March 2012 – The Flatpickin' Pilgrim's Progress

Remembering

This wonderful arrangement was written by our minister of music, Dr. Terre Johnson, after the Enterprise tornado a few years ago that killed several students at the local high school. It has been performed across the country, including the White House. I hope it blesses you today. There is hope.

I put it here today as I mourn the third anniversary of the death of my dear friend, Philip Wise, gone far too soon from cancer at age sixty. God be with us all in our sorrows, that they purify and call us to our better selves and to the depths of love.

Rest in peace, my friend.

Farewell, Earl Scruggs, and Thank You

Earl Scruggs, “pioneer” as the Huffington Post put it, of the Three-finger Banjo style, has died. For some of us, he has been a mentor and inspiration our whole lives. He was not merely a pioneer, he was the King. And there are many legends on the banjo–Bela Fleck, Ralph Stanley, Jens Kruger, Don Reno, J. D. Crowe, and many greats. But no one like Earl.

As a displaced North Carolina boy moving around the country, my Dad kept me connected to music. He had a Silvertone electric guitar from Sears and a Harmony archtop acoustic guitar. The electric would shock you if you played in bare feet on the garage floor so I tended to play the acoustic. I didn’t know much about Earl Scruggs, but I kept running into him over the years.

When we moved to Irving, Texas in the late Sixties, I learned to play very slow rhythm guitar to a very slow “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” and “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” (LISTEN) with my seventh grade friend, Brad Phillips, who was the odd combination of a banjo playing Episcopalian. Continue reading Farewell, Earl Scruggs, and Thank You

Coming and Going: Spring Break as Holy Hiatus

There’s a time to stay, and a time to go

This week has been Spring Break week for us—others are about to have theirs. For preachers in churches of any size, it is a thrilling time, a high holy day, whether you leave or stay.

Holidays for ministers always include times when large hordes of our parishioners go somewhere else and we stay behind in quiet offices and can only pray for them until they return. Or, in occasional cases, along with the ancient eastern prayer, “Lord, have mercy,” we toss a few prayers from Jackson Browne, “Why don’t you stay…just a little bit longer…” Continue reading Coming and Going: Spring Break as Holy Hiatus

The Best Time to Give

Life-giving leadership is not being in control so much as persuasion of others to offer their best selves to that which matters the most.

I got an email from former classmate, Vicki Butler, now in the Advancement Office of my old college, Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee. She was in town and wanted to visit with us. I do this in my work as a Pastor, so I know that institutions need money. I have moved from being a disdainful idealist as a teen to a reluctant fundraiser to a committed realist.

So my wife Vickie and I met Vickie in the lobby of her hotel. She told us what Carson-Newman College is facing and how they hoped alumni would help out. I was preparing my protests: (“Do you know how much I gave last year? The TaxCut preparer always flags my giving. Americans don’t give this much!”) But our conversation moved on to how things are going, how the school has adjusted to hard times, and to what a great mission it has.

We were at Carson Newman from 1972-1976. Vickie and I married early—Christmas of our sophomore year. I was 19, she 18, and in love. That this did not pay bills had not yet occurred to us. We lived in the little house right behind the infirmary in 1973 Continue reading The Best Time to Give

Tax Help for the Creatively Impaired

It’s Spring Break. The Church people with the means and the houses are skiing and walking on the beach. I’m working and doing taxes in my spare time. Tax time is like judgment day. All the whinin’ in the world ain’t going to make it anything other than what it was. So, get to it, son. But the mind can’t help excusing. So, here are some of my inside thoughts, just for you, in case you need them at the audit or while working on your tax program or separating receipts. Continue reading Tax Help for the Creatively Impaired