jimazing.com

The new year has snuck up on me and it is time for the annual news of the Anderson family. You may not know, but this is the very reason I started this web site. It began in 2000 as a way to use the web to begin to communicate Christmas greetings to our family and friends. It has since morphed into a tradition. A couple of years ago, I mentioned that I wasn’t going to do it anymore.  I was informed in no uncertain terms that I had to do it.

As much as I chafe over doing something because I “have to”, I must admit that I do like it… especially creating the collage.  The process of going through photos and remembering all that we have done over the last 12 months is cathartic.  It is easy for someone like me to forget and begin to think that my life does not matter.  Remembering and reflecting becomes more important to me all the time… or maybe it is just my awareness of its importance.

I hope you will take a few moments to read the 2009 Anderson Family News and take a look at the 2009 Collage.  You can always view collages and news pages from previous years by clicking the Family News menu on the jimazing.com web site

family, friends, reflection

Whoops!

I am not sure how it happened, but I published my last post with comments turned off.  I have changed that and they are back on now.

A Quick Case Study

This mistake on my part might make an interesting case study of my last post.  My guess is that some of you saw the “Comments are Closed” notice and determined (based on my behavior of closing comments) that I was not interested in what you had to say.  If you did, you were incorrect.  Despite my behavior of turning off comments, my intentions were to hear from my readers and my desire is to make that as easy as possible.  One of the joys of blogging is receiving feedback.  I like hearing how my words affect you.

The prior post was about the “We see/They see” quote repeated here:

We judge ourselves by our intentions.
Others judge us by our behaviors.
We cannot see our own behaviors.
Others cannot see our intentions.

My intention was to share my thoughts and hear yours.  You saw my “closed comments” behavior.  I was blind to my own behavior until someone pointed it out to me.  Likewise, you could not have seen my intentions until I explained myself.

Communication is Key

I was also stirred by an email from a dear friend who’s expressed desire to begin to look for intentions more in the coming year.  I appreciate that thought and it leads me to ask how one looks for intentions.  I think it is important to note that the first and most important element in communicating behavior and intentions is communication itself.  The problem is not that we don’t try to see our own behavior, we really cannot see it the way others do.  It is not that we don’t try to understand the intentions of others.  We actually cannot know them.  The only way we can possibly know what our own behavior looks like to those around us is to hear it from them, and we can only know their intentions when they communicate them to us.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not talking about being nice.  I’m talking about communicating on a whole new level, something that does not come naturally and will take risk and effort.  It mostly is not modeled for us and it feels weird when we do it (but it is worth it).

Here are two unhealthy ways I could handle a situation with you: Let’s say that you do something that irritates me.  I could determine that you meant to hurt me and react based on that assumption.  I lash out at you verbally and we argue.  In that case, I didn’t understand your intention and you didn’t understand my volatile reaction.  Now let’s roll back the tape and replay it again.  You do something that irritates me.  I give you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that you didn’t mean to hurt me.  I conclude that your actions were unintentionally harmful.  I graciously choose not to respond to what you actually did.  While the first way may lead to unnecessary conflict, the second way can lead to being taken advantage of by the person who had ill intentions, but is never held accountable for his or her actions.

No matter whether one makes a positive or a negative assumption about the intentions of the other, the operative word is “assumption”.  Assumptions are not truth.  I hope I am not taking this verse too far out of context, but it reminds me of the words of Jesus in John 8:32, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” The only way we can learn the true intentions of others is to communicate.

community, life, observations, reflection

A few weeks ago, I heard the following thought and it rang true to me. I wrote it down in order to ponder it.  The more I think about it, the more important it seems to me.

We judge ourselves by our intentions.
Others judge us by our behaviors.
We cannot see our own behaviors.
Others cannot see our intentions.

To complicate matters even more, the “we” and the “others” changes constantly. At the same time that I am being judged by someone by my behavior, I am judging them by their behavior.

