I’m embarrassed that I caused the director so much agony and anxiety. I'm embarrassed for myself that I prayed on my knees at that transmission shop embarrassing people and making a fool of myself and my friend. I’m embarrassed about all of it.  But this is 2019 and nobody remembers any of that but me.  At a high school reunion years ago and years after I graduated, my classmates remembered me as a kind and loving person. I’m grateful for that  as I had feared the worst.

So you want to be “in the center of God’s will?” You want to “do what Jesus did?”  Then love and forgive the people who come across your path today. Don't try to be Jesus. He only wants you to be yourself. After all, He made you. And by all means, eat some turnip greens.

Good Money

A few days ago I heard someone use the term “good money”, a comment that I have heard quite often over the years. “Good money”, as far as I can tell, means that that person makes a lot of money for what they do.

Obviously, “good money” is a relative term. In this case a Waffle House server said that the cook there made “good money”. She went on to say that he makes about $16/hour. Since a server there typically makes about $4/hour plus tips, I’m sure $16/ hour to her sounds pretty good.

I’m sure that you, like I, have also heard the expression “chasing good money after bad.”  This can mean a lot of different things, but the gist of it is what happens when you refuse to cut your losses, when you keep putting time and money into a losing endeavor.  This leads to a couple of economic terms: “sunk cost” and “sunk cost fallacy”. A “sunk cost” is an expense that cannot be recovered regardless of the outcome. The “sunk cost fallacy” occurs when a business refuses to give up on a project because of all the time and money that has already been invested. This phenomenon applies to individuals as well as businesses.  Let’s say that you have non-refundable tickets to a concert. However, the day of the concert you’re sick and don’t feel like going, but you go anyway so that you don’t “lose your money.” Now you’re at the concert, but you can’t enjoy it because you feel so bad. So now you’ve lost the money and your night in bed recuperating.  Another aspect of the “sunk cost fallacy” is that the more time and money you’ve put into the endeavor, the greater the temptation to keep going even though it’s not working. Could this phenomenon apply to a relationship? I think so.

The first time I heard the term “good money” was when I was a teenager working for fifty cents an hour at the Levi Theater in Enterprise, Alabama. An associate who made the same as I did referenced a truck driver he knew who made $300 a week!  And he said that he made “good money.”  If you do the math, taking into consideration that the trucker drove about twelve hours a day, six days a week, then the pay wasn’t all that good after all. But $300/week sounded a lot better to a teenager than fifty cents an hour.

Part of my compensation at the Levi Theater was that I could see as many movies as I cared to free of charge. Now, theoretically, I’m making “good money!” Unfortunately, since I lived in a staunch Southern Baptist household,  my parents didn’t let me go to very many movies. So scratch that “good money” comment. Now I’m just making “money". And not much of that.

So how much money do you have to make in 2019 for it to qualify as “good money”? Not very much. It just has to be more than someone else who’s doing about the same thing for less. For the record, I wouldn't take any amount of money to be a Waffle House cook. Would I be an air traffic controller? Maybe. But not a Waffle House cook. After about an hour, I would be "covered and smothered" regardless of how much money I made. 

Feeling Good--Emotional Resources

During the 1980s, groundbreaking research by neuroscientists, neuroanatomists, and molecular biologists offered hope to those who are chronically anxious, prone to worry, subject to panic attacks, depressed and other negative emotions (stuck in grief, etc.). That research continued to be espoused in books like Feeling Good by David D. Burns in 2008 and recently in books like How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Barrett. The gist of all of these books and research is that emotions are controlled by our body chemistry, but the good news is that we control that chemistry. Turns out, our thoughts and our habits control that system. For example, you choose whether or not to intake opioids and other chemicals that you introduce to your body.  At first these “mind-altering drugs” make you feel good by manipulating this body chemistry. But after a while when these feel good biochemicals, such as dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins(d.o.s.e.), are depleted, you take these drugs not to feel good, but so you don’t feel bad. Since emotional resources are limited, your body no longer has the capacity to flood your system with these happy hormones(neurotransmitters), regardless of  how much of these foreign substances you ingest. You take  more, or inject more and more of these drugs to feel progressively worse. This pattern can lead to all the feelings you’re trying to avoid and ultimately to overdoes and suicide. You choose whether or not to eat responsibly and to exercise, both of which have a dramatic impact on releasing these happy hormones (d.o.s.e.). You choose what you think about. You can focus on some negative memory or event or you can choose to think about something good or happy. All of this affects whether or not your body is releasing d.o.s.e. or powerful chemicals such as adrenalin and cortisol, both of which can make you feel worse than you already do. Your nervous system tries to accommodate the way you want to feel.

