thoughts on the news of the day: home

hmmm…..

            Had to say goodbye yesterday to my favorite daughter (who happens to be my only daughter) after a great week in Wimberley, TX in the Texas Hill Country.  It’s terrain is much like the Ozarks – but with cedar bush-like trees instead of our real ones.  Oh, and we have real mountains and theirs are pretty much just tall hills.  So I guess it’s not really like the Ozarks at all, but somehow I have always felt at home there.

            Home is where your Mom is.  That’s kind of how it is if you have lived in many different locations throughout your childhood. Being a pastor has taken me and my daughter to many different locations throughout Texas and Oklahoma, so it’s hard to pinpoint “home”.  I used to think of “home” as Tulsa.  I grew up there and lived in the same house growing up until I left home after college to move to Dallas.  My Dad still lives in that same home.

            But since my daughter had a different experience, living in many different locations, home means her comfortable Austin stone house in the Hill country, complete with 2 car garage, fenced yard and a sweet doggie in the living room.  So maybe “home” is where your stuff is.  Maybe home is where you park yourself at night, where you lay your head.

            I like the saying “home is where your heart is” --  which means, I guess, that “home” is a state of mind. It’s a place that means security, love, protection and safety. And that can mean anywhere.  So my prayer today is that you find yourself “at home”  wherever you are ….

            hmmm…..

thoughts on the news of the day: manners

hmmm…..

            There’s an article on the internet today that tells the story of a mother-in-law who complains about her future daughter-in law bad manners.  Not just to her friends – but as it turns out to the whole planet.  She didn’t start out with that in mind.  She wrote a simple email to her son’s intended which she titled “Your lack of manners”.  The email was meant for the bride-to-be only. But it went viral when the recipient of the email decided that the only way to get even with the monster-in-law was to forward the email to all of her friends…who sent it to their friends .. who sent it to their friends … you get the idea.

            The author of the email was actually quite eloquent in her criticism; she wrote things like:

When you are a guest in another's house, you do not declare what you will and will not eat - unless you are positively allergic to something.

You do not remark that you do not have enough food.

You do not start before everyone else.

You do not take additional helpings without being invited to by your host.

When a guest in another's house, you do not lie in bed until late morning in households that rise early - you fall in line with house norms.

            These are all good points, but the immediate thought that comes to mind is how brash and unmannerly the comments themselves were.  Seems to me that the mother-in-law and her new daughter both suffer from the same malady: bad manners.

            And with that, only one question remains: Can this marriage be saved?

            hmmm…..

thoughts on the news of the day: fireworks

hmmm…..

            It’s hard to bring up the Fourth of July without thinking of fireworks; and it’s even harder to mention the word fireworks without thinking of Katy’s Perry’s hit song, “Firework”.  It is an anthem these days for those who feel downtrodden and without hope – that would be just about all of us.  The economy is in the dumps; it’s hotter than the hinges of hell and for kids in school summer is already almost half over. 

            Even though it was released last October, the song has maintained a popularity that will no doubt grow over this Fourth of July weekend.  The words are poetic and prophetic, “You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine.  Just own the night like the 4^th of July.”  Jesus talked about letting our light shine, too.  “You are the light of the world,” he said over 2000 years ago.  So Perry’s ideas are not new --  but they have reached a generation hungry for hope.  I wonder how she would feel about being compared to Jesus; humbled, I would guess ….

            Bright fireworks may not light up your sky this 4^th.  I am visiting my daughter in the Texas hill country and even though there are rodeos, market days and other special festivities this weekend, there won’t be any fireworks lighting up the sky.  The threat of fire is just too great.  For the people here, the fireworks will have to be the light inside them.

            And I pray that the light you shine today and everyday will be brighter than any fireworks show on any holiday.

            hmmm…..

thoughts on the news of the day: feathers

hmmm…..

            Where I come from, fly fishing rules.  The fresh water rivers and streams of the Ozarks in northern Arkansas are filled with brown trout hungry to gobble up the hand tied feathered flies that fishermen create.  Making flies for fishing is an art and takes painstaking work and patience.  Knots have to be tied just so to in order to maintain a hold on slippery lines and soaking wet water.  It can take hours to choose just the right combination of feathers, hooks and line and then attach them so they have a natural look. 

            Feathers are at a premium.  The fly fisher has to find just the right one, with just the right flexibility and color to attract and trick the fish into thinking it is the real thing.  Like I said, it’s an art.