This miscommunication is the source of much fighting, loss of friendships and even wars.  Sometimes I wonder how we humans manage to get along as well as we do.  Mostly I wonder how we can do better.

community, life, observations, reflection

It was just another day in my geeky programmer life.  I got up and rode my bicycle to work.  At that time, my work location was such that I could ride the 4 miles to work without riding on any streets.  When I arrived, my boss asked me if I wanted a nice office chair for free.  I must have had a look of bewilderment on my face because he began to explain.  “You see, I got this nice chair a while back, but my wife doesn’t like it.  You can have it if you want it.  It’s in the trunk of my car.”  I said, “sure.”  So we went to his car and drove out to my house to drop off the chair.  I am sitting in the chair as I type this.

Along the way, we chatted about this and that… nothing important.  When arrived back at the office, the guards in the lobby were all looking at a small TV screen and talking about something that had captured their attention.  They said a plane had flown into a buildng in NY.  I dismissed it thinking that was a strange accident and how silly it was that folks got so engrossed in something just because it was unusual.  It didn’t have anything to do with me, for sure.  As we entered the workplace, I noticed that folks were huddled in little groups.  Someone had a little black and white TV and several were gathered around it.  By this time they were saying that a second plane had flown into a building.  My first thought was that this was no accident. My interest was piqued.

I tried to find something on the internet news sites, but they were all jammed up and unresponsive.  So I thought I would try one of the newsgroups since most people didn’t know what they were, I expected them to be accessible.  They were accessible and a flurry of activity.  I began reading the news and opinions about what happened, whether it was really an attack and by whom.  I was taking everything with a huge grain of salt because of the nature of an unmoderated newsgroup and then I saw a post from someone saying that the pentagon had been hit.  I thought to myself that the alarmist crazys had taken over the newsgroup and decided that it wasn’t reliable enough to be worth reading.  I returned to my work.

Somehow, I got news that they Pentagon part was true and that it was definitely some sort of attack, but I continued to emmerse myself in my work.  Jeanie was was sleeping in. She had been up the wee hours of the morning delivering newspapers and had returned to bed.  She woke to the local talk radio station going on about the events assuming that all of its readers understood the context.  She was completely in the dark about the events.  She called me to find out what in the world was going on. An hour or two later, I got an email telling me to go home due to the events of the morning.  I had an appointment to give blood that day and my first thought was that I should keep that appointment because they were going to need blood, so I went to the collection location, but it was deserted.  So I went home.

I remember feeling shell shocked.  It wasn’t long before I had seen enough of the news on TV.  The repeated images and the incessant talk about the same thing over and over was getting to me.  I needed a diversion.  A few weeks earlier, I had started a project to create two large natural areas in the front yard.  So I methodically walked to the garage, picked up my tools and started mindlessly raking and digging.

Seven years have passed.  The natural area is part of the yard now and looks pretty nice, I think.  It was several months before I gave blood again.  There was such an outpouring of donations from folks who wanted to be a part that  I thought (correctly) the Red Cross wouldn’t be able to handle it all.  After donations started to drop off again, I began donating again regularly (and I still do). The office chair still holds my butt up off the floor.  The world is upside down from the repercussions of the events of that day, September 11, 2001.  My heart still aches for those who lost loved ones.  I still love hearing the stories of what folks remember about that day.

Thanks to my “Dull Geek ” friend.   His story prompted me to write my story.

personal, reflection, stories

I just finished reading Patriotic Treason, John Brown and the Soul of America .  Before reading it, all I knew about John Brown was that he was this guy who was an abolitionist around the beginning of the Civil War and that he was hanged for some violent acts that he commtted while working towards freeing the slaves, but that’s all I knew.  I didn’t know where he fit in history.  Was he a good guy or a bad guy?  He must have been a good guy because he was anti-slavery and yet he must have done something pretty bad to be tried and hanged.

