Simplicity!

We went to church today at Longstreet Methodist church.  It was homecoming.  It has really become an annual tradition for us. Sometimes we just go for lunch.  Sometimes, like today,  we get there in time for singing and the morning message.  To some, it may seem odd for us to go to homecoming at a church that we can't really call home.  Neither Deb nor I ever attended there regularly.  In fact, about the only time we have ever been there is for homecoming and other special occasions.  We go there because it is a place that is so special to many of our friends that mean a lot to us.  Friends that we truly love.

It is a 202 year old structure that has been added onto only once, as far as I can tell.  The two front doors are original to the structure.  They are kind of rough hewn.  The nails were probably handmade and the hinges certainly were.  It is a simple structure that was built back in the days when construction in the south, at least this part of the south, was really simple.  Life itself was simpler in those days too.

   

Danny Mathis was today's speaker.  It is not his "home" church either, but he spoke about how he spent a lot of time there as a young man in the seventies and how he got his bearings as a young Christian there.

Danny used this setting to talk about the simplicity of salvation. How easy it is to make our relationship with God overly complex. 

Of course, that is all true, but don't we sometimes,  (maybe most of the time,)  make our life, especially our relationships overly complex?  It is so easy to expect more of people that they can deliver.  It is also easy to put OUR expectations on other people; expectations that are our goals for them, and not theirs.  We do it to our friends.  We do it to our parents.  We do it to our children.  (Sometime we even do it to people beside us or in front of us in traffic.) We are responsible for our own disappointment in others because we EXPECT them to be what we want them to be, rather than what they are meant to be.

Danny talked about clutter.  I am sure he was mostly referring to clutter in our spiritual lives, but it could also apply to other clutter in our lives, our homes, our cars, and our minds.  I certainly am guilty of having so many thing on my mental list of "to dos" that I get so bogged down that I don't get any of it, or at least not much of it done.  He had a solution: simplify!  In fact he used the KISS phrase: "Keep it Simple Stupid."

I couldn't help but think about my dear bride, Deb.  Several years ago when she was thinking about retirement, she decided that she (we) had too much clutter in our lives.  She vowed to "Simplify" her, which really meant our, lives.  She has been on this quest for several years and even though I am a slow learner, I am beginning to get it.  (In some areas of my life, I am practically rehab slow...) 

In some areas of my life, I am so organized.  In other  (most) areas I am so cluttered and I really need to work on those areas.  I have a good friend who collects and saves.  He sometimes says that he is just a bag or two (of junk) short of being featured on "Hoarders."   He say things like, "...because one day I might really need those headlight rings for a 1964 Nash Rambler.  Who knows!"

I laugh when he says these things, but even though I may not collect car parts, there is so much clutter in my life.  I have books that I will never refer to or read again.  I have tools that I will probably never use.  I know that I have old salvage wood that will never find its way into a project.  But that is not all, I have attitudes that need to go.  I have expectations that I need to get rid of.  Fears? Prejudices?  Who know what else?

Lastly, I will mention one final point on simplicity.  Knowing that we were going to eat after Danny spoke and knowing that Danny was the guest speaker, some woman, (I didn't hear her name,) made Danny a German chocolate cake.  That is his favorite!  If you have slowed down enough to think about your friend's favorite cake and actually have the time to make it for him, you have pretty much mastered the simplicity sermon...

Election Day

I don’t know about you, but there is a sense of relief at my house that today is voting day. We have had several pounds of unsolicited (and unwanted) “fact sheets” about the opponents of everyone running in today’s election and several of the issues that will be on the ballot. We have had robocalls from all persuasions. For the first time in my life, we have “Important,” or something similar, has shown up on my caller ID as much as “unavailable.” Between the mail, the phone calls, radio, television, and strange people waving signs beside the road, it is really hard to not be not only tired, but completely cynical about what the election process has become in America.

