Location, real estate people tell us, is everything. To be DIS-located is, then, a threat. When things come apart, our energies naturally go toward “relocating” or returning to where we were as soon as possible. A year ago, when the … Continue reading Returning
I have been AWOE (Absent without explanation) these past few months. No need to explain much these days, of course, given a pandemic, a failed coup, and a world in disconnect, but in addition, I am in the process of retiring from my fulltime job as a pastor for the Vestavia Hills Baptist Church. I expect I will do a lot more retrospect in the days ahead, but I am wrapping up this week. This evening, given my love for all things Garrison Keillor and my penchant for funny stories, my celebration committee is having an event they have titled … Continue reading A Gary Home Companion
There is plenty of good work to do—beyond the ministries of the church itself, we have a world of opportunity. Children and schools are important to all of us. Hungry children need food. Frightened children need reassurance, even if it’s not certain out there. Lonely children need connection. The technology that was supposed to make life easy now is only our connection to get things done. Everything is a lot harder. Here’s the problem now: the pandemic is going to stretch well into next year, from everything I can read. No vaccine is coming next week. I can see businesses … Continue reading Diligence not Goosebumps
Sticky post
It’s not social distancing. It’s just “safe distance.” One of our older ladies’ classes met with me Tuesday morning in two shifts to laugh, hear from each other, and say “See you later” to a member, Martha, who is moving to be close to her daughter and grandchildren. We ended each time with a short memorial time for Betty, a member whose whose funeral was last week. Our friendships and fellowship are alive and well. Instead of whining about what we can’t do, put your thinking caps on and figure out what you CAN do. All the rest is just … Continue reading Safe Distances
Songs and poems about mothers and mothering are an ocean of sentiment stretching back through human history. The bond of mother and child is a pillar of human survival and civilization and a profound mystery to those of us who are male. If we’re even slightly mature, we are awed by women and the impact they have on our children (if it was good).
I got curious about this subject in popular music, most especially in the Southern roots music in which I grew up and live in. Mother’s Day was a big deal growing up, with churches somehow developing the tradition to give out roses to mothers in the congregation. It was a once per year tip of the hat to women without whom church would not exist at all. They brought the children, raised them, prayed for them and furnished virtually all the volunteer hours, particularly in the old days before women were paid for anything they did. And we didn’t ordain women then (which is, in reality, “recognizing,” isn’t it, and blessing?).
It was an odd tradition, this giving of the roses. It usually was various categories to award—the youngest mother, the oldest mother, the most children, and so on. In a small church, it would be the same ladies every year, sparking rumbles of disregarded people in the center, without a category. Churches later found more democratic ways—giving some little item out to all. In the churches with screens and fog machines, I have not a clue what they do now.
Still, in the old days, “mother” was a highly revered and honored position. Kids knew it.
A mother gave you life, got you to ball practice and without whom you might actually starve to death in a house. In a society where all is economic (the word economy, ironically, springs from the Greek word oikos, house or household). An economy is an environment of values, work, production and relationships, not, as we have perverted it, “bling.” It exists only for the Continue reading “Mothers in Old Time Songs”
The Flatpickin' Pilgrim's Progress 