I have written before here how much I am enjoying reading biographies these days.  I don’t know if it is an “old guy” thing or just a “biography phase”, but I find that I am enjoying history as I learn about a single historical figure.  It is as if I am living the history through their eyes.  Sometimes while I am reading, my mind will wander…  While I was reading this book, I was thinking about why I like biographies so much.  You wouldn’t think that I would like them because I love surprise endings.  With a biography, I know the ending before I even start the book.  and yet, somehow I enjoy them.  Learning where the subject comes from, what drives them, who loves them, what they care most about is fascinating.  Usually I pick a person who I admire to some degree.  With Brown,  I truly wasn’t sure.  So why John Brown?

When we went to Charlestown, WV a few weeks back for a family reunion, we visited Harpers Ferry, which is just a few miles away.   There, I became a little better acquainted with John Brown’s story.  Harpers Ferry is where he led an assault on a National armory, captured and held it for a short time for which he was tried and hanged.  When you enter the John Brown Museum,  at Harpers Ferry, you are greeted with a life size tapestry of John Brown as this wild-eyed man with a Bible in one hand and a rifle in the other.  That portrait more than any other one piece drove me to want to know more about this man.  I believe the message of Jesus to be a message of peace.  To see a man depicted as spreading violence in the name of God was very disturbing to me.

It is unfair for me to sit on my couch in the comfort of my home and criticize John Brown’s actions of 150 years ago based on 2008 mores.  While I still find much of his methodology to be disturbing, I enjoy life in a society where people with dark skin are allowed the same liberty that I enjoy; very different from John Brown’s world.  He recognized the gross injustice of slavery.  I don’t have to do anything to help free the slaves.  It has already been accomplished.  John Brown was a great catalyst towards the end of slavery.  He didn’t stop slavery, but the work that he did pushed people to get off the proverbial fence. Was his way the “right way”? Could there have been another way to end slavery than a war?  Who knows?  We don’t get to replay history and try different means.  We only get one shot at it and that’s the way it played out.

I still don’t quite know what to do with John Brown, but I understand a couple of things about him.  He was a man who took his relationship with God very seriously.   Until the very end, he was driven by the teachings of Jesus to do unto others as you would have them to do unto you, that God was not a “respecter of persons” and that whatever we do unto the least of these, we do unto Him.  For good or for ill, it seems to me that John Brown’s fatal flaw was that he answered to no one.  Ultimately, the buck stopped with him and that seems like a dangerous position for any of us.  I highly recommend this book to you.

books, reflection

On Peace

The men’s group where I am a member was discussing Romans chapter 8 this morning.  We were talking about what it means to have God’s peace.  Several in our group are going through tough times; some family issues and others business problems.  They were asking why they aren’t experiencing God’s peace.  It is easy in the middle of a problem to point to someone who is not having the same problem and attribute God’s peace to them.  If I am experiencing a problem that is causing turmoil in my life, and I see someone who is not experiencing the same problem, it is easy to assume that she must have God’s peace unlike me.  Sounds silly when you say it like that, but it is an easy leap to make when you feel life crashing down around you… at least it is for me.  That leap is not fair for many reasons.  The reason I want to focus on now is that life happens; whether as a result of our own actions and decisions or things that are completely out of our control.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of measuring our spiritual status by our physical status.  Are we prospering?  We must be “right with God”.  Are we failing in life?  We must be out of God’s will.  I don’t believe that our physical circumstances and our spiritual circumstances are that easily related…  I’ll try my hand at an un-parable.  Jesus might have introduced it like this, “The Kingdom of God is not like this…”

A farmer planted corn and the corn did well.  Later others can come by and saw acres of corn.  They knew merely by virtue of the plants they saw that the farmer planted corn.

Not so spiritually speaking.  It would be judgemental and wrong for me to look at my friend whose business is not doing well and say that he’s not right with God.  And it would be just as presumptuous to look at my friend whose business is prospering and conclude that he must be close to God. It just doesn’t work like that.  Yes, there is a sowing and reaping, but it’s dangerous to look at the physical and make spiritual judgements.

