New Year's Pondering

"Father, as the old year ends and a new begins, forgive us for the failures of the vanished days,and bless us in days that do not die. Keep us from vain regret, and let us face forward in the light of the best that we have learned. Purge our hearts both of shallow self-confidence and of cowardly fears, so that we may know that without thee we can do nothing but that in thee all things are possible; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
             --Walter Russell Bowie


Chaim Potok the great Jewish writer once said, “I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist, I am a persistantist.” That seems like pretty good advice for a new year.

The optimists are likely to look at everything through rose-colored glasses. The pessimists are liable to see things so dark and despairing that nobody wants to be around them. Many of the situations we face are somewhere between the happy crowd and the gloom and doom brigade.  

 

One of the great Biblical texts cautions us not to grow weary in well-doing. The writer could also have said: do not paint the picture always sunny because that is not reality either. The people I admire most are the persistantists. They don’t let anything stop them. What would have happened if Christopher Columbus had not pleaded for eight years with the Queen of Spain to support his adventure. The Church led the fight in saying the world was flat and that Columbus was crazy. Everybody seemed to agree. But Columbus persisted and helped alter the shape of the world.

 

We all will bring some tough things into this new year. Very few of us are not beset with some kind of a burden or wound that just will not go away. Sometimes it is illness—ours or someone we love. Often it is a personal problem—ours or someone we care deeply about. It could be the heaviness of the world we all live in. Fear seems to lurk around too many corners.

 

Yet there are a great many courageous people that will not give up. Robert Louis Stevenson was ill for many years. Toward the end of his life his wife came in one morning and said, “I suppose you will tell me again that it is a beautiful day.” Stevenson replied, “Yes, my dear. I refuse to let that row of medicine bottles be the circumference of my horizon.” Hopefully many of us may be fortunate enough to face the new year untroubled. But if we bump into some difficult things that seem to have no answers—what will be our response? 

 

When we visited England I became intrigued with how the English people dealt with the terrible trauma of the Second World War. German bombs fell on London for 57 consecutive days. Then after the bombing ceased, the planes came back again and again.   Thousands of lives were lost, whole families and communities were destroyed. It seemed like the end of the world.  All the children from the larger cities were sent to live with strangers in the country because of safety. It was a dark and difficult time for the English people. One of the moving forces in those wartime days was Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Over and over he told his people that the secret of England’s success would be embedded in six words: “Never…never…never…never give up.” After the war ended  Churchill gave his last commencement address. He stood before that graduating class used the words that kept his country going. Three times he said:  “Never quit.” And then he sat down.

 

Who knows what lurks around the corner of this new year?  But if the hard times come, we need not deny them through sunny optimism or drown in a sea of pessimistic despair.  Our challenge is to face whatever comes. We will walk one step at a time. Sometimes we may reach out and grab someone’s hand so we do not stumble. Sometimes we may hold another’s hand so they do not stumble. Let us remember Churchill’s strong challenge. Never give up.

 

 

Years ago James Thurber wrote a tribute to his eccentric editor, Harold Ross of The New Yorker.

 Mr. Thurber said of his friend: "He just kept going like a bullet-torn battle flag and nobody captured his colors and nobody silenced his drums." Persistantists find a way through whatever happens. Not a bad way to move into a new year.

 

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Christmas Eve--A Memory

It’s Christmas Eve and we are moving fast toward the end of this season that I love. I don’t know where my affection for this holiday comes from. Maybe my Mother . We had so little in that tiny four-room house across from the cotton mill. Yet—Christmas was always a big deal. We’d get silver paint—in the era before spray cans—pour the paint into a fly-sprayer and spray all kinds of greenery and berries which would find their way to our mantles. And then we’d get a live tree and my Father would measure it, hack the bottom off so we could get the tree in our house. We would decorate it with whatever we could find. And after we had exhausted our lights and balls we would whip up Lux Soap flakes and drop dollops of them on the tree to look like snow.

The next project which went on for weeks was the cooking.  There was always a Caramel cake, a Coconut cake, and a Lane cake. The first task would be cracking coconuts and digging the coconut out of the hard edge. This would be used in our Coconut and Lane Cakes. And to make sure our Lane cake was good my mother would send the “colored woman” (her term) who worked for us to the liquor store to get the whiskey for the cake. She was instructed to only go after dark so that nobody would know the Lovette’s were buying whiskey—which was flat out against our religion. After all Baptists did not drink. Since my Mother was scared we would run out of sweets she always added a Pecan Pie and a Chocolate pie. Always there would be a fresh ham, a cured ham and a huge hen. There was no turkey in our house. My mother would always say: “You can’t make good dressing with an old turkey.” And so we get the biggest hen we would find and my Mother would always exclaim: “Um, Um ain’t she the fattest thing you ever seen.”

