MARK’S SHORT STORIES  (and they’re all TRUE, too!) 

 

“The Amazing Aunt Bappy”

Bessie J. Wiggins and her twin brother, Jesse B. Wiggins, were born in 1899 in rural South Carolina.  Bess and Jess, they called them, but Jess preferred to call his sister, “Bappy”– and it stuck.  Before long everyone just called her “Bappy.”  She hovers near the top of my list of “most unforgettable characters.”  My wife, Peggy, had told me about Aunt Bappy even before we married.  “I’ve never met anyone like her!” she remarked.  “And no one has ever heard her say anything bad about anyone.  She is the most kind, positive , and truly uplifting person I’ve ever met.”

We planned a trip to South Carolina for our first Thanksgiving together to attend a huge family reunion.  Peggy was so excited for me to meet the family– especially the amazing Aunt Bappy.  I looked forward to it, but prepared myself to not get my hopes up too high.  Nobody is that nice.  Her reputation, I assumed, was as much legend as fact.

Bappy was already a retired widow in 1978 when I first met her.  She was a classy dresser without appearing the least bit pretentious.  Her thin white hair was tucked neatly into a French bun.  Standing no taller than 5′ 2″, she had spent her life as a school teacher, beloved by decades of her students.  Actually, she was Peggy’s mom’s first grade teacher in 1930.

Bappy didn’t marry until she was around 60 years old, spending most of her life alone.  She had resigned herself to never getting married after her first beau had proven to be a complete charlatan.  But even the devastating heartbreak in her youth didn’t break her spirit.  She kept a keen sense of purpose in her calling as a teacher.  Her work with young children in the schoolroom and at the church gave her complete joy and satisfaction.  They were her children.

Nearing retirement, she got acquainted with a printer in Florence who became smitten with Bappy through her visits to his printshop.  Urban Patillo, twelve years her elder, one day popped the big question, but she  declined his proposal.  “No, Urban, I don’t think I want to get married.  But you should find someone and get married.”  Urban answered,  “Yes, I want to get married, and I’ve already found her– it’s you.“  The kind and noble widower proved to be the perfect partner for Bappy.  They were married in 1959 and lived happily together until his death in 1973.

The day after Thanksgiving, Peggy and I arranged a rendezvous with Aunt Bappy at her home in Florence.  She was a delightful, southern lady for sure.  She was interested in everything we said, and delighted us with her enthusiasm about our recent marriage.  I was enchanted by her dainty, high-pitched voice and her refusal live one moment without a smile.  She invited us to accompany her to a certain gift shop downtown where we were to pick out her wedding gift to us.

Aunt Bappy walked briskly down the sidewalk in Florence, South Carolina, toward the special gift shop with Peggy at her side.  I followed closely behind them  As we walked, several former students, now adults, waved and called out to her.  At least one even crossed the street to give her a hug.  I thought to myself, “This lady is no common schoolteacher.”

 

As we made our way down the city sidewalk we came to a small alley between buildings that emptied out across the sidewalk and onto the street.  Suddenly, just as Peggy and Bappy were about to step into the opening, a green Volkswagen bug raced down the alley, across our sidewalk, and onto the main street.  We halted just in time to keep from being struck by the careless, rude driver of the glowing green VW– a young man in far too much of a hurry.

Once we caught our breaths,  I was just about tear into him with something appropriate like, “That fool!  What’s his problem?  He almost killed us all!!” when I heard Bappy smile and interject, “Isn’t that car a beautiful shade of green?”

I kept my mouth shut.  Peggy leaned in to me and said,  “I told you it’s true.  I’ve never met anyone like her!” 

The amazing Aunt Bappy lived to the ripe old age of ninety-five.  Still, no one has ever heard her say anything bad about anyone.  The legend… IS fact.

 

 

 

“The Hounds of Heaven”

The Hound of Heaven was a famous poem written by English poet Francis Thompson.  The name of the poem is strange, but the truth behind it is unmistakable.  “As the hound follows the hare, never ceasing in its running, ever drawing nearer in the chase, with a steady and sure pace, so does God follow a fleeing soul by His Divine grace.”  I’ve often heard people say that while in a backslidden or unbelieving state, the “Hound of Heaven”– the Holy Spirit– pursued and chased them until they finally surrendered to the chase.  It’s a beautiful picture of God’s love and grace.

But in today’s post, I want to go to a different place with the “hound” imagery.  In this case, I will go with a more literal interpretation of the hound of heaven, with a twist of the miraculous.  You’ll like it, so keep reading.