Body chemistry is complicated. If you study the naturally occurring chemicals in your entire nervous system (your whole body), then you will become familiar with terms like synaptic connections, neuron-firing patterns, biochemical reactions, neurotransmitters, synapses and receptor cells. These body actions are the tip of the biochemical iceberg that influence your emotions. You will learn that “gut-reaction” is an actual physical and biochemical reality. Turns out there are more emotional-controlling biochemicals in your gut than in your brain.

If your formative years were in the 60s and 70s, as mine was, you heard the term “bummed out.”  This term originated with hippies as they dealt with the aftermath of drug experiences from psychedelic drugs such as LSD and “magic mushrooms.”  No doubt a “good trip” was nothing short of incredible—for example, seeing the notes coming out of the musical instruments, seeing the process of photosynthesis in a leaf. But the body had shot its wad and because of limited emotional resources these flower children were left with nothing but neurotransmitters such as cortisol in their system and bad feelings. Worse than that were the “bad trips” when the experience was negative and even horrifying.

Descartes is credited with saying, “I think, therefore I am.” If you want to overcome negative emotions, you must start by altering what you think about at any given time of day. Your thoughts, because of all of the above, control much of how you feel. The lines from the song Whistle a Happy Tune in The King and I include, “Make believe you’re brave and the trick will take you far. You can be as brave as you make believe you are.” To overcome negative emotions, you must discover and nurture positive emotions. Is it as simple as that? Not really, but it's a good start toward feeling good. 

Feeling "bummed out"? “A happy tune” can change those feelings in a hurry.

Emotional Resources

My counselor and I are working on this idea of “emotional resources.” In a few words he said, “David, we all have a limited amount of emotional resources. We all have to decide how to spend them.” I am finding that to be a very powerful statement. As an example, for years my extended family converged on the family beach house at Laguna Beach, Florida for the fourth of July weekend. The group included my grandmother, her sister, my aunts and uncles, my mother and father, my siblings, my cousins, my wife, our son and his cousins.   There were about 25 of us in all. Besides spending time in the “cottage” (slept all 25 people), we also played on the beach. My uncle always brought a boat and we went water skiing at “Phillips Inlet” about eight miles from the house. I had learned to ski and even to slalom at an early age and was really good on that ski. It was great fun for all of us. I had a reputation for being able to all but fall in  the water, regain my balance and keep skiing (they say it’s not bragging if you did it).

So what does remembering this family gathering have to do with “emotional resources”?  It  has everything to do with them.  This morning as I remembered those gatherings for over 30 years I felt a wave of sadness.  All but one uncle of that generation above me died several years ago.  I have lost touch with most of those cousins. Well really, all but one of them.  My sister, brother and I live in adjoining states and I only see them on  rare occasions. The beach house was sold to a stranger  years ago.  I don’t know who owns it now. So adding all that up, for a few minutes I felt pretty crummy about all of that. Then I heard my counselor say, “You have to decide how you spend your limited emotional resources.”  In this case I decided not to spend them in sadness over what was such a fabulous family tradition.  In spite of the losses, I chose to remember how good it was to be together with my extended family for all those years (and all those years ago).

The internet definition of  “emotional resources” includes this “:

“Emotional resources are the most important resources because it keeps people from returning to old habits. A lack of emotional resources refers to being able to choose and control emotional responses, particularly to negative situations, without engaging in self-destructive behavior.” I think something was not quoted correctly as it’s the employment of “emotional resources” that keeps us from “engaging in self-destructive behavior” and not the lack of them. Or possibly it’s saying, “Since there is a ‘lack of emotional resources’ you have to “choose and control emotional responses.”  In either case, thinking about all of this has really helped me to deal with my feelings prompted by memories of past situations. This has also helped me to deal with the current news cycle as I am deeply disturbed by so much that I read and see. I have to choose not to deplete my “emotional resources” on things that I can’t control (which is nearly everything).