 On the Friday night before Christmas everyone would stream to the Baptist Church. Santa Claus would make an appearance. In the center of the Sanctuary would be a huge Christmas tree and under the tree would be sacks of apples, oranges, nuts and a little candy. This was handed out by the Big Cheese who ran the mill. We sang and sang and finally got our presents and walked home with our sacks.

Finally the big day would arrive and we would get up early, wake our parents up to see what Santa Claus had brought. We always got more than we needed which, looking back now, kept my parents in debt for months and months.

That afternoon after our finest tablecloth had been ironed and best dishes were brought out the table would be laden down with hams, chicken, dressing and real biscuits as big as your fist and dumplings and an assortment of vegetables. It was a feast. All afternoon our neighbors would drop in. Of course they protested, they could not eat another bite—but before they left there was less ham and hen and almost all the dressing would have disappeared. “Just give me a little” they would whisper. And then after they finished they would say, “That was really good. Could I have just a little bit more.” And they would fill up their plates again.

On my desk under the glass is a picture of my mother’s last Christmas. She is sitting on our sofa and she has her packages in her lap, our Christmas tree is behind her and the look on her face is utter delight. This may all be a far cry from Jesus and Mary and Joseph. After all the Preacher had preached his annual sermon always the same: Put Christ back in the commercialized Christmas. And we had already had Christmas pageant held every year in the Mill auditorium. Surely that was enough religion for anybody.

The old book says we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses and those words come alive for me particularly at Christmas. They are all there: Mother and Father and Brother and Uncle Boss and Cousin Carl and black Nancy, a dog or a cat or two and neighbors who lived all around us. And I remember their faces as if yesterday and I also recall the gift of love and celebration they gave us in that tiny little house on First Avenue in Columbus Georgia. Georgia year after wonderful year.  Is it any wonder this seventy-something-year-old still loves the Christmas season?

Christmas is Remembering Time

"On your way to Bethlehem
may you be surprised
by some crazy angel
who has for you
good news
of a great joy
which will come 
to all the people 
and especially to you."
  --Deryl Fleming

High up on our Christmas tree, near the top, if you look closely you may see it. If you don’t squint your eyes and look carefully you’ll probably miss it entirely. I’m talking about the star.

It may be the tiniest ornament on the tree. The little star is probably an inch and a half in diameter. The star was made in the church kitchen by a little girl and her Sunday school teacher forty years ago in Southside Virginia.

 Every year, without fail she breezes into the house with her own two daughters. After lugging in suitcases, pillows and presents she asks the same question year after year. “Where’s the star?” Christmas would not be Christmas without that star. I used to think it was a foolish request hanging on to that old homemade star. But I have changed my mind.

We all need some ties to back there. We need some stack pole of remembering that sends us back, back toward yesterday and the past and our roots. What’s your star? Probably not a paste ornament. What is it that calls you back to what used to be with a tug and a pull that is almost magic? I have a buddy who keeps high on a shelf an old threadbare teddy bear. His Daddy bought it for him at the fair one time. They stood there looking at the wonderful stuffed animals and he pointed and his Daddy shook his head. The little boy burst into tears and snubbed and snubbed. Finally, the Father pointed to the bear, took out his billfold and handed the clerk the money. He has been dead, my friend said for forty years, yet that teddy bear is one of his most precious possessions. I have another friend that kept in his office pinned to his bookcase a pouch of chewing tobacco. He grew up in this little tiny cotton mill village and smoke breaks were few and far between. And so he took up Red Man. The man has written a score of books. He has taught hundreds of students. And he keeps that pouch of chewing tobacco as a reminder of how far he has come and how grateful he is. Several years ago I stopped by to see the old black lady that we would now call a Nanny. She kept my brother and me for years and loved us severely. Finding her tiny apartment, she told me she wanted to show me something. She opened a dresser drawer and pulled out something wrapped in tissue paper. She unfolded the paper and held up this slip. “Miz Ruth give me this slip. She always gave me the nicest presents.” She had never worn it but she kept that gift my long-dead mother had given her. She remembered.

Christmas is a time for stirring memories. Silver Bells. Silent Night. Santa Claus is coming to town. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas. O Come All Ye Faithful. But much, much more. The faces loom up before us. Name and those long dead and fun-filled times from our own crowded pasts. Christmas is a remembering time.