For over 35 years, my legendary in-laws, Bill and Frances Skinner, served as Baptist missionaries in Paraguay– deep in the heart of South America.  When they arrived in Paraguay in 1950, there were very few evangelical believers in the traditionally Roman Catholic nation.  Although the Paraguayan people welcomed outsiders to Paraguay, especially Americans,  they were not usually tolerant of a non-Catholics.  It was mainly due to religious superstitions and a false understanding of what the Bible taught.  Centuries of darkness about the Bible had left many frightened when they heard about a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” and how they could have direct access to God without going through an earthly priest.  This suspicion of evangelical Christians was especially prevalent in the towns and villages outside of the capital city of Asuncion.

The Skinner family, including my wife Peggy who was born in Paraguay, were sent by a Paraguayan Baptist church in Asuncion to begin a new mission church in the rural town of San Lornezo, just outside of the capital city.  They rented a ranchito (a tiny farm, usually with a simple one room house) as a place to begin the church.  They began with a list of people from San Lorenzo who had been treated at the Baptist Hospital in Asuncion as their first contacts.  Since they had been treated with love and care at the hospital, they were less suspicious and proved more open to attending the new mission church.  Bill Skinner was actually a medical missionary doctor at the hospital.

Before long a small congregation had begun attending the church, with several new converts among them.  Seeing the growth in the little church probably alerted the townspeople to the new religious intrusion in San Lorenzo.  Fear and suspicion had no doubt begun to cause whispers among the villagers, and stirred-up a need to chase the new church out of town.  Such irrational fears had been known to cause ignorant mobs to get out of hand and hurt people, thinking they were doing their religion a favor.  Could that happen in San Lorenzo?  Yes, it could.

In a book of Frances Skinner’s memoirs, Adventures in Paraguay: Our Story, my incredible mother-in-law gives an account of a miraculous event that occurred in San Lorenzo when the church was in its infancy.  She tell it best.  Here is her account:

     “It was a rainy, cold, dark Wednesday night and a prayer meeting was in progress in the small church building at San Lorenzo.  The very small congregation was singing.  Suddenly, the building began to reverberate with the deafening sound of rocks falling on the tin roof of the building.  Speech was impossible.  The group continued to sing, and then began began to pray.  Rocks had been thrown before, but never with the intensity of this particular night.  In addition, the electricity had been turned off in the city that night because of the weather.  The meeting place was lit only by candles, which made the situation even more ominous.”

“As we all waited and feared, and prayed, we became conscious of barking dogs.  It was a pack of dogs, not uncommon in rural Paraguay.  The dogs travel together like wolves.  As the barking increased, the rock bombardment diminished and then stopped.  The tormentors fled, and the barking dogs faded in the distance as they chased the stone-throwers away.  God answered the prayers of this little group of new Christians with a pack of dogs! ”    “The ways of the Lord are past finding out.”  Romans 11:31

Undoubtedly, the “Hounds of Heaven” in Paraguay followed the instructions of the Lord that memorable night.  The persecution ended and the mission thrived.  The church at San Lorenzo grew steadily and is today a very strong witness in the fast growing suburb of Asuncion.  I was privileged to preach there in the 1980’s during a trip with Peggy to visit Paraguay.  The Baptist Hospital in Asuncion is today one of the best hospitals in all of South America, and continues to be a major avenue of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people.  Evangelical congregations have grown in Paraguay by leaps and bounds.  I am so honored to have married into a family of missionary heroes– pioneers in bringing Christ to the heart of South America.

For all of my blog followers, this won’t be the last you will hear of the amazing stories of the work of God in Paraguay.  My life has become so rich from knowing and loving Dr. Bill and Frances Skinner.  I want yours to be enriched as well.

      “And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”   Romans 10:15

 

 

 

 

“Joy and Gladness”

“Let me hear joy and gladness, let the bones you have crushed rejoice.”  Psalm 51:8

I just saw a report that the majority of Americans feel sadness more often than gladness.  That’s a sobering stat, but I understand why.  The majority of people in this country do not have a living relationship with Jesus.  Those who know Christ intimately do not live life as the rest of the world.  Christians DO live the same environment, face the same challenges, and hear the same depressing news reports on a daily basis.  But believers can possess something the world cannot give– Joy and Gladness.

When David wrote this passage, he had just been rebuked by the Prophet Nathan for his sin with Bathsheba and for its cover-up.  Psalm 51 is all about David’s prayer of repentance.  His grief for his own sin had  left him “broken” to the point of being “crushed.”  And yet, in the middle of his emotional debris he referenced something not so familiar to this world.  He said, “let the bones you have crushed (through his clash with God), rejoice!”   

