Sometimes when God wants to reveal His heart to us, He communicates with words. But for folks like me, sometimes he has to draw a picture. I thought since Father’s Day is approaching, I would give you a glimpse into the gallery of my soul and show you a master Artist at work. . . .
The Bracelet
“Hold out your hand,” she said as I entered the room to kiss her good-night. With that, my daughter interrupted momentarily my nightly bedtime routine. “This is for you.” [click to continue…]
One of the dogwood trees my grandmother and I planted about 35 years ago.
The Leader of the Band is tired, and his eyes are growing old,
But his blood runs through my instrument, and his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
I’m just a living legacy to the Leader of the Band.
-Dan Fogelberg
Alison had that look in her eye. Half smile, half dead-serious, she walked up and to me and said, “Some of us have been talking. And we’d like to ask you a favor.”
“What’s that?” I asked cautiously – bracing myself for, well, anything.
“We don’t know either of these people, and we don’t think they knew Grandmother all that well. We were wondering if you would say something – you know, more personal – in the service.”
Alison is my cousin, and she’d just asked the unthinkable – to stand up in front of a couple hundred family and friends and eulogize a family legend.
I’d done plenty of funerals before, but this one was different. This was family. And not just any family member. It was Grandmother, for cryin’ out loud. [click to continue…]
Okay, so there’s this song… but more about that in a minute.
If you haven’t discovered Animoto yet, you need to check it out. This online service can take your pictures and/or video clips and produce killer videos. You can do a 30-second piece for free, or for a modest annual membership fee, get unlimited full-song-length videos. The program generates it for you. You can upload your own music or choose from their impressive library. You can then share your masterpiece with friends and family, or, if you want to improve on it, click on the re-do button and let Animoto give it another whirl.
So with the birth of our grandson and our granddaughter coming to visit for Spring Break this week, cameras have been clicking left and right. So I started tinkering around with Animoto to see what it could do.
It was then I discovered the song. [click to continue…]
You came into the world a bit sooner than you were due, but no sooner than you were planned by your Heavenly Father. And I can’t imagine a more beautiful baby has ever been born, or to more loving parents. While you are our second grandchild, you are our first grandson, and will always be the firstborn of your mama and daddy. For them, this has been a day of labor and risk, of waiting and prayer. And today, February 23, 2010, you have made it worth it all.
You entered a family who has seen its share of joys and sorrows, laughter and tears. But through it all, your family walks with a faith in the heart and love of the living God. Your name means “priest,” and it was well-chosen. You will live as an ambassador between God and humanity. As you trust your life to the Lord Jesus, you will be part of a kingdom of priests – and you will be one of its standard bearers.
Your middle name, David, reflects both a noble family heritage and the Sweet Psalmist and Shepherd of Israel – the man after God’s own heart. I pray that you will spend a lifetime discovering what that means.
You were born into a world filled with change and challenges, and no shortage of opinions. In many ways the world you inherited is not kind. [click to continue…]
Often imitated, never duplicated.
It could alter traffic, change work schedules, and send us into bone-chilled terror. When we weren’t busting out laughing.
I’m talking about “The Look.”
Mama copped to it – even called it “The JoAnne Look.”
My most recent encounter with it came last October when we were sitting in the lobby of Providence Hospital waiting for my dad to get a test. Secluded in a waiting area, we could hear somebody on the other side setting up some sort of display by dragging eight-foot tables with an annoying racket. Especially annoying if you had a bad headache, as Mama did.
I could see it coming.
Those poor people had no idea.
Dear God, here comes The Look. [click to continue…]
The house was profoundly quieter now. The funeral service was a sweet combination of faith-filled worship and fitting tribute. The dozens of family members, cousin-strangers, and delightfully helpful friends and neighbors have retreated back to dock with “normal.” All that remained this evening were my dad, my sister and me.