Some hang the symbols of our memories on some Christmas tree. Some pack it away in tissue just because. Some place it carefully in a jewelry box and open it up from time to time and just smile. “Where’s the star?” Good question. Unpack it gently. Hang it high in your own way. And remember. Remember. Remember.  

(This is one of my favorite memories and I have shared it many times. It has appeared in The Birmingham News (AL) and The Greenville News (SC) as well as other places. I use it year after year hoping it will trigger some good memories for you this season.)

Guns--Time To Do Some Serious Thinking

"If people want to go hunting, a single-shot rifle does the job, and that does the job to protect your home, too. If you need more than that, I don't know what to say. I don;'t want to see my kids go to schools that become maximum-security fortresses. That's not the world I want to live in, and that's not the world I want to raise them in."
  --Parent speaking outside the service after Noah DiStephan's funeral in Newtown yesterday.


Most of us have been appalled by the shootings of those 20 children in their school and the six teachers or administrators. There is an outcry that we do something about guns.

A friend of mine wrote just yesterday: "I know we need to do something to control all these guns--but it ain't gonna happen." After all the funerals and the tears have dried, parents will still have to comfort scared children in Newtown--some for years and years. And this Christmas there will be unopened presents under many Christmas trees because of what happened in Newtown. One of the fairest and most sensible article I have read was the piece by Nicholas D. Kristof that appeared in last Sunday's New York Times. I do hope and pray that this terrible incident--which follows a multitude of others--will be dealt with responsibly for a change.

Sometimes politicians and the rest of us must put our personal opinions aside and do something for the human family. Norman Rockwell's portrayal of the Fourth Freedom: the freedom from fear captures this vision beautifully. Now that would be a great Christmas present for us all.

Newtown--Will There Ever Be Another Christmas?

 She looked up from the wrapping paper and bows and stacks of presents on Christmas morning and said: “Will there ever be another Christmas?” She was five years old and knew, deep in her heart, that it would never get better than this.

Little children and adults in Newtown, Connecticut are asking that question. They’ve been to too many funerals this week. They have shuffled to their children’s rooms in the dark nights and heard them crying and scared of nightmares. Some of these parents wonder what will they do with those packages under the tree—their little boy or girl is gone forever. They have cried so much that they don’t have any tears left.

People all over our town are wondering if there will ever be another Christmas. Not only because of those terrible scenes that come from Connecticut. Somebody lost a loved one this year and they dread the thought of Christmas day. Somebody lost a job and this whole festive season has had a hollow ring. Somebody’s marriage is falling apart. Somebody woke up yesterday morning and the house was like all the other days of the year: empty and cold.  Somebody nurses a hangover so severe that they couldn’t get out of bed until the next afternoon. Somebody will not be home from Iraq—her orders were extended. Somebody lies in a hospital bed scared of the future. Somebody finds this season cruel—there is not enough money for the kids’ presents.

Will there ever be another Christmas? We all ask it when tragedy walks down our street and knocks on our door. If you study the old story closely you will know that we have glossed over the dark side of the real Christmas. Herod, the old mad king was consumed with jealousy when he heard of the birth of the Messiah. He ordered every male baby two years and younger killed. Blood ran through the streets that Christmas time as it has run this year in Newtown. We forget the manger was not like our crèches in our homes and churches. The manger was where the cattle were fed and the not-so-holy family had to step around steaming dung as they shivered in that drafty barn on that back street. When the family took Jesus to be circumcised on the eighth day, old watery-eyed Simeon addressed the young mother. He told Mary that this baby’s coming was not all joy. Old Simeon said that a sword would pierce her soul before it was over. Later Joseph, the young father, was so frightened that the baby would be killed that he took his little family and fled to Egypt one dark night.

This was the soil out of which the first Christmas came. Hard days, dark days. Days of trouble and misery. This was the setting of the greatest story ever told. Our trouble is that we have tried to gloss it over with silver bells and endless shopping. But the real Christmas takes us all in—those children in Afghanistan huddled in some corner. They have never known anything but war and destruction and death. It takes in all the brokenness in our lives and those around us.

 Nothing stops the power of Christmas. No pain is so great, no difficulty so cumbersome that we need miss the wonder of these days.  The Christmas story says that the shepherds returned, praising God for all they had seen and heard. As we move closer to Christmas day some of us might find it hard to sing the carols and enter into and the wonder of the season. Yet perhaps we shall find what others have found. That the old book is right after all. There is darkness aplenty—yet at the heart of it all is this incredible light which nothing can ever put out. And that’s why there will always be a Christmas. 

Connecticut Shooting - A Prayer

"When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old
or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

'A voice was heard in Ramah,

  wailing and loud lamentation,

Rachel weeping for her children;

  she refused to be consoled,

because they are no more.'"