How can that be?  Shouldn’t he be sentenced to the pit– at least for a time?  Shouldn’t he fear that there will be no forgiveness for such a nasty set of sins?  Surely he should have to pay for his sins by doing something terribly harsh.  At the very LEAST he should NOT ask for joy and gladness from God.  How presumptive of him to expect God to give him joy and gladness after what he did!  How dare David to be that arrogant!

But David knew something about God that most people don’t.  God WANTS to forgive.  God DELIGHTS to wash sins away.  God LOVES to make things right between Himself and his creation.  King David knew that this rebuke– this correction from God– was intended to make him a better man.  He would learn a hard lesson the hard way, but in the end he would be clean and forgiven.  In the pain of brokenness, he could find something to rejoice about.

When I was a little guy of about seven years old, I got in trouble almost every day.  I remember thinking, “Am I going to have to get a spanking every day this year, even on my birthday?”  My parents were not cruel.  I was just unruly.  I had too much energy and too big of a mouth.  It was almost like clockwork.  The discipline usually happened just before supper, after my parents had fully digested my antics of the day.   Whoa!

And yet, I distinctly remember that a loving embrace always followed each disciplinary moment, and sometimes my mom even shed tears alongside me.  And then I would be ushered to the family supper table where everything was OK again.  The family laughed, and talked, and the offense wasn’t brought up again.   I wasn’t kept from the table, and I wasn’t kept from the love of my family.  How could that be?  It wasn’t easy to understand, but it was simply how things were in the Sims household.

And that’s how it is in the family of God.  We are in His family, and his love is ultimately redeeming and only temporarily punitive.

NOW THAT’S SOMETHING TO BE GLAD ABOUT!

“Let me hear joy and gladness….”

In the scripture, the word joy has nothing to do with feelings.  The New Testament word for joy is cara, which has the same root as the word for “grace.”  Grace is the undeserved favor of God.  Joy is not “feeling,” it is “knowing” that God loves and favors you.  So, joy has nothing to do with your circumstances.  No one can rob you of what you KNOW–  that “The Joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10)

And the word gladness simply the outward expression of our inward joy.

 

Remember the words of Jesus to his disciples:

“In the world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.”

Take heart today.  Hear joy and gladness.

You are favored by God!

 

 

“Birthdays and Big Days at Mama Sims’ House”

I always rolled my eyes when I heard my parents and grandparents talk about the “good ole days.”  They talked fondly about having to use outhouses in the freezing cold, and walking three miles to school every morning.  What’s up with that?  It’s like the grass was always greener during the Great Depression.  Whew!  That was way before air conditioning.  No, thank you.  But now that I am a parent and grandparent, I find myself doing the same thing, especially when I get together with my siblings and cousins.  How we idolize those magical days of our past!  Maybe the reason the good ole days are so nostalgic to us is because we are only able to touch them again in our memories.

I say I miss those days,  but when I think about it, they weren’t all so wonderful– at least not when I lived them the first time.  Good ole days are always better re-lived that first lived.  When nostalgia hits me, my mind especially takes me back to those birthdays and big days we spent at Mama Sims’ house.  There were two birthdays that were more important to us than those belonging to Washington or Lincoln– Mama Sims’ birthday, and Little Grandmaw’s birthday.

Mama Sims was my grandmother– my dad’s mom.  She was the queen mother of the family– the high and exalted one.  Little Grandmaw was her mother.  She was scary!  Born in 1869 (four years after Lee surrendered at Appomattox), Rhoda Jenkins was a shriveled up little lady who always sat in a rocking chair next to the gas heater with snuff juice leaking out of her mouth.  She held a spit can in one bony hand and a walking cane in the other.  When I would come anywhere near her she would tap me on the bottom with her cane and say, “Ya daddy ain’t no count” and then chuckle.  How creepy was that to a five year old!  But we always celebrated her birthday with a massive meal and birthday cake.  It’s where I probably first heard the family sing “Happy Birthday.”

Ancient relatives with names like “Uncle Theodore and Aunt Eddie, Uncle Garrett, Uncle John William, Uncle Buren” and of course, “Aunt Eunice” all swarmed around Mama Sims’ house on Little Grandmaw’s birthday.  Aunt Eunice was Mama Sims’ only sister.  I always felt sorry for her.  She was tall, lanky, and had the body mass of a pencil.  She was married to Uncle Arthur, whom I remember as a really slow mover who wheezed a lot.  Aunt Eunice amazed me at how she could carry on a full conversation with a cigarette bobbing up and down between her skinny lips.  I can see her now, sitting there folded up like an umbrella in the corner of the kitchen, just puffing away.

