New York Anniversary Recap

Our 35th anniversary in New York City was absolutely great. We couldn't have made it without Narcie's play-by-play itinerary. By the way, we need special prayers for her as she has her next MRI on the brain tumor tomorrow, and meets with the doctor on Wednesday. We pray it's gone!

New York was wonderful - wouldn't change a thing. The Roosevelt Hotel was superb and right across the street from Grand Central Terminal. On Sunday we stowed our luggage at the hotel and went to Grand Central to buy our week subway passes and ate, passed by the NY Public Library then up 5th Avenue we strolled, stopping along the way at Saks, Tiffany's, Rockefeller Center, and hot chocolate in the Plaza Hotel after we gazed into Central Park. We went into St. Patrick's Cathedral and were heartened by the packed-house worship attendance. We hit about every Starbucks the whole trip and we're not coffee aficionados. Gotta stay warm somehow! Sunday night we went back near Rockefeller Center to Radio City Music Hall and had a super time watching the Christmas Spectacular. Simply astounding!

Monday we took the Green Express to Bowling Green and Fort Clinton for a close-up of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We had a wonderful visit at the Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian, went to the WTC site, Trinity Church, St. Paul's Chapel, saw City Hall, the Brooklyn Bridge, and then on to Chinatown and the edge of Little Italy.

Then we were about to board the subway back uptown to get to the Empire State Building and then to Macy's. My nickname could have been "Pockets" the whole trip because I had so many and seemed like I was always searching for something. Anyway, We stood there for a long time with me trying to find my all-week pass. I didn't want to buy another one, and then finally I gave in and purchased a daily pass. We got on the train with this guy with a cowboy hat. We struck up a conversation and found out he was from Georgia. He was by himself but not for long. We showed him how to get to the Empire State Building and I had an extra express pass. He upgraded us all to the King Kong Observatory, met other nice folks, then went down to the "Sleepless in Seattle" Observatory. He went with us to Macy's, too - a great guy. We spent a long time in Macy's then left our friend behind as we made it to Benjamin's for our Anniversary Dinner. It was wonderful. Then we headed to Times Square for the musical, "In the Heights," a testimony about community and the human family!

Tuesday found us going all over. We went to the Upper Eastside, saw beautiful Brownstones, the Guggenheim, the Met Museum where we spent hours, then we strolled through Central park, including a rickshaw to get us the last little way to the "Strawberry Fields" tribute to John Lennon. We stopped at the Tavern on the Green then headed to Columbus Circle and went uptown on Broadway to Columbia University, Barnard College, Union Theological Seminary, Riverside Church, and the God Box (Inter Church Center), plus Grant's tomb. Then it was hustle back downtown to Times Square on the Red line to the black S shuttle over to Grand Central so we could get ready for the Nutcracker at Lincoln Center. It was beyond words. I had seen the Nutcracker in Philadelphia years ago and this was better than I had remembered in every way!

On Wednesday, our day of departure, we decided against the UN and headed back to Rockefeller Center to see the ice rink up close, go into the NBC Store, and eat downstairs on the concourse. We had a great trip to the airport then wouldn't you know it, there was our friend from Georgia with his cowboy hat. We had different flights, hours apart, and there we were together again at JFK. We shared a Starbucks, talked, and even shared a prayer. We called him on Christmas Day to wish him well. God works in  mysterious ways!

We saw God's providence every step of the way, just like our marriage, and it was beautiful to behold. Emanuel - "Best of all, God is with us!" P.S. More photos on my Facebook page.

Anniversary Joy

Well, how do you encapsulate 35 years of marriage into a blog? You can't! This coming Monday, December 20th, will be my and Cindy's grand day! We'll be in New York catching the NYC Ballet's "Nutcracker," and other treats. There's simply not enough that I can do or say to express my love and gratitude to God and Cindy for these years. And it almost didn't happen! When she and I first met she thought I was using an old line, "Haven't I met you somewhere before?" Her answer: "In your dreams." I had dated too many of her friends, was 3 years younger, and had little or no credibility, but I'm telling you, it was love at first sight. I remember one night daring to reach out and touch her hand and ask her out. Before I could say anything, she stated emphatically, "It would take thunder and lightening before I would go out with you!!!"

Thankfully, summer in South Carolina's Lowcountry provides an abundance of the aforementioned natural fireworks. After several years of being best friends and me dating anybody I thought was remotely like her, we went walking one July afternoon, and... Boom! Thunder and lightening. We talked about God's desires and resonated as we always had about spiritual things, and I said to her, "You're set apart," and she said, "For you." WOW! Right then and there before we had ever been on a date or kissed, I asked her to marry me, and she said, "Yes!" Less than 6 months later we were married at Kingstree United Methodist Church on December 20, 1975.