In my own journey, when I relate the peace of God with my own prosperity, I tend to want to fix the physical in order to address the spiritual.  I create “places of peace” that are really nothing about following God.  They are merely my own “happy places”.  I create peace in my life when I plan, work and succeed.  Am I saying this is wrong?  Please hear me on this:  This post is not about good and bad, nor is it about right and wrong.  I am merely doing a bit of sorting.  What is spiritual and what is physical?  What is peace and what is God’s spiritual peace?  Nothing wrong with creating happy places in my life, but I don’t want to confuse them with the Peace of God that is present even when I’m not in a happy place… In John 9, the disciples asked Jesus why a man had been born blind… well, not quite.  What they asked was whose sin caused him to be blind.  They were connecting his physical condition to his spiritual condition.   Jesus rightly called foul on their presumption. Just because I do A and then get B does not mean my doing A causes B.  In fact, that line of thinking leads to superstition and superstition merely confuses the situation.

On Grattitude

Continuing the sorting process… Later today, a podcast of Speaking of Faith on prayer got me thinking of multiple levels of thankfulness and grattitude.  A little girl read this poem by Mary Oliver (emphasis is mine)…

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

observations, reflection, spirituality

This is literally the first day I have felt good in February. Thanks to those who prayed for me. It feels kinda selfish to ask for prayer from God for a cold when there are so many big problems out there; war, famine, big ugly dreadful diseases, broken relationships… In any case, I’m grateful to be feeling better. On to my journey…

As far back as I can remember, my family went to church every Sunday. Our home church was Deer Park Baptist. I “gave my heart to Jesus” at Vacation Bible School there. I must have been about 7 or 8 years old. The associate pastor called me into his office, which was quite intimidating… it felt sort of like going to the principal’s office. I had raised my hand when the teacher asked if anyone wanted to give their heart to Jesus and the next step in the process was a trip to his office. He asked me a few questions about sin and who Jesus was and what He did for me. I answered all the questions correctly and we prayed together. He told me that I was now a Christian.

I have some reservations today about the one size fits all formula in which we answer a few questions and we are “in”. Seems more like joining a club than a crucial life decision. In any case I took my decision seriously. I believed what my teacher taught me and I wanted to go to heaven when I died. As I wrote those words, I just remembered something my dad told me the day I was baptized. He said that he noticed that I was more serious than the other kids. I’m glad I remembered that. Thanks for saying so, Dad. I knew writing this would be good for me.

As the years went on and I learned more about God at church, I grew more serious about wanting to follow Jesus. At some point, the repetitious Sunday School lessons weren’t doing it for me anymore. If I had been smart, I would have talked to someone about my journey, but I was a loner and I was pretty sure I could figure it out. In my mind, everyone needed to go through the same steps of learning and growth in series; 1, 2, 3…. Because of that, it was important for me to get them in order so I wouldn’t mess up or miss anything. I knew that they had these racks in the vestibule of the church filled with tracts and I reasoned that this was where I would find out the next steps to take. What I found in the tract rack were pamphlets on how to become a Christian in three easy steps and why the Mormans or Jehovah’s Witnesses were wrong and what to say to them when they came to your door. I didn’t find anything like what i was really looking for; the next steps after giving your heart to God. How to grow closer to God.

The church that I grew up in emphasized evangelism. Nothing mattered more than “The Great Commision” from Matthew 28:19-20 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” It was our job to share Jesus. For a painfully shy little fellow, this was like asking me to walk on hot coals. I reasoned that the main thing was getting the message out. So, I took the tracts that told about how to become a Christian and distributed them liberally. Once on vacation, we stopped for gas and I went to the restroom. While I was in there, I unrolled the toilet paper and re-rolled it with tracts so they would fall out when the next person used the toilet. As we drove away, Dad had something to say about it. It seems that he was the next person to use the toilet. I was so embarrased!

