December 31, 2014

   As the year neared its end, we took a short trip up the road to see our NC family. We had already been to Arkansas to see those folks, our daughter, son in law, 13 year old grand son and our 10 year old grand daughter, we had hosted our VA kin here in St. Simons (son, daughter in law, 14 year old grandson and our two grand daughters , 12 and 10, so this completed our circuit.

   Our oldest grand son, Sawyer, who is 21 and will be graduating from college this May, our 18 year old grand daughter, Sydney, who is in her freshman year at Occidental College, our son Dwayne and daughter in law, Karen.

   As I think about our conversations and interactions, the subject of time fills my thoughts. Tomorrow will be the beginning of 2015, and, as I look forward into that new year, I am struck by the contrast of what different ones of us anticipate.

   Sawyer is going to be moving on, moving out into the world of work, a new job, a new place to call home, new people in his life, and a new money plan called a budget. He is excited about what is ahead, and rightfully so. It is a new chapter, and he is eager for it to begin. That is good.

   On the other hand, we older folk, look forward to a quiet evening with friends, a hot shower, and flannel sheets to get between on cold nights.

   Quite the contrast, don't you think?

   It is kinda like our daughter in law, Karen, running off into a foggy morning on the beach at Kiawah, the running is good, but the destination is not clear. We all run the race that is set before us, but only God knows what is out there, and what it will look like on any particular day in the future.

   The clock runs for all of us, but our time is in His hands.

   What will happen in 2015 does not lie within the bounds of our control. We have no control. Whether we anticipate great new challenges or just flannel sheets in a cold room, God is in control, and that is all right by me.

   I trust His goodness and His plans.

   So dream on and anticipate excitement and new things (or comfortable old things), knowing that God is out there in the misty fog, getting ready to give you that new day and all it holds. Trust Him, look for His plans and seek His favor.

Amen

Any Difference?

   The big question for all of us this Christmas of 2015 is:

   Does it make any difference in my life or the way that I live on all of the "other" days?

For Unto to us a Child is Born

A Constant Christmas

   Maybe I have never thought about it before, at least consciously, but Christmas seems a bit different this year. Maybe it is age, and the fact that I have lived through so many of them, but this one seems unique.

   I guess each one is that way, as we age, as our kids get older, as our grand children grow up and as our circumstances change with the culture and our own personal situation.

   But this one just struck me this way as I got out and walked as the world around me was beginning to stir. It was December 24 but did not feel like Christmas. It was 64 degrees, humid, cloudy, and windy, and I was alone on the path.

   But it was not the weather conditions that fed my feelings. It was more than that.

   Our Virginia family was in town, we had been spending time together over meals and games, and that was good.

   Some Christmas elves had decorated our tree and one had stayed the night with us. That, too was good.

   But I had the constant feeling that Christmases in the future would never look like this one. I know it is true that each had been different, in its own special way, and I knew that this one would be also. But all of the ones in the past sorta get lumped together and just form a Christmas collage that designates the time.

   The one in the present is the one that we all share tomorrow.

   The ones that will come around on December 25th every year that is yet to grace our calendars will indeed be different from this one tomorrow.

   So is that just how life is? Is there any constant in this day?

   As I brought in the paper and laid it on the counter, took off the outer wrapper and spread it out, there it was:

   THE ONE CONSTANT IN CHRISTMAS

   Times, people and circumstances change all the time, but God's provision and His revelation are unchangeable.

   As the hymn states in stanza one:

   “Great is Thy faithfulness,” O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

   No shadow of turning taken from a phrase in James 1 that reads:

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

   So no matter the sentimentality of past Christmases or the uncertainty of future ones, there is a constant, and that is the provision and hope that I need to keep uppermost in my mind.

   MERRY CHRISTMAS

Slow Down and Meet The Folks Who Tend The Flowers

   I have a good friend who lives down the way from our condo. Now, he is a professional photographer, one who is actually good enough to sell his work, but he also likes to encourage us amateurs, so he gives me his old photo magazines.

   Reading a story this morning about a travel photographer and his 21 month journey around the world, he had this to say:

   "It should be no surprise to readers of this magazine that the world hold endless photogenic opportunities, and all we need to do is open our eyes and minds, and use our abilities to capture them."

   Readers of this blog will know for sure that I have spent many miles and some hours going around our state photographing courthouses. We even stop in small towns in other states to see old courthouses, like this one in Senatobia, MS, the county seat of Tate County. Still in use after 140 years, fantastic!