This morning, a friend and coworker came by the office to drop off and pick up some papers. She is off work today, but she and her husband were on their way to vote. They were both excited. They were taking their small children with them to witness the voting process. They even wondered if they could TAKE PICTURES!

I felt a little guilty.

You see, it is the first time that they have ever voted in a general election. They just got their U.S. Citizenship in December of 2009. They came to America from Eastern Europe several years ago with a temporary work visa. They vividly remember life under Soviet rule. Even their names were selected by their parents from a book of approved “non-Christian” names. She has told me what her parents wanted to name her, but that name was rejected by the authorities, probably because it was “too Christian.” They came here, settled here, worked here, furthered their education here, found a church here, and they have contributed here. Today they will exercise a right afforded every American, the right to vote.

It is really easy to become angry, disappointed, or frustrated with the political process we have here. Sometimes it is easy to say, “They’re all idiots! I’m not voting for any of them. Why can’t we vote, ‘none of the above?’ ”

As brilliant as they were, our founding fathers understood that they would not get everything just right. Not only did they make provisions to amend our Constitution, in the preamble to that document they spoke not about perfection, but striving for it.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

In order to form a more perfect Union….. We aren’t there yet. We do dumb things. We have made many corrections in our 200+ years of existence. We have elected brilliant men who could not lead. We have elected some really flawed men who have become surprisingly good leaders.

When the results of today’s voting are tallied, it will neither fix all our flaws nor condemn us to destruction. We will have elected some frogs and probably have sent a prince or two home. Hopefully, it will bring us closer to that, “more perfect Union” that our forefathers envisioned.

I am proud to have the opportunity to vote, even if I think that the choices aren’t that good. The new citizens that voted their first time today is proof that we are doing something right. I am proud for them, but I am also proud of them.

I am not dead yet

For over a year I wrote with great regularity but in November 2008, I stopped. OK, maybe it wasn’t a whole year. Well, maybe not that regular either. I wish I had a really good excuse for quitting. How about, “someone stole the period from my keyboard and I just can’t write without adequate punctuation.” Or maybe, “Preparing for retirement and actually retiring just took too much out of me.” The fact is, I never quit making notes to myself, never quit laughing at the world around me, but I never got around to writing the whole stories down, and I completely failed to share any of them.

This is not my first time falling off the writer’s wagon. There is always the possibility that it won’t be my last either. It has always amazed me how hard it is to develop good habits and how fragile those good habits really are. Eating right, exercising, reading and writing daily; these are so hard to get going and so easy to lay aside. On the other hand, that 9 PM bowl of ice cream, while relaxing in your recliner and watching the Braves seems so natural (and habit forming.)

At least some of my friends have asked me if my computer was broken. It is not broken, merely neglected. I really want to get back to writing things, so I am going to make a commitment to post at least once a week. I want to include all of the dozen years, or so, worth of stuff I have written too. So I intend to write my new stuff and mix in the old that doesn’t seem stale. Hopefully, it will all be fresh enough for public consumption.

When I began talking about needing to get back to putting things on paper, my sweet bride went and got her journal and shared two quotes with me:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle

And, “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Churchill

The first quote is motivating to me. The second quote makes me wonder what she is thinking about my new plans. She says that she read the second quote to me just because it was the next one in her journal. We’ll see.

In a writer’s conference this spring, I heard Lauretta Hannon say, “write now, worry later.” I will try to put that into practice. I do have stories. In the coming week and months, I’ll tell you about Bible School, Father’s day, and an old railroad man; the tale of the dancing undertaker (I have pictures); why my brother’s recliner hurts his back; how Chicken Road got its name; Only halfway home but broken and OUT, subtitled: is 50 too old for a pastor to play softball; and many more.

This is the last time I will send this out by email (unless someone asks.) That way, I won’t be cluttering your inbox. If you are interested, you can find this at http://chickenroadwisdom.blogspot.com/ I intend to leave the comments on unless they get out of hand.
Bill