When I was a young teenager, I had a Sunday School teacher, whose name is gone from my memory. He was a short blond firecracker of a man. He really loved Jesus and was full of excitement. He was as anti-speaking in tongues as he was on fire for Jesus. I don’t know why that was such a hot button for him. His teaching was my only knowlege about speaking in tongues and my only perspective about the matter. Whatever speaking in tongues was, he was worried that we’d get involved with it. I took his teaching as gospel and learned chapter and verse why “speaking in tongues was of the devil.” There was no way I was going to get involved with that! In his class we also studied a popular book called “The Late Great Planet Earth”. This was the first popular book I had ever read about what to expect at the end of time. Mostly what I remember about it was that Jesus was coming back in 1988! Whoops.

In the group of four boys that were my age at Deer Park Church, three of them went into fulltime ministry. I alone pursued a secular vocation. Many times I have asked myself what happened to me. For some reason, even then it was important to me that I should be able to be serious about following Jesus without earning a living as a minister. That is not a criticism of anyone in ministry. It is a value I hold dear, not just with regards to ministry, but also taking leadership in groups without being given a formal leadership role. To me, that’s the way the world ought to be. So many people wait to be told what to do instead of using the gifts and talents that God has built into them. There’s a reason we are all different. We need each other.

God, memories, reflection, spirituality

Gran-Great

The next logical part of my journey is my relationship to those who came before me. I was blessed to know all of my grandparents and three of my great granparents. I was pretty young when my great-grandparents died. My dad’s mother’s father (M. C. Lewis) died before I was born. I barely remember her mother, (Naomi) but I called her Gran Great (my grandmother was “Gran”). Mostly, I remember an old lady who I would “perform” for. At Christmas, we had a gathering of my grandmother’s family (the Lewis’s) at which all the kids were expected to say a piece for Gran-Great. My parents tell me that one of the pieces I recited for her went like this… “The chimney’s small. Old Santa’s fat, but he get’s down in spite of that.” I guess for a little guy that was pretty good.

Great Grandpa & Grandma Anderson

I knew both of my dad’s, dad’s parents (Rom & Bertha Pearl Anderson). We visited them many times and I remember my dad telling me each time that this might be the last time we would ever see them alive. The fact that I remember hearing this more than once testifies to their longevity. It also tells me that the sadness I felt cut pretty deep. Many of our memories that stick do so because they are attached to strong emotion. This photo is just how I remember them. I even remember being that wallpaper, which struck me because of its “oldness”. Everything in their house seemed so old. It even smelled old. My great-grandfather liked to put me on his knee and tell me bear (pronounced “bar”) stories. His voice was airy and soft and he had a gentle laugh that I liked.

Hymns

My great grandmother was impressed with my singing hymns when we visited. I do not remember this, but my mom tells me it is so. My mom sang hymns a lot when I was little and, being the little musician that I was, I picked them up and sang them too. I still remember most of the standard hymns very well. I suppose it is because of hearing them so much when I was growing up.

Interestingly to me, I do not “treasure” the hymns the way I hear from so many people who grew up in the church. So many times I hear people my age and older wish we sang more of the the old hymns in church today. To my mind, they seem distant and old fashioned. It seems as if I should cherish them and hold them dear since they were clearly such a huge part of my childhood, but they do not. The reason, at least partly is because my musical taste and my love of variety are not met in the old hymns (you don’t get much new and avant-garde with hymns). It could also be that I unconsciously associate hymns with a “by the rules” religion that I attach to my grandparents’ generation… a religious attitude that I find repellant. For whatever reason, the fact is that I loved hymns when I was a youngster but today, I do not prefer them.

I was sharing this dicotomy with a friend the other day and he reminded me of some of the “remakes” of old hymns to a more modern sound. I like very few of them. The ones I like are the ones in which they make interesting harmonic changes instead of merely “changing the beat”. Most of these remake productions lack depth musically speaking. They are merely rock and roll facades on old hymns. It isn’t that I consider what they are doing sacreligious. It is hard for me to imagine that any musical style in and of itself is unpleasing to God. I believe to my core that God is mostly concerned with our hearts.