The definition above also includes that “emotional resources are the most important resources.”  It doesn’t state that they are some of the most important resources or are among the most important resources, it states that “emotional resources are the most important resources.”  That includes a lot of resources!  That suggests that “emotional resources” are more important than, for example,  financial resources and relationship resources.  And if you think about it you will understand why.  It’s not what we have or who we hang out with  that makes us feel good or bad, but it’s how we think about and respond to other resources that makes us feel good or bad.

I have recently been introduced to a Christian singer named Audrey Assad. Her song "Drawn to You" has come to mean much to me.  One lyric in particular touches me every time. "After everything I've had, after everything I've lost, I'm still drawn to you.  "Drawn to 'you' doesn't have to be God or Jesus or anything of a spiritual nature' , it can be anything or anyone where you find hope, love and joy instead of grief, pain and sadness. Independence Day is as good a day as any to begin taking ownership of your emotions. It's not what has happened to us that affects the way we feel but how we choose to remember these things, how we think about them. I challenge you to discover your emotional resources and to use them to find joy and fulfillment.

Here My Am

“I am a writer if I never write another line, I am alive if I never step out of this room again; Christ, oh, Christ, the problem is not to stretch a feeling, it is to reduce a feeling, all feeling, all thought, all ecstasy, tangled and tumbled in the empty crowded head of a writer, to one clear sentence, one clear form, and still preserve the hugeness, the hurt-fulness, the enormity, the unbearable all-at-once-ness, of being alive and knowing it too…”  from the essay A Life in the Day of a Writer by Tess Slesinger. Published in the book Present Tense:The Arts of Living . Copyright 1941.

Today my wife and I completed an arduous task—cleaning out a WWII army surplus trunk that I inherited from my sister ten years ago who inherited it from our  mother some years before that.  Mother was a hoarder of sorts. It was not the kind of hoarding that would make it to Buried Alive, but it was hoarding.  Besides textbooks from my  father’s college days at Auburn, she kept his notebooks, assignment books and correspondence.  In 2001 when my wife and my sister cleaned out our “home place” after mother went to assisted living, they found a mountain of paper in drawers and chests that featured her three children in church bulletins, school grade books,  the local paper, anything and everything that printed our names and our accomplishments. Just like my wife and sister did in 2001, most of the contents of the trunk went in the garbage, to save my son from throwing them away after we’re gone.  I did keep some of my dad’s composition books that include his writing and his sketches.  As I was throwing his engineering textbooks one by  one  in the garbage, I decided to keep three books that weren’t technical in nature.  Turns out, two  of them were my mother’s books from Judson College and not his. One of them is the book from which I quoted  The Arts of Living. That book, as I mentioned, was copyrighted in ’41. The cover includes the “All Rights Reserved” and language and instructions to not reprint any part of it in any form.  Don’t I remember something about after 50 years copyrighted material becomes a part of the public domain?  Well, be that as it may, I’ll take my chances.

One of my readers complained that I haven’t been writing.  Something happened either to my blog or to Facebook, but according to the Blogspot analytics, my 200 or so readers has shrunk to ten to twenty. I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.  But a few days ago my counselor said, “David, don’t you enjoy  writing?” And I said, “Yes I do.”  “Then what difference does it make who reads it? You benefit from it even if no one else ever sees it.” Good point. So here my am (the way a certain three year old in our lives would say it). Just as it was true for Slesinger, writing helps me to create “one clear sentence, one clear form” from “the tangled and tumbled” thoughts in my head.

That three year old is named Cole. For all his life we’ve called him “Baby Cole” and we still do.  Yesterday, as he and his family were leaving our  house, he was playing on the driveway.  He had his arms extended, swaying in and out,  flying like an airplane and making airplane noises.  His older sister said, “Cole, what is that?” And he answered “Baby Cole.” His sister was thirteen years old when her family took us in. Now she’s driving. It was a gut check to see that child driving away with her siblings and no adults in the car. Her mom was in another car. “As you age, you get older.”

I don’t know what’s going to become of me and my writing. Well, I know what’s going to become of me, but hopefully that’s some years down the road.  But I try to live my life every day. “A life in the day” as Slesinger wrote.  Hopefully, at least some of my writing will outlive me. If so, I will have achieved some level of immortality.

So here my am. Ready, willing and able to scratch up my thoughts and feelings here.  Tossing the contents of that trunk wasn't easy. I’ve gotten rid of its contents, now to get rid of the trunk.