   As I read through the article mentioned above, I thought how many times I had just breezed into a town, taken a couple of shots, and gotten on my way to the next county seat. Many times we traveled on weekends, and of course, the buildings were not open, and no one was around. There was no way to interact with the locals, even if we had wanted to tarry, but most times it was a race to see how many courthouses we could get to in our available travel time.

   But it is at those times that we do go in the buildings where we come away with a sense of the community, and it is those that we remember.

   Like the Deputy sitting by the metal detector in the new Troup County courthouse in LaGrange, who took the time to talk and to even walk us back out to the street so he could point out things that we needed to be aware of in "his" town.

   One small incident, our first stop this past Wednesday on our way back from Arkansas, in Buchanan, GA, county seat of Haralson County:

   My research had shown that there was a current courthouse and also a previous building that had been the county office and court building before the current one was constructed in the early 70s. As we pulled into town, there was the ever-present clock tower waiting for us on the town square. It was now the Library, having been restored after the new courthouse was built.

   But where was the new one? Spotting lights on in a storefront across the street, I went into the office of a small accounting and tax preparation firm seeking direction to the new courthouse.

   "Up the street to the stop sign, turn right, go under the railroad overpass, first street on the right, there it is. You can't miss it."

   We followed, and it was there. But it was ugly. After seeing all those grand old buildings around the state, I thought this one did not even rate a photograph, but I took the prerequisite one anyway, just to say we had been there.

   As I started to get back into the car and move on down the road, I thought, "No, I should go inside and see if anyone could tell me a story. There had to be one."

   Inside the front door, a metal detector, and another deputy. I told him of my quest to capture all the courthouses of Georgia and asked about the current building and the old one downtown on the square. It seemed to be something that he wanted to talk about. We got the story.

   It seems that in 1891 the county built a red brick courthouse with a clock tower on the town square. In the late 1960s, this old building had seen better days, and a referendum was placed on the ballot to float a bond issue to renovate the structure. It failed to pass, the people did not want to spend the money and take a chance on increasing their tax rates.

   The main reason for a new courthouse was that the old one only had one courtroom, and they, the officials, needed two. The building was OK structurally, but just not big enough for county officials. However, it was large enough for the people, and they rejected the proposal.

   Along came some progressive citizens, and they banded together to build a courthouse and then lease it back to the county. Thus the new one came into being, a utilitarian structure that definitely was not a photogenic opportunity.

   I bet I will remember that story and the two buildings that went along with it, but I would not have gotten any of it unless I first took the time to go in and talk. Sure it took ten minutes or so, but it made the town of Buchanan memorable, at least to me.

   Not only in photography, but too many times I am in such a hurry to get things done, or to get somewhere else, that I just do not take the time to look around. Too many times I do not think of questions that I would like to have asked, until I am 4 or 5 miles down the road and don't want to take the time to go back. Maybe it is only a couple of blocks, but anyway I don't turn around and go back.

   There are photographs that need taking, there are stories that I would like to hear, but most of all there are people all around that would like to feel a part of my life, just by offering the information that would make my visit worth the stop. Sadly, I don't give them that chance and am the worse off because of my hurry attitude.

   Does God look at my hurrying and sigh? Does He know what interactions I have missed, for my information and for His purpose?

   Slow down, smell the roses, and meet the people who tend them.

   That is where the heart of a community is located, even beside a metal detector in a small town of western Georgia.

 

 

We Would Have Never Imagined...

   We are blessed to have a teenage grandson over in Arkansas, a boy with super mental abilities, whom we love very much.

   He did not talk until he was almost four, and, fittingly, his first word was "Papa". He was diagnosed as being autistic, but, as we have found out over the years, that can cover a whole range of abilities. There are some things that he does exceedingly well, and there are other things that are real challenges for him.

   He is mainstreamed in public school and is in the 8th grade right now. He is on his school's quiz bowl team, is a whiz at math, and does well in all of his academic subjects.

   We were amazed when we found out he was singing in the school's chorus and would be having a concert the second week in December. We had to go. We had to see this accomplishment. We had no idea that he was so into music. He has perfect pitch and can write out the music score from just hearing it played. It seems that his music fits right in with his mathematical skill set.

   Fast forward: the night of the concert, we went into the auditorium at the high school, picked up a program and, along with his parents, were surprised to discover that he had a solo part. He had not told any of us this small fact.

