family – The Flatpickin' Pilgrim's Progress

If You Had A Father….

Posted on June 18, 2017June 18, 2017 by Gary Furr

If You Had a Father…

…and you did, if you’re still standing in this world. Mine is a good man, who worked hard, because that’s what a real man did for his family. He had one little boy, then another, and a third, and finally my mother got an ally, my baby sis. Dad was a basketball star, a talented carpenter and cabinetmaker who built our first house with his own hands in his “spare time.” If he was quiet, he was affectionate and a mountain to aspire to as a child.

We wanted to be like him. We were in awe of him, And he was there, always there. Even if he traveled, he always came back. Not all Fathers live up to that, but if they don’t, they aren’t really Fathers. The fathers God gives always show up, hang in there, are there for you. Yours might have been Uncle Joe or Grandpa or somebody you weren’t related to, but they always came back.

My wife had a father like that—engineer, Dale Carnegie graduate, never came out of the room without being dressed for work at the mill. No complaining, no excuses. If it’s hard, overcome it. If it’s broken, fix it. If you can pay for it, it isn’t a problem. We’re in this world to do for others, not ourselves.

My father in law, Forrest Johnson, with my two oldest girls.

These two men, along with a pretty long list of men who “fathered” me in sports, church and school, grandfathers and neighbors and Sunday School teachers, fathered me. “Fathering,” to me is this: you take responsibility for the people you love. You protect the weak. You help and defend the helpless. You stand up for what’s right and mend what’s wrong.

Fathering means helping little boys and girls know what a good man acts like. It means sacrificing, working, helping and coaching. It means helping them grow up when you’re still growing up yourself. It means doing whatever you can for your children because they come first.

If you had a father, and if you’re functional, you did. Even if that father wasn’t your biological Dad. If a man adopted you, looked Continue reading “If You Had A Father….” →

Lessons From the Waiting Room

Posted on January 25, 2017January 25, 2017 by Gary Furr

This morning, I pulled on my clothes at 5:30 am and headed to the hospital to be with a member going into surgery. It took me back to August of 2001 when my “baby” sis had breast cancer. I wasn’t pastor that day. I drove to Atlanta, took the day off, and went to be with my family as she fought the toughest fight of her (maybe any of our family). She is 12 years my junior, and I left home for college when Amy was only 5. I adored her more like a doting uncle than a brother, although as adults I have loved her as a peer. She is smart, lovely, and, it turned out, a fighter. She went through it, survived, and is going strong. Still, I went back to that day, years ago, when I sat, helpless, in a waiting room, unsure what the coming hours would bring. It taught me some lessons.

Wednesdays are usually the busiest day of the week for me—surpassing even Sundays. Last week, though, Vickie and I spent the day where so many of our members find themselves at one time or another—in the waiting room. As we awaited my sister’s surgery, I found myself in the unusual position of being the recipient of visits.

Photo from flicker by timmielee5359/Kim Schuster

As a family we had gone through all the decisions, phone calls, prayers and anxiety that patient families do. Now the day had come and we had to—wait. Here are some of the lessons I learned for just one day.

The greatest enemy in the waiting room is boredom. You talk, laugh, tell stories, and every now and then find yourselves staring at each other, waiting for something else to say. Long periods of blanking it out interspersed with imagining “in there.”
There are so many feelings for just one day. Fear stops by in the morning and pops back in when you least expect it. Hope, love, frustration, weariness, impatience and irritation. They all pass through. All you can do is sit while they fly through your brain.
People have truly different ideas of what the phrase “Dress appropriately” means.
Family, friends and church members are a comfort. You don’t have to say much. Just seeing a face and knowing a connection does something for you. All day long people I hadn’t met from her church came by and said, over and over in a dozen ways, “We care about you.” It was truly humbling. Many friends came by, and two graciously gave us over an hour of their busy lives to sit and help us laugh the time away. Three church staff came to comfort us, and they did.
It is neat to just be “her older brother from out of town.” No tie.
Hospital food must come from a single warehouse. I had the same thing I ate the last time I had a hospital meal. Some of the vegetables seemed to be prepared to drum up extra business for the gastro unit. (Editor’s note: this is better now)
Time is timeless in a hospital. That explains why nothing starts when it is scheduled and why things go on longer than you were told (reminded me of the little Catholic boy who visited a Baptist church with his buddy for the first time. “What does it mean when the preacher takes off his watch and lays it on the pulpit?” he asked. “Don’t mean anything at all,” sniffed the Baptist boy.) It is why surgery feels like eternity when you are waiting on it.
You overhear some really interesting conversations. Over in the corner a man from Jamaica recited the entire genealogy of his family to two kinswomen, loud enough for us to hear intermittently. “No, no, no, you’re Uncle Elias, see, he was my brother’s cousin…” That went on for two hours, forming a Caribbean Book of Chronicles until they finally, I think, got back to the present day. I believe the conversation only started with a single question about a nephew. “Sorry I asked,” I imagined them saying as night fell.
There is plenty of time to think about important things—how much you love the important people in your life, how wonderful the church can be when the chips are down, what really matters in life, and how connected we all are.
There are a lot of people in trouble in this world. People from everywhere. People who wouldn’t say hello to each other on the street smile and ask each other how it’s going.
Thinking about my friends back home praying for us helped. God truly is with us, even in the waiting room.
2017 update: In the waiting room, you are all the same. Democrat, Republican, affluent suburbanite, poor rural family, educated and street smart, old and tired and toddlers rambunctious. We are one in our waiting. Too bad we can’t keep that in us when we go home. The man next to me is worried about his wife, the lady over there and her friend are laughing, someone else praying. If we all hang in there, we’ll get through the day. Wait. Pray. Hope.

Continue reading “Lessons From the Waiting Room” →

A Prayer for Parents and Children

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Gary Furr

Yesterday I listened to an NPR story on the radio in my car about Noel Anaya. According to the piece on their website Anaya

was just a year old, he and his five brothers and sisters were placed in the California foster care system. He has spent nearly all of his life in that system and has just turned 21. In California, that’s the age when people in foster care “age out” of the system and lose the benefits the system provides. That process becomes official at a final court hearing. Anaya, along with Youth Radio, got rare permission to record the proceeding, where he read a letter he wrote about his experience in the foster care system. (to listen to his letter, go to NPR

While the news is filled with hearings and floods, refugees and wars, this touched me. This young man now launches, out on his own, still searching for a family to love him. Today, I was reflecting on families in pain, intact and broken, and penned this prayer.

God of night and day, dark and light, Lord over joy and pain,

Holder of nations and blesser of babies, witness of Creation and the fall of a single sparrow,

This day, we are comforted that you see the brokenness of your children,

And the brokenness of our children.

In this moment where the road is uncertain, the way unclear

The fog seems to never end, and the light fades ahead,

The path littered with human pain and the wreckage of sorrow,

Help us to look up from our stumbling,

Into the face of Christ,

Who alone knelt in the night of the Garden and remained awake

Who knows what we suffer, for he himself has suffered,

Who was betrayed by his own, hauled away by conspirators of hate and fear,

Tried by those who loved only their own places of entitlement and safety

And condemned by the ignorant and the powerful alike

To die alone with the burdens of the whole world on Him,

And in that face to hear those blessed words,

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”

But he also looked into the face of his anguished mother

And his beloved disciple and made them into family.

“Mother, behold your Son.”

“Son, behold your mother.”

Give us ears attuned to the cries of the ignored,

Eyes to see the invisible ones,

Hearts to understand and welcome the lonely.

Show us the way,

Hold our hands,

Sturdy our resolve,

Settle our doubts,

And empower us to trust that we can keep walking forward

In our own Gethsemanes and Calvaries of the soul.

Amen.

“Sixty is Just Alright”

Posted on August 29, 2014December 15, 2014 by Gary Furr

It’s a good time to polish up friendships, love family, forgive, thank and bless.

So I turned sixty, and for some reason the people around me celebrated for a week. I know with Ebola, the Ukraine, ISIS and Israel causing the end-of-the-worlders to crank out their book my firthday isn’t a big deal globally, but it has been to me.

Over the last five years I have laid to rest a close friend, a father-in-law (who was a second father to me) and a mentor and colleague I have known for 21 years and was my predecessor. The Shadow has been around lately. I have grandchildren. There is likely more life behind than before me years-wise. You know—morbidity hangs around. Joints ache a little more.

You’ve poured a lot of concrete by sixty. Decisions, patterns, character, and events harden into tracks out of which it’s hard to escape. On the other hand, those same tracks give a certain comfort and stability to life. It’s hard to break them up.

The upside has surprised me, though. A certain amount of “I just don’t care about that anymore.” I don’t care very much at all what others think about what I think. I don’t need to correct them all Continue reading ““Sixty is Just Alright”” →

Daniel Murphy, Sports and Babies

Posted on April 4, 2014April 9, 2014 by Gary Furr

“J——, this is your pastor. Now having heard your

confession on the air, will you stop by to receive

penance instructions about being a better father and husband?”