   Matthew 2.16-18  

Lord God—We come into your presence bringing with us many things.

We love the lights and the parties and the sheer wonder of this season. And yet—once again—the world intrudes on our Christmas.

We think of those in Connecticut who have lost so much.

They bring to mind all those other shootings.

Help us also to think of all those children in Iraq and Afghanistan and other troubled  places that have known nothing their whole lives except fear and death and destruction.

We also think of all those in this congregation who have lost someone and find Christmas hard and we often wonder will there ever be joy again. And yet, Lord—we remember at your son’s birth Herod killed a multitude of little children and blood ran through their streets, too. There was weeping that first Christmas and there was great fear then too.And yet all this agony and pain and grief did not stop your coming.

Jesus grew up in a hard, hard time. We forget that sometimes.

He did not take away all the pain—we forget that sometime.

But he reached out and touched and wept and grew angry at so much that he saw.

He was one with them. We forget that sometime.

So here help us to remember God is here with us too.

Pain cannot stop his coming—we forget that sometime.

Sin or madness cannot stop his coming—we forget that sometime.

You are here, Lord stopping at every pew—the light still comes to us all—and the terrible darkness can never, ever put it out.

And so Lord—through music or silence or stained glass or tears or through laughter of little children—come to us once more.

Forgive our sins and wrongs—

Love us as we are.

Yet show us, even in this world, what we might yet be.

O Light of the world—be our light, too. AMEN.

(This Morning Prayer was offered at the First Baptist Church, Clemson South Carolina, December 16, 2012)

(The photograph of the sculptured piece was given to the Abbey of Gethesemani (Bardstown, Kentucky) in memory of Jonathan M Daniels, Episcopal Seminarian martyred in Alabama, August 20, 1965.)

Christmas--A Tree Full of Memories

"Dear Lord, don't let
The glowing tree, 
The gleaming candles,
The blaring music
Keep us from seeing One Star,
From hearing One song,
From finding One Child.
Within the hectic season we have made,
Let us find that quiet hilltop,
Hear the angel voices,
Bow before the manger,
And celebrate Love's birth."
  --Joan Eheart Cinelli, Christmas, 1984

Just last week we went through our annual ordeal of putting up the Christmas tree. This season has a way of reorganizing our priorities. We found ourselves moving furniture around, rearranging plants, and digging through our peculiar Christmas treasures in the attic. Dusting off boxes of all sizes, hauling balls and ribbons and lights and finally the bits and pieces of what would be our seven-foot Christmas tree.

Next came the ordeal of trying to decide what piece of the artificial tree went where.  But that was not the hard part. Connecting the lights on the tree took some time. When we thought we were finished we turned on the tree—and half the lights did not work. We crawled around looking for loose connections but realized half the bulbs on our supposed tree-with-lights were burned out. So—off to the store I went twice to get lights to string on our already semi-lighted tree. After the new lights were in twisted around the tree we began to open the boxes. It was like a treasure hunt for what we discovered in box after box were bits and pieces of our lives.

We were in a time warp. Not just this dull-grey morning but way, way back to other times and other places. Some of those boxes unearthed balls and trinkets that our parents had carefully placed on their trees some before we were born. And then came the little ornaments our children had made when they were young. A tiny star fashioned out of dough made by a then four-year-old. An ornament of birdseed and ribbon he brought home one day from his pre-school. We unpacked the early days of our marriage really. The K-Mart nativity figures. Mary with a hole in her back. Our son would run through the house with the tiny flying Jesus swooping up and down in his hands. The decorations of our over-fifty years. The beautiful hand-made ornaments by the kind lady who hobbled across the street one day and handed us this package. “When you place them on the tree,” she said, “remember me.” Oh, Jeanette you are still remembered. My wife held us this beautiful golden ball—and recalled that one of her piano students had made it for her. We found the beautiful birds, some almost as big as your hand that we had bought in the after-Christmas sale. We unearthed the silver bells our good friend gave us year after year. And though he died much too soon—we treasure his gifts and his memory. On and on it went—box after box, tissue paper flying. These are the tiny fragments of our lives.

Finally we were through decorating the tree. And so after the boxes were put aside and the tissue paper was consigned to the attic—it was dark when we turned on the lights. And what we saw before us was wonderful and breathtaking. A tree full of memories that took us back to other times and other places. As the tree just shimmered we thanked God for it all—the places, the faces—the times of our lives—memories, precious memories.  One day before too long it will all come down and we will get the house back to normal. But right now, at this Christmas stopping off place—we remember as we stand before our tree—and we are glad.