   He did well, taking it all in stride, and we sat back glowing.

   We all have spent a lot of time and prayer, wondering how he might grow up and what he might be able to do as he worked toward adulthood. We worried about the things that he could not do, or that he was limited in. School was a question mark. How would he fit in, how would he keep on track, where would he excel and where would he struggle?

   But perhaps we focused on the wrong end of the spectrum. Instead of being anxious about his limitations, as we saw them, we missed the boat by not heralding his accomplishments and the things he was able to do.

   It all came back to me as we sat in the dining room and played Uno. Archer, Cady Gray, his 10 year old sister, his dad and granddad. As we took turns shuffling the deck, and it came Archer's turn, he just passed the cards on to me saying, "I don't do shuffling well, so you do it, Papa".But at the end of the  game, when all laid down their cards to total up the score, he had them all counted and written down before we could even straighten them out.

   Maybe he did not shuffle well, but his math was flawless.

   A lesson here for all of us, both as we move through life and as we watch others do the same. Don't fixate so much on what you cannot do, but celebrate all the things you can do, and do them well.

   God gives to all certain abilities and talents. Those are what we are responsible for.

   Lessons from a great kid.

Real People…Real Stories

   In Acts 20 are these words:

"In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive."

   How easy it is to read those and to ascribe to that doctrine in our minds than it is to actually live it out in daily life. With all the stuff going on at Christmas, it is easier to give lip service to that idea, even one coming from the mouth of Jesus, than to carry it in the forefront of our minds.

   For the past three seasons, our church has emphasized something we call The Great Give. It sought to highlight the needs in our own congregation along with soliciting the funds to alleviate the same.

   Persons who had financial needs were encouraged to let the church know their situation. In our day, especially where we live, that is not always easy. For some there is the stigma of having to tell someone they cannot make it on their own, but it is always hard to know about all who come to the church, even those who have come for a long time. So the church asks.

   Then these needs are presented to the congregation, without the names of the needy, just stories of what their life is like and how it could be helped. From car payments, to electric bills, to food or being able to buy some gifts for their kids at Christmas.

   I guess one of the most persuasive pleas is when the pastor, speaking from the stage, tells the congregation to look up and down the row that they are sitting on, stating that there may be men and women, boys or girls, sitting right next to us, that are in need. They may not look ilke it that morning, in their best clothes, but underneath all that may lie a body, soul or spirit that is in great need.

   It is so easy to come to church, speak to those we know, smile at others who also come, but come away with the feeling that all is well with everybody. It is just not true.

   I remember sitting in that service the first time we did this at Christmas. After the stories were presented and the opportunity given for folks to bring some offering to the front, people could not wait to get to the offering boxes. Sure they knew that we were going to do this on that particular Sunday morning, but you could see in their eyes and on their faces, the tangible expression of a love of being able to help someone. It was someone helping a neighbor, a person from right down the street, with a face and a family.

   Each year the money contributed has taken care of all the needs presented, the overage given to others in our community, not of our body, and ministries to help the destitute and hurting all over the area.

   One of the best things to come out of all this is, when the needs are presented the next year, and the money counted, there are notes accompanying the gifts from people who had been recipients the year before, that, because of the gifts they had received, they had been able to get back on their feet, and give back to help others who now find themselves in that same situation.

   The ability to help someone else is a privilege, and using that ability to meet needs of people, real people, people with faces and stories is awesome. It helps open our eyes to people, something we need to do all the rest of the year as well.

   It is more blessed to give.

A Christmas Carol

   It is funny to me sometimes to look back in my life and see some things that have stuck in my memory. Having lived through a bunch of Christmases, there is a song, or carol, that is on my mind this morning. Perhaps it is a sentimental time, but this seems to resonate way down deep in my soul. Maybe it is the melody, and maybe it is the lyrics, but it moves me, and, if it is ever sung in my presence, I cannot sing along for the first few bars.

   My memory may not serve me well, and I tried to look this up on the Internet, but I think that the first time I remember hearing this carol was in a production of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol. I seem to remember a street scene with carolers, but the melody and lyrics have stuck with me ever since.

"Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming"

Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse's lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.

Isaiah 'twas foretold it, the Rose I have in mind;
Mary we behold it, the Virgin Mother kind.
To show God's love aright, she bore to us a Savior,
When half spent was the night.

The shepherds heard the story proclaimed by angels bright,
How Christ, the Lord of glory was born on earth this night.
To Bethlehem they sped and in the manger they found Him,
As angel heralds said.

This Flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere;
True man, yet very God, from sin and death He saves us,
And lightens every load.

Listen to the carol here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g458-jXkbpU

   As I read the words, over and over again, I see again the Christmas Story, the fitting prelude to the earthly life of Jesus Christ, the true meaning of the season and the One that abides with us still.

   Sure, I am sentimental, and I love Christmas with family and friends, with all the music and lights, but  I am struck with the simplicity and grandeur of the message:

   God Loves Us, You and Me

   As an added bonus to this morning, I discovered, as I looked through the various web sites, a lady with a remarkable voice in a rendition of the carol: Frederica Von Stade…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI7hwHaYK_c&spfreload=10

   Watch and Listen….it will bless your day, too

Notice First and then...

   Yesterday, as I slipped into the church service late, by myself since my wife was coming to the later service, I picked out a seat near the back where I could slip in without bothering anyone. As I sat down I noticed a young man sitting a couple of seats down that I did not know.

   Now this is not unusual since we get a lot of visitors, and, with a large congregation, there are many that come all the time, or come to a different service, that I do not know or even recognize as having been there.

   This young man was obviously alone also, and I watched him as he listened to the sermon. When the message ended and the congregation was encouraged to stand and sing, he just kept his seat, putting his head into his hands. Seemingly, the words from the pastor had struck a chord, and this was his response. Was it meditation and prayer or something else? I did not know.

   The sermon concerned the Grace of God and how it is shown to man through the Christmas Story. There was this Grace that God gives, and there was also the grace that we give to each other, especially as Christians. With the December theme of family, the point had been made that, in our relationships with family during this Season, a need for each of us was to extend this grace to those in our families where those relationships were fractured or broken.

   Watching while singing, I saw no movement from my pew mate. When the song ended and the benediction given, he remained seated looking around as still in deep thought.

   As I dropped into the seat beside him, just to say hello and wish him a Merry Christmas, he introduced himself. I mentioned the message, and he responded with "those words really struck me, there are those in my family that I need to extend this grace to this very Christmas, but it is hard because of what they have done".

   He did not go into any great detail, but left it hanging like that. As we sat together for just those few moments, I encouraged him to let God lead him and promised to remember him in prayer. To be honest, I did not even remember his name, but, as we got ready to leave, he looked me in the eye and thanked me for stopping to speak.

   How many people sit on our pews on Sunday morning, or occupy some other space around us in life, that we fail to see? How many could use a few seconds of caring? How many do we not notice at all?

   Truthfully, as I stood singing, I had debated whether it was right for me to speak to him. I did not want to intrude on his time with God, but felt the leading to sit with him for a moment.

   At least two lessons I needed to learn yesterday:

   Notice those God puts in my path, and

   Follow His leading.

   Those people are all important

Taking For Granted...

   Many times over the past couple of years, I have been asked the reason why Georgia has so many counties, particularly why there are so many smaller ones, when efficiency would call for some consolidation. The reason, as I understand it, was that the State government wanted each person in a county to be no farther from the county seat than he could travel to it and get back home in one day, in a horse and wagon conveyance.

   It is easy for me to forget this as I travel around, using good roads, moving in my car at legal speeds of 55 or 65 or 70 miles per hour, where I can move all the way to the western border of the state and back in that same single day time period.

   I thought of that yesterday when I left the house at 6:30AM, went over the causeway to get the car worked on, went to the drugstore to get a prescription, to the store to get some supplies, to another store for an article I needed, and even to the grocery store for some food items, and still get home by 9:00. Two and a half hours to run all those errands and still have a whole day left for my leisure.

   How much do I take for granted, from the speed that I can travel, to the places I can go, to the opportunities I have to shop, to the good roads. My life is filled with so many conveniences that they do not even register on my radar.

   As hard as it might be for me to sit here in 2014 and imagine how life was back a hundred or so years ago when the last counties were formed in Georgia, how much harder, in fact even impossible for folks back then to imagine my life today.

   I see those towns with the courthouse sitting there on the square, surrounded by stores and homes, thinking all the while how quaint it all is, how picturesque, how idyllic it seems. Those earlier peoples got to live that way, how lucky for them, I think.

   What if those folks could look forward to my life? What would they say? How fortunate we are to live with all the stuff that we have, with the conveniences of modern travel, of fully stocked stores, of instant entertainment?