After thank-you notes, food rearrangement, guest dish collecting and sorting, and a pause for supper, my dad decided to start the process of going through stuff. Her stuff. While my sister began looking through and sorting out her desk, he emptied her purse. Inside was what I suppose is a typical example of a 71-year-old woman’s typical daily haul. A wallet with all the ID cards, insurance and AAA whatevers, and credit cards. A wad of keys. Pills – lots of pills. Fingernail and lip stuff. A comb.
And a receipt.
“Hey,” Daddy said, looking over the receipt. “You know what? I’ll bet she bought me a Valentine card.”
That’s sure what it looked like. A loose receipt in Mama’s purse revealed the purchase of a greeting card sometime early last week or the week before. But where was it hiding?
We started looking everywhere. The desk. Files. Closets. I asked about the car. Alas, no card.
“I sure wish I could find that card,” Daddy kept saying.
Finally, my sister found it in what should have been an obvious place, just above the workspace on her desk. And sure enough, he was right. She had bought him a card that was just waiting for her signature. And here is what it says: [click to continue…]
“I can’t hear in that ear.”
As long as I knew her, Mama was deaf in her right ear. Because of that she was always sensitive to multi-sensory sound. “I can’t stand all this noise,” she would say as the TV, piano, stereo, and/or people talking (I usually had some role in most of that) all converged at one place. Most often, though, I encountered that deafness when I wanted to whisper something SECRET in her ear as a child.
I can still hear in both ears, but I don’t know that I’ve ever been more aware of a cacophony of sound as I am today.
Lubbock to DFW
I guess I may have slept a total of two hours. There were the calls. The updated information. The relaying of information to my adult kids, and back. The processing. The adrenaline rush of a life-in-crisis that demands action. Now! Sleep, miles, and other needs be damned.
This morning I’m feeling general anger at every phone call, interruption, or other delay. It’s never convenient when the phone rings. But today, it feels downright rude. Unless I’m the one calling, of course.
My sister calls while I’m in the security line. She tells me the neurosurgeon has come in and said there is nothing they can do. “He said if they take her off the respirator, she could last until you get here this afternoon…”
“No, don’t wait,” I say. [click to continue…]
Q. – Dad, why do you wait until Christmas Eve to do your Christmas Shopping?
A. – Because the stores are closed on Christmas Day.
Christmas has its own unique mashup of truth and myths, and every year somebody ultimately brings up both. I was asked on one occasion what my favorite Christmas myth was. I’d like to share my reply with you.
My favorite Christmas myth has nothing to do with Nativity scenes, jolly little fat men, or reindeer with nuclear sinus infections.
It has to do with people. [click to continue…]
Nobody uses this gate any more. But when I was a kid, it was a gateway to wonder. Just north of my grandparents’ house, across a small pasture, this gate opened the pathway to one of the most fascinating people I have ever known.
On the other side, just across the dirt road, there rested an old log cabin. And inside that log cabin lived Bob and Pearl McLean. It was years before I knew their last names. To my sister and me, they were Cousin Bob and Miss Pearl.
Pearl McLean was the slowest-talking human I have ever known. [click to continue…]
It isn’t Camelot. It’s a farm in Alabama.
There is no Round Table. But a couple of rectangular ones have been the scene for many card and domino games and never-ending meals served up.
There are no knights on trusty steeds. But an old blue Ford tractor gave way a few years ago to a new John Deere, and I can do some pretty mean jousting of sorts with that.
The house has been modeled and remodeled over time. The barn – the second of my lifetime – is showing its age. But cows still graze in the pasture and give birth to new generations, including a really cute calf born recently that the family named “Peanut.” I will not tell you why.
Adventure waits in all four directions at this place – the home of my great grandparents, my grandparents, and now my parents. [click to continue…]
Sometimes when God wants to reveal His heart to us, He communicates with words. But for folks like me, sometimes he has to draw a picture. I thought since Father’s Day is approaching, I would give you a glimpse into the gallery of my soul and show you a master Artist at work. . . . 