Cindy and Evy Grace

It has been the best journey of my life. We've been blessed with three wonderful children, two super children-in-law, two grandchildren, Enoch and Evy, with another little one on the way. God has been so good to us through tragedy and triumph. We're still best friends, have wonderful date-nights (You gotta do it), and pray together every day. I just want to say "Thank you!" to God for the best Christmas present ever in my dear wife Cindy. You're the best!

The Messiah is Among Us!

A. N. Wilder’s "Grace Confounding” states about Jesus, “He came when he wasn’t expected as he always does, though a few on the night-shift had the release early. He came where he wasn’t expected as he always does, though a few Magis were tipped off...he is always one step ahead of us.”

In a similar vein, one of my favorite television shows of a few years ago was “Joan of Arcadia” which even in its title reminds one of Joan of Arc and her visions of God. The show took place in a ficitional town named “Arcadia” where Joan Girardi lived. The show was the creation of Barbara Hall, a spiritual seeker herself, who dares us to consider that God may be one of us. In the show God appears in a variety of cryptic personages: as a bum, a goth teenager, a little girl, etc. Please don’t get hung up on the imagery, especially as Joan Osborne’s song, “What if God Was One of Us?” plays at each show’s opening. It seems sacrilegious at first glance to see God, the Divine, as “a stranger on a bus, a slob like one of us (one of Osborne’s lines),” but Jesus’ incarnation in Bethlehem dares us to broaden our horizons and ask how this world would be different if we did treat the people we would normally ignore as if they were God. I’m not suggesting some heresy that we treat people as if they were gods in an idolatrous way, but as if they were carrying the precious imago dei, the Image of God, within them. That doesn’t seem to be too much to ask, especially if the end result is worth the risk.

Perhaps you have heard the story of the monastery that was dying for lack of new monks. There was a negative spirit that permeated the whole place, evidenced by much jealousy and blatant apathy toward one another in the community. In desperation, the monastery’s leader went to the hut of a wise hermit deep in the forest. The abbot described the lack of love among the monks and asked for advice about what could be done to foster better relations. The hermit simply responded by saying, “The Messiah is among you.” He said nothing more. Upon his return to the monastery the abbot told the monks what the hermit had said. As a result, people who were once either envious or apathetic about one another started asking themselves, “Could the Messiah be Brother Andrew the baker, who humbly does his task?” or “Could the Messiah be Brother Simon the chief gardener, who with great kindness provides us with food to eat?” Their wonderings included everybody and the effect was miraculous. Because of the wise hermit’s statement the monks began treating each other with such love and respect that it indeed seemed that the Messiah was among them. The monastery began to grow and thrive because of their newfound love for one another.

The Messiah is among us, too. Of course, I know that Jesus is the Messiah, the one-and-only. However, we’ll never begin to experience the power of the gospel until we SEE Jesus in everybody, both friend and foe around us. Open your eyes to God’s fresh incarnation in Jesus Christ!

Bethlehem to Bedlam

It was planned as a worship scene, a living tableau of Bethlehem’s manger complete with live animals. Unfortunately, it was too real. There weren’t any problems with the cow and the lambs. They played their roles well. Never mind that a camel couldn’t be found. After all, we reasoned that the Wise Men would have parked them out back anyway.

The goats were a different story. Hindsight is always 20-20. No wonder goats aren’t usually found in crèches. Jesus told the truth when he said that on Judgement Day the sheep ought to be divided from the goats. Together, they can wreck a nativity scene.

We often turn our experience of Christ’s birth into a zoo. We mix our metaphors for Christ’s incarnation, blend the sacred and the secular, and end up with the goats and sheep butting heads. Our symbols and celebrations have become a hodgepodge of the commercial and sentimental. Santa and tinsel have overshadowed Jesus. We have lost Jesus and replaced Him with a Coca-Cola image of jolly old St. Nick.

With Christmas customs and live nativities, Bethlehem can easily degenerate into bedlam. What began as an earnest attempt to make the Nativity of our Lord more realistic turned into a somewhat humorous disaster. But that’s nothing new. “Bedlam” often describes how we celebrate Christmas today.

The word goes back to the 1400s when a London hospital named St. Mary of Bethlehem opened its doors to the insane. According to historians, it was a very noisy and unkempt place. People started dropping St. Mary from the name. Then they eventually contracted and corrupted the last part. Bethlehem became Bethlem and finally bedlam, a place of noise and confusion. A name that was first associated with the mother of the Prince of Peace became synonymous with disruption and despair.

