This is a pretty serious moment in our country and the world, for so many reasons. Most of us are trying to go on with life, attend to the people we love, and do our work. Chaos is transmitted through social media, television and the news day by day. My friend, Roger Bates, sent this to me the other day, related to something else. They are the words of a dying great-grandfather who had served as a leader in our state. They are words worth sharing.
I am sending below a quote from my friend and former Congressman Jack Edwards that I thought you might appreciate. Jack was asked shortly before his death a few weeks ago what he desired for his great grandchildren. His response was:
“My hope is that my great grandchildren will grow up in a country where civility will have been returned to common discourse and to the efforts to solve the country’s problems. My hope is they will be a part of a process of coming together rather than pulling apart. My hope is that they will understand that the real answers are found through compromise and cooperation and not at the extreme edges of human thought.
“That is my hope for the future. This is my hope for the great grandchildren, for the country and for all who exist in it, that we will come back to a time of civility in peace in working together for the good of mankind.” Continue reading “Grandfather Hopes”
testament. Count on that more than any other statement about the Christian gospel. It does not free us to live as we please. Damage comes from our refusal of grace, consequences to our self-destructive alienation. But if the gospels are right, grace can restore a prodigal who had wasted everything, a woman with five marriages, a tax collector who was a traitor to his people, a murderer like the apostle Paul, and a woman caught in utter shame of adultery by a group of lascivious onlookers. It can reclaim even a thief nailed next to Jesus who barely knew his name. And if this is so, then there is hope. 
Then we’d go to the military museum, the Don F. Pratt Memorial Museum. General Don Forrester Pratt (July 12, 1892—June 6, 1944) was the assistant division commander (ADC) of the 101st and was in the lead glider that flew into France that landed behind the lines for the invasion. The plane crashed and General Pratt died of a broken neck. He was the highest-ranking officer killed on D-Day.
members who do something that ends up on the bulletin board. In my present congregation, having been here nearly 26 years, you eventually get a little reflection of the wonderful things your members undertake, and they are many. We have graduated people who became ministers, doctors, attorneys, and we claim eminent Baptist historian and advocate for the poor Dr. Wayne Flynt as a former member who was here in his Samford days. We currently have the Alabama Crimson Tide stadium announcer, Tony Giles, as a member, and in Alabama that accords near divine status for half of the church. One of our oldest members, Bobbye Weaver, was a renowned jazz drummer who played with Lawrence Welk and a host of other eminent people. One of our late members once danced with Betty Grable and worked on the Apollo space program. I could go on. But every church has its luminaries.