   All of us can live taking things for granted, not being thankful for what we have, for the life that God has placed in us and the opportunity for living in the day that is ours. We can look back and see what might be missing from our lives today, or we can look forward and think how much better things could be if we lived then, however both can be traps.

   Today is my day. Let me live it as I should. Let me honor God with the hours that might be mine today.

   Do I really want to shop here?

   Or sit in here with my Sears catalog?

 

A Blog With No Title

   To be honest, I do not have a clue where this post might be headed. I have a couple of pictures that have been running through my mind and feel there is a message in there somewhere.

   First the background: I wrote some days back about our Thanksgiving trip over to the western part of the state and the visit to Talbotton. I mentioned the Zion Episcopal Church, founded in 1848, still there and maintained by local folks and some from churches in the diocese.

   Here is the church:

   I like old churches. I like the character of the place, the simple lines and the modesty of the whole setting.

   While going around the outside of the sanctuary, I stopped on the north side by the windows to look through. From the outside, those windows on the south were pretty plain, but looking at them through the ones on the north gave a whole different perspective.

   I'm not sure whether the windows were old, or were "new old" but they had those wavy characteristics that gave a distortion to the shot.

   As I came up close to the window and focused on the one across from it on the far wall, here is what I saw. The interior was dark but the sunlight coming through gave a stunning picture of the fall nature scene on the other side of the building. Even with the wavy distortion the glory of the colors shown forth.

   I thought to myself, "that looks like it might turn out to be a neat shot." Looking through two old windows, even wavy ones, came out well.

   As I turned and started back to the car, I thought, "I think I'll take one more through this last window, just in case the other was not clear". This is the view from window no. 2.

   When I put them both into the computer, thinking I had two nature scenes through old windows, I found I had two completely different shots. The first was nature, sure, but the second seemed to be a picture. I had not seen anything different in the windows looking at them from outside the south side, but looking from the north, it was. Was it stained glass? I don't know, but it was not the nature picture I intended to get.

   What does all of this mean? Is there some major lesson to be learned here? I honestly don't know, but I will think some more about it.

   How about some reader supplying a title to this happening…

   My blank mind is not functioning.

   Help!

God's Great Grace

   Yesterday we sang a song in church. We may have done it before, but as I thought about it later, and reread the words, I found that it reflected what I had felt on that last Thanksgiving morn as I walked in the early sun-coming-up time. Here is the Matt Redmon song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orY_OWKTyfU&spfreload=10

   And here are the words to the first stanza:

"Your Grace Finds Me"

[VERSE 1:]
It’s there in the newborn cry
There in the light of every sunrise
There in the shadows of this life
Your great grace

It’s there on the mountain top
There in the everyday and the mundane
There in the sorrow and the dancing
Your great grace
Oh such grace

   And here were my thoughts in the quiet time that day as I remember it this morning.

   The light was just beginning to glow in the east as I walked down the long driveway on a farm over in Middle Georgia. It was quiet, quiet enough that my footsteps on the gravel were the only things I heard. No birds, no scurrying animals, no cars on the roads, nothing but me. Even my thoughts were still as I walked.

   We had come to a  friend's place for Thanksgiving. I was thankful in a general way, but primarily for the quiet of the time and nature's surroundings in that wooded scene. It was just a nice place to be and a nice time to be in it.

   As I reached the gate and stepped out into the road, nothing moved. As I looked back from where I had come, I saw the drive winding back through the woods, a half mile of gravel, only the last part could I see, not the beginning at the house, nor how it might look as I retraced my steps. Only the part that I was standing in at the moment.

   Going back through the gate, I heard the solitary pecking of a woodpecker over to my right. Stopping, I looked up into the trees and spotted him (or her) working on breakfast.

   I knew it was time for the sunrise, but where I stood on the ground, no rays had come. Looking up I saw the promise of the new day, high in the tree in front of me.

   That scene came back to me yesterday, in the words of that song.

   The sunlight as a symbol of God's Grace for me, and, indeed, for each of us, as I stood in the semi-darkness of that forest floor and saw the color of His creation shining above me.

   What is grace?

   God's Unmerited Favor

   Not worked for…not deserved…but there nonetheless.

   As I moved forward, back up the drive, and the light kept bending more and more to the ground, brightening the scenes all around me. What a show!

   God's Great Grace, a reminder in the top of a tree by a darkened path, and the fullness of it, reflected in the beauty all around.

   And a more specific Thanksgiving prayer…

   For His Great Grace