Mama Sims’ spent most of her time in the back of the house– near her kitchen– as far from one of the front doors as could be.  Still, her doors were never locked except at night.  So when any family member dropped by Mama Sims’ house during the day, there was only one proper way to enter.  Don’t knock.  Just open the door and give the secret password:  “Wooooo, oooooh,”  and then she would respond from the kitchen, “Woooo, oooooh.”

Being one of thirteen cousins who ALL gathered at least once or twice annually at Mama Sims’ house was actually the survival of the fittest!   I was grandchild and cousin number 10, and always  faced the risk of being trampled by the hungry cousin-brood seconds after the amen was sounded at dinner.  (Note:  In the rural South, “dinner” was not at night.  Dinner was the big meal around noontime.  “Supper” denoted the leftovers that were served in the evening.  “Lunch” only happened at school– in the lunchroom.)  An adult would yell, “OK, children, only put on your plate what you’re going to put in your stomach.”   That was usually Aunt Gail.  She was loud and made great rules, but didn’t have the heart to enforce them.  Within a few minutes we’d hear her whisper to one of us, “You go ahead and get whatever you want, darlin’.  There’s plenty to go around.”  And there always was.

Besides the abundant meats and vegetables, there were always certain things on Mama Sims’ table that intrigued and delighted me as a kid.  Celery stuffed with pimento cheese was a staple, and of course pickled peaches, sweet gherkins, and candied crab apple rings– all on the same tray.  Those apple rings were dripping with a sweet red food coloring that would stain a shirt permanently.  Mom always preferred that I stay away from them, but I never did.  They were so nasty good.  And the desserts!  Oh boy!  I remember fried peach pies, sweet potato custard, lemon pie, cobbler, and Mama Sims’ famous chocolate pie– all with homemade love baked in.  It was special.  And we all knew that Mama Sims had also stocked the ice box with a “Co-cola” for each of the grandkids.

The “big day” at Mama Sims’ house was whenever Uncle Bremon and Aunt Marie came for their annual summer visit.  It was the only time we got to see our three cousins (grandchildren 2, 8, and 9) who had come from living in exotic places like Charleston, South Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida.  Whoa!  The rest of us were holed up within a forty mile radius of Mama Sims’ house–  and eight of us were within a two mile radius!  When 2, 8, and 9 arrived, we caught up on all things cool.  And Bremon’s kids just didn’t drawl like the rest of us.

Birthdays and big days at Mama Sims’ house are pleasant to remember now, but were often painful in real time.  Cousin 2, a girl, often got invited to kind-of play football with cousins 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, all boys.  It started off with fun, but usually resulted some kind of injury with plenty of tears and blame to go around. Aunt Ginny would have to “tear up” at least one of their bottoms regularly, just to keep order.  Strangely, there was an iron water spigot sticking two feet out of the ground right in the middle of Mama Sims’ front yard football field!  Injury was bound to happen, and usually did.  Someone got impaled regularly, but could also get a quick swig of water between plays if need be.  The football cousins were all decent athletes, but only cousin 6 actually got to play football at Auburn.

Cousins 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 were all too young to play football with them, so we played elsewhere.  Cousins  9, 10, and 11 often played on the back steps of Mama Sims’ house, or in the creepy dark curtain lined hallway leading to the back bathroom.  Usually 9 and 11 got in an argument and had to be separated.  Cousin 11 was good at tattling, and often got us all in trouble.  Cousin 9 was terrified of a haunted clock in Little Grandmaw’s bedroom that sounded every hour, and cousin 12 feared the brass alligator nut-cracker, with which cousins 1, 3, 4, and especially 7 regularly tormented him.

Cousin 1 was everyone’s hero– once rescuing me from the roof of my house when I was terrified to climb down.  Cousins 3 and 4 were twins– one was a star athlete, and the other supplied us with all the live snakes and frogs we could ever want.  Cousin 8 was the handsome one among the guys– bright eyes, white smile, and a Florida tan.  Cousin 5 was my incredible brother and my defender from all enemies, foreign, domestic, and kin.  Cousin 7 kept us all laughing, and still does.  Cousin 13 always lamented that Mama Sims added a country twanged “r” to the end of her name.

A big day summer tradition was when Uncle Led cut watermelon in the back yard, and everyone sat out under the pecan tree and ate melon and spit seeds.  And then at night the cousins played kick the can in the dark until we were all exhausted, fighting mad, and delirious.

Ah, the good ole days at Mama Sims’ house, where birthdays and big days gave us memories to hold on to.

By God’s