The Attitude of the Heart

Samuel, in the Bible, says when choosing the next king for Israel, “The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Sam 16:7. This is a principle that I hold very dear. God is more concerned with my heart than my actions. I once knew a man who loved to perform gospel music ( good-ole hillbilly, bluegrass gospel music). He didn’t love Jesus, but he surely loved gospel music. Something about that bothered me. To sing for Jesus when you don’t love Him, just doesn’t make sense to me. I believe that as a musician, I can perform secular music with an attitude of worship to God that is pleasing to him. Likewise, I could sing a hymn with a poor attitude and I do not believe it would be pleasing to God.

Thinking about God’s looking on the heart also reminds me of Jeanie’s and my philosophy of raising children. When our daughters were little, it was very important to us to try to discern the reason they did something wrong. Did they have an attitude of defiance, or was it a childish mistake? Were they truly sorry, or just embarrased that they got caught? Once I was so exasperated with Danae that I shouted at her. I said, “Why don’t you stop acting like a three year old?” This broke the spell for me long enough to laugh at myself… because she was three years old at the time.

Way over here at the other end of the parenting continuum, I have also asked my daughters many times to judge me by my motives more than my actions. As a parent there are many times that I have just not known what to do or say. I know what I want, but I don’t know how to get it. I have made some real hum-dingers of mistakes with my words. Hurt feelings, miscommunications. I am blessed that my family is so forgiving.

A Prayer Request

I have had a cold for the last week and a half that has wiped me out. Just sitting up and writing for a while is draining all my energy. Please pray that I will recover quickly. I am sick and tired of feeling sick and tired… if you know what I mean.

God, memories, reflection, spirituality

Beginning

Everything is spiritual… so how can one write about their spiritual journey without writing about everything? My purpose in this series is to explore what I believe about God and why I believe it to be true. It will be a very personal journey. My purpose is not to say that I am right and why, but to say, “This is who I am.” Like everything I write on this blog, my purpose ultimately is for my friends and family, to know me better. The unexpected gem for me is how much I learn about myself in the process. If it is encouraging to others, so much the better.

I expect it will be mostly chronological, but not completely. As I get into some particular thread of thought, I may chase it through time. You will undoubtedly meet a few people who helped to shape my spiritual thought from Mom and Dad to my own children, from my Sunday School teachers and Youth Leader to a few very influential pastors and friends. Much of my journey has been shaped by trying to please others. A desire to please others is good, but it is also flawed. The simple fact is that I cannot make anyone happy. I can do acts of kindness, but whether the recipient truly receives them is not my choice. Whether it is enough to make a difference is not my choice. I hope that in the process of exposing the unhealthy addiction to making others happy, I can be freed to explore my own heart deeper… and continue doing acts of kindness, but with no expectations.

Before the Beginning

At least, before my beginning… It occurs to me that as a chronological journey, I should tell what I know about the spiritual journeys of my ancestors. It isn’t much…

I know that my Dad’s family was from West Virginia. He was born and raised in an area on the Kanawha River nine miles from its intersection with the Ohio. The area was called “Nine Mile”. His father’s family (Anderson) had bounced all around West Virginia and even into Kentuky and Tennessee having children as they went. They made a living by building or fixing up a house then living in it a while, selling it and moving on. When they arrived at Nine Mile, they stayed to have several children. My guess is that the nomadic lifestyle was a bit much with a lot of children. No matter why they chose to stay, they took up farming and became part of the Nine Mile community. They attended church at Pine Grove Church, which is now gone. There is still a cemetery there where many of my ancestors are buried (none of them are Andersons though). Pine Grove Church was a Methodist church, I believe.

Another family in the Nine Mile area who also attended Pine Grove Church were the Lewises. Bernice Lewis was my grandmother. Her father, Miles Clement Lewis, was a school teacher and a devout Christian. He spoke in church on at least one occasion, for which I have published his notes here. Bernice Lewis and Preston Anderson met at Pine Grove Church where both of their families attended services. They told me about going to social events there for dates. Anyway, that’s not the point of this entry. The ancestors I spoke of were from the Lewis side of my grandmother’s family.

