A week ago, we were driving home from a week in Memphis, Tennessee (actually, Germantown, a nice suburb of Memphis).  Our return trip had been delayed a day by Killer Storm Landon (I don’t know why every winter storm needs a name!).  Landon was not the killer he was advertised to be, but still it was wise not to travel on Thursday when Memphis was covered in ice and a foot of still-falling snow was piling up on the ground in the north.

Plans are made to be changed.  Scripture suggests that all our plans should be made subject to the possibility that God will change them.  James cautions us, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’”

If the Lord wills.

We did not need divine revelation to know that this past Friday would be a better travel day than Thursday.  Accuweather made things clear enough.  Friday it would be.  But we weren’t done changing plans. Continue reading →

This was written nearly a week ago.  The dull and dreary day of the forecast became a blustery blizzard, so we have delayed our return by a day.  Still, nothing dull and dreary about a four-year old’s birthday week.  It was a great time, and we should be home tonight.

If all has goes well, Becky and I will have returned home yesterday from a week in Memphis, Tennessee, celebrating our grandson Theo’s fourth birthday. There was to be a dinosaur theme for the party. What could be better!

In anticipation of the trip, I checked the forecast for yesterday’s weather before we left home.  At that point it told us to expect chilly temperatures and the possibility of snow when we arrived home.  But as you can see in the screen shot above, it went on to tell us it would be a dull and dreary day.

I wish the weather forecasters would stick to the weather.  How can any day be dull and dreary when you’re remembering a dinosaur-themed fourth birthday party?

Here’s to joy and thanksgiving in life!

If you were to tell me you may have left your Bible in the narthex or maybe in the chancel, I’d know exactly where to go to help you find it. If I were Anglican, I’d even know where to look if you thought you’d left it in the rectory. 
 
A friend from a non-denominational church background once joined our church and for months he’d make jokes about our Presbyterian vocabulary, insisting on calling the narthex a lobby and the chancel a platform.  He’s still a member of the church and my guess is that he now knows exactly where to look when someone tells him they may have left their Bible in the narthex or maybe in the chancel.  And he doesn’t make fun of our odd words.
 
Soon enough we learn the language spoken around us, whether the vocabulary has to do with baseball or politics, knitting or woodworking. Continue reading →

I was at the dentist’s office the other day, and as they were doing whatever it was they were doing, the youngish dentist and even younger assistant were talking about Lucille Ball. The assistant had just seen the new Nicole Kidman movie about Lucy and the dentist was interested in knowing what she thought of it. The conversation continued and the dentist talked about how he has seen some old “I Love Lucy” and “Lucy Show” reruns on Nick at Nite and the assistant said she had a DVD collection of the shows and that, well, she loves Lucy. When no one’s fingers or tools were in my mouth, they asked me if I had ever seen much of Lucille Ball. “I’m old enough to remember watching ‘I Love Lucy,’ first run and in black and white,” I said. Wikipedia tells us the series ran through 1960, so it is altogether likely that my memory serves me correctly.

I am old enough to be my dentist and his assistant’s father. And, yes, I am old enough to remember “I Love Lucy,” first run and in black and white. Continue reading →

Grandma was the matriarch of a large multi-generational and chaotic family. At any given time, at least three generations of the family lived in her house just down the street from the church. The youngest members of the family would sometimes come to our vacation Bible school or show up at Sunday School once in a while. Babies were born into the family and the whole family would come to worship for their baptisms. The baptisms were important to Grandma, and I took that to indicate at least a mustard seed of faith in her life. “We should err on the side of grace,” I would say in defending our decision to bring the babies to the font. Whether we made the right decision is another question.

Grandma suffered multiple comorbidities as we now put it. For the last several years of her life a small oxygen tank followed her wherever she went. I remember her sitting on the front stoop of her frame house with its peeling paint and smoking her cigarettes. I think she had closed the valve on her oxygen tank, but still not a good idea.

Grandma’s death came after a week or so in the hospital and I thought everyone understood that she would not return to her house just down the street from the church. Continue reading →