Sounds like our hectic schedule of Christmas parties and commitments, doesn’t it? But, it doesn’t have to be this way. The celebration of Christmas need not become bedlam. Worship ought not cause confusion but peace, “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (I Corinthians 14:33). This season is best enjoyed in stillness and reflection. Let the hush of this holy season toss out the bedlam of overactivity!

Real Joy

The Robin in this snow photo from earlier this year reminds me to rise above the din of consumerism and enjoy the heavenly heights as peaceful as a snow-muffled day. That's joy to me! The third Sunday of Advent is traditionally called Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is an Old English word for “joy” that comes from the Latin, gaudium, which also means, “joy.” Our focus this week, therefore, is upon the joy that Christ’s coming brings. The essence of Christmas is joy!

Wow! What a revelation! Here I am with Christmas about to kill me, and it’s about joy? My trip to the mall just about did me in. I found out the truth about Santa. He comes to us under many names: Kris Kringle, Saint Nicholas, and MasterCard.

The Jackson family went to the mall to shop for Christmas presents for one another. Before they all split up to shop on their own, the father said, “We’ll meet at the car at 6 o’clock, so we need to synchronize our watches.” As they adjusted their watches, mother nudged father, then stretched out her hand and said, “While we’re at it, let’s synchronize our wallets, too!

Christmas joy is doled out in monetary amounts by well-meaning people, but where is the joy? Payments and bills are inevitable, and what’s to show for all the expense of time or energy?

You can’t fake the wonder of a child’s face at hearing and understanding the message of Christmas for the first time. The joy of Christmas can’t be bought and sold, it’s a climate of the heart.

Some time ago I read one of those handyman columns in the newspaper. It went: “Dear sir, Where can I buy aluminum Christmas-tree needles to spread on the carpet under my aluminum Christmas tree? I want it to look natural, as if they’d fallen off the tree in the old fashioned way.” Of course it was signed, “Sentimental.”

The answer was better than the question: “Dear Sentimental: They aren’t available right now, but a satisfactory substitute is to buy a few boughs of natural evergreen, allow the needles to dry and fall off, and then spray paint them with aluminum paint. They look just like the real thing!”

I want real joy, not store-bought spirits and fake needles. There is no satisfactory substitute for real Christmas joy. Maybe that’s why we keep being suckered into malls every year when real joy is found at the altar? Read Isaiah 55:1-3 and compare it with Matthew 11:28-30! Here is the source of true joy!

The Right Person(s)

I'm just trying to wrap my mind around a couple of recent experiences. For one, we've been having a problem for months with the volume on our TV. We don't watch much anyway so it hasn't been a rush job, but now that Charge Conferences are over, it was time to get things straight. We do have our favorite shows: "House," "No Ordinary Family," "Chuck," "Bones," and the Hallmark Christmas stuff. Okay, I know - we're sappy.

I had already called the cable company several times. Different story each time, different techniques, strategies to try and me very fearful that it wasn't a cable company issue but a TV problem. I could just imagine having to unhook all the wires and try to haul it somewhere to get fixed and try to remember where to put the wires. So alas I called the cable company again. They set up a person to come and fix it or replace the box. They didn't show and I didn't care since we'd been living with the issue for awhile, but now with a little breathing space I cared enough to call again - the fourth time. I got this nice lady on the phone and she said she would reschedule someone to come out, but before she did it she wanted to try one more thing via the settings menu on the TV. Guess what? After numerous tries and wrong advice she knew exactly what to do. IT WORKS!!!

Then it has been the Christmas Rush with my pottery making for all my clergy, the other DS', the Bishop, Extended Cabinet, everybody in the UM Center, plus family! My kiln elements have been taking a long time to fire things so I knew they were about shot, brittle, worn out - like me. And so like me in this condition, I took the kiln apart, had my new elements in hand for my L&L E23T and took all day one inch at a time pulling out bits of element wire with needle-nose pliers. Then I replaced the elements and couldn't remember where the wires were supposed to go on the control panel. So what to do? I called Rob in Washington State, my L&L Guru. Again, the right person. In no time he had my 240 volts in the right place and offered a great suggestion: Next time take a digital picture before I start unplugging all the wires. It makes a great reference photo!

Well I'm thankful for both of these folks who were the right people at the right time to save me from my own devices, pun intended. Reminds me of Galatians 4:4 and Advent: "At just the right time, God sent His Son..." I'm grateful.