They married and made a life for themselves very close by that area. For their whole life, they were members of the United Methodist Church. They believed in God and raised their two sons in the church. Their younger son, my uncle, is a Christian pastor and a great mentor to me. He comments frequently on my blog. Their older son is my father and also a great influence in my life. He has occasionally left his mark here too.

My mother’s family came from Alabama. I believe they were Baptists, but I don’t know much about that. Her parents moved to Charleston, SC when she was a young teenager. Her father became a machinist in the Charleston Naval Ship Yard. They attended Charleston Heights Baptist Church, which was very near the Naval Base (that little fact will become important soon).

My dad joined the Navy when he graduated high-school. He had high hopes of attending the Navy School of Music. He had passed the entrance audition and was well on his way when life took a different turn for him. In his physical exam, they determined that he didn’t have enough teeth to be a navy musician. I can only imagine how dissapointing that must have been. The Navy sent dad (of course he wasn’t my dad yet) to Charleston. While there, he went to Charleston Heights Baptist Church to worship. Guess who he met there… yep. He and my mom were married about a year later.

Mom and Dad took my brother, Ken, and me to church in the Baptist church as long back as I can remember. Some of my very early memories were of my dad directing the music at Highland Creek Baptist Church in Hanahan, SC. I remember singing from the hymnals and feeling embarrased when one of the ladies would look at me and smile with that “isn’t he cute” smile. When my mom was recovering from having my brother, she tells me that I would go to church with my dad and I would sit on the front pew very still and good while he directed the singing. Then he would come sit down with me for the rest of the service. People would just rave about how good I was. I liked that attention and I’m sure it had a big impact on my being “good”.

So there you have it. It’s a beginning… not an earth shaking beginning, but it is the one I have. Next time, I’ll talk a little more about my childhood experience in church, what I remember of it and move into the teen years. Until then…

God, memories, reflection, spirituality

Thoughts on Martin Luther King Jr. Day…

• I was ten years old when Martin was assasinated. I do not remember ever having heard of him, which was not unusual given the fact that we didn’t talk about world events in my home. It wasn’t that world events were taboo, my parents just didn’t discuss it. I feel sad that he met such a tragic end.
• Being a white guy from the south, I grew up immersed in a paradigm that thought of people like King as trouble-makers. He was a trouble maker. Sometimes we need trouble-makers to stir us out of our complacency or worse, our bigotry. It disturbs me that we need to be shaken up because we ought to be able to examine ourselves and make the changes that result from that examination. Alas, people aren’t very good at self-examination. I am thankful for the courage of Martin and others who risked everything to make things better.
• Our garbage pickup is delayed one day this week because of the holiday. Jeanie already heard one person make a smart-assed comment about how “they” have to have this day off, don’t they? Will we ever get past having an us and a them? I feel angry and sad that a whole group of people is marginalized because of the color of their skin.
• This morning, I was reading a newspaper article on King’s legacy and I was thinking about my African-American friend, Chris. (Chris is not my token black friend. He is my friend because we relate to one another well. We used to work on the same team at Wachovia. We no longer get to work side by side because of corporate reorganization decisions. I picked up the phone and called Chris.  I told him how I had been thinking about how much of an impact King’s dream and work had on our ability to be friends at all. If it were 40 or 50 years earlier, there is no way we would be working side by side in an office. I celebrate our friendship today!

There you have it. Joy, because I am living Martin’s dream and sadness because it is so far from a complete reality. Hope that we will be able to one day truly judge one another by our character and not by our skin color or any of the other differences that divide us. Call me crazy, but I believe that is what Jesus wants.  I believe that only when we truly embrace Him and follow His teaching can we have any hope of true reconciliation. Only when we learn to embrace one another, only when we see the “fingerprint of God” in everone can we experience Martin’s dream. Only when we learn to disagree well can we celebrate our differences as we together celebrate the One who made us all so different! We have so far to go, but I see movement. Movement in my life and the lives of some of my friends.

God help us to embrace You, embrace Your ways, see the world the way You see it. Help us to see Your fingerprint in every person and love them the way You do… the way Jesus showed us.

hope, observations, reflection