            But feathers are popular for other things these days.  Fashion forward thinking gals are attaching them to their hair.  They are bonded or clipped to tresses and create a natural and decorative look.  So while fisher folk have competed for years for the top spot on the river, they now have to compete for the feathers to finish their flies.   Beauty salons have inundated the feather distributors with orders and a shortage now exists for hairdressers and fly fishers. 

            Decorative feathers for hair …. Brings new meaning to the phrase, “I’ll Fly Away”!

            hmmm…..

thoughts on the news of the day: camping

hmmm…..

            Every summer I get nostalgic for those wonderful weekends when my parents would pack us up and head out for camping on the lake. Before Dad got home from work, my brothers and sisters and I would help Mom gather quilts and pillows, towels and pots and pans to prepare for the big lift off.  Usually on Friday afternoon, Mom would cook fried chicken, potato salad and coleslaw.  And she topped it off with a yummy chocolate sheet cake with cocoa fudge frosting.  She had prepared a feast!

            Dad usually got home from work early on Fridays and then finished packing up our old wooden boat with fishing poles, water skies and life jackets.  Then we were off!  There were beautiful lakes everywhere in Eastern Oklahoma and we visited them all.  Our favorites were the ones with shady spots with picnic tables where we could set up camp.  There were even a few sandy beaches among the rocky terrain of the manmade lakes.        

            If we were lucky and it was a long weekend, we might travel to western Arkansas where my grandparents lived.  Lovely creeks and rivers as well as a few beautiful lake spots were waiting for us and we were always ready for their cool refreshment.

            Nowadays, most folks who go “camping” have big R.V’s or fifth wheels with air conditioning and satellite television.  No doubt internet and cell phones make it “just like home”.  But staying cooped up in a big truck trailer is not my idea of rest and relaxation.  I long for the fireflies and starry nights of my childhood.  Probably I am forgetting about the mosquitoes, the sun burn and the rocky beds at night, but a summer of camping with my family will always be the “good old days” to me.

            hmmm…..

thoughts on the news of the day: clerics

hmmm…..

            Today a reader of my blog asked me to write more about how my brother and I became clerics.  I am not sure about the idea that we would be clerics …..  I have been called many things before but not a “cleric”.  Technically, the reader is correct, though because a cleric is a member of the clergy and we both have been ordained.  My brother is a Catholic priest living in France and I am a Presbyterian minister living in Arkansas.

            I am convinced that my grandmother is to blame for our professions.  When we were growing up, the pope told her to pray for vocations and being a good Catholic, no doubt she prayed that my brothers and sisters and I would become priests and nuns.  Every night as she lay down to go to sleep, her rosary beads joined her, and the mantra of the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be gave her a restful sleep.  She probably would have been surprised to find out that I had not stayed Catholic – but I am sure she would understand. 

            When I became an ordained Minister of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church, my mother, also a devout Roman Catholic, was continually asked how and why I became a Presbyterian minister and not a Catholic one.  And she would reply, “Well… they don’t ordain women in the Catholic church!”   I think it was her way of saying that she was proud of her daughter, even though I had chosen another faith.

            Becoming a cleric is truly a calling.  God has called my brother and I to completely different forms of service and I believe that my grandma and my mom smile down from heaven on both of us.  After all, they know that their prayer was answered.

            hmmm…..

thoughts on the news of the day: robyn ludwick

hmmm…..

            Heard of Robyn Ludwick?  She is a singer song writer from the Texas Hill Country and I went to a mini-concert where she sang this weekend.  Well… it wasn’t exactly a concert … it was Robyn singing a couple of songs with two crazy girls (my daughter and her friend Cathy) singing backup from a Karaoke machine on the patio of a store front in Wimberley, TX.  Her songs are brilliant and one of my favorites is “Can’t Go Back No More.”  It tells the story of her childhood and a mother who was the “casualty of beauty and sin” – if you get her drift ….

            Of course, she is taking her cue from Thomas Wolfe who long ago wrote:

            "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing's sake, back home to aestheticism, to one's youthful idea of 'the artist' and the all-sufficiency of 'art' and 'beauty' and 'love,' back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage in Bermude, away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time--back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."

            You know, we want to go back, but it’s never the same; and probably, truth be told, we wouldn’t want it to be the same anyway.  We want it to be different this time.  We want things to be kinder, gentler, stronger, prettier and safer.  But they generally are not. 

            Robyn sings, “there’s a new way of  dancin’ ‘cross the hard wood floor” and she’s right.  Things change … “You Can’t Go Back No More.”

            hmmm…..