It’s just too easy to weigh in on the comments of Mike Francesca and Boomer Esiason about Daniel Murphy’s decision to take two days to be present for his baby’s birth.

Daniel Murphy, new Dad, plays second base for the New York Mets.

Of course, we live in a time of sportainment. More and more, as politics becomes hopelessly unresponsive and global problems impinge on every part fo life, sportainment is the way we escape–from real life. Except that ultimately isn’t an option.

One day I listened in on sports radio–I admit, it’s a guilty pleasure on the way to the hospital or a meeting, in part because I will always laugh at something pretentious, silly or absurd. And much of what is discussed is fun to consider. A husband caller complained to Paul Finebaum about a player’s tweet after Alabama lost its bowl game that “it’s only a game.” His argument was that it isn’t. He went on, passionately, to say that though he was a member of a church and loved his family, that during the football season he spends more time and money on the sport than on his wife and kids or his church.

My jaw dropped since I am a minister, but why should it? I like to imagine that I might follow up crazy calls. What would I say? Disguised voice: “This is Dr. Hapner Wogwillow. I am a marriage therapist. I treat his wife for depression and recognized him in the call. He needs to go home. She just left for good with the kids. I will tell him their names if he’ll call me. BR-549.” My other idea was to, “J——, this is your pastor. Now having heard your confession, will you stop by to receive penance instructions about being a better father and husband?” Continue reading “Daniel Murphy, Sports and Babies” →

Asking Good Questions: A Sermon for a Young Parent

Posted on January 20, 2014January 20, 2014 by Gary Furr

^{I’d want them to know my love was so strong that no matter how bad it gets,}

^{how far down they go, who leaves them and abandons them, I won’t.}

¹³Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” ¹⁴And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” ¹⁵He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” ¹⁶Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” ²⁰Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Looking at a newborn is a pretty overwhelming reality. It is the age we are in. Vickie and I were sitting outside in the

waiting room, getting more anxious by the moment for our daughter and her husband and a little one. Being born is

dangerous, not guaranteed, and full of anxiety, no matter what reassurances we are given. In fact, the greatest advice from the OB to our daughter the last two months was, “Don’t Google.”

We don’t know how to know what to do with all the information. In the old days, they took the mother, the father paced outside, and the baby arrived. It was the first inkling of what you had—boy or girl. No paint colors until you knew.

Now, you have more knowledge about this infant than the NSA has of your cell phone. But what to make of it? Truth is, there is still a place where we cannot intrude with knowledge, and it is the miracle of life itself.

But don’t get me wrong. It’s great to know. And here’s how we got the word. We’re sitting there, grandparents, waiting, worrying, praying. Getting texts from our kids and friends—praying for you, hoping, let us know, that sort of thing. And we occupy ourselves by answering these as we wait. Naturally, we are watching the other occupants of the room. A waiting room is pure democracy. Rich, poor, well-dressed and barely dressed, country and city, every Continue reading “Asking Good Questions: A Sermon for a Young Parent” →

Standing Next to Death

Posted on February 5, 2013February 5, 2013 by Gary Furr

I have not posted here in a month. I took the month of January off in a period of “lying fallow,” if someone with as many hats as I wear can ever really “lie fallow.” Truth is, though, I ;have been learning to stop now and then, reassess and see how we’re all doing.

Mostly in this month I’ve been working hard. The church where I am Pastor had six deaths in about three weeks. All were friends (and that is becoming the most common description of who I funeralize now, since my 20^th anniversary is approaching) and two near my age were among that group. One, Steve Blackwelder, was an ex-Marine. I mean a REAL Marine, a tunnel rat in Viet Nam who saw death up close and personal. Yet in ;the life after that, while he suffered and struggled in many ways, he lived out kindness and care for others in every way that he could. He collected Beatles ties, and all the pallbearers and my associate Pastor wore one of Steve’s to the service. The next Sunday, I told the church about Steve coming over when I moved in in 1993 to fix some plumbing issues and then setting my backyard on fire by accident when he flicked a finished—but not extinguished—cigarette through the fence. We put it out, and now it was a laugh for us.

Then there was Bob Daily. He was a former deacon, Sunday School teacher, you name it volunteer, the guy who went to welcome anyone to the church with a cold call. He was my insurance agent and I ate breakfast with him weekly for 20 years, so pardon me for feeling a little vulnerable at the moment. Continue reading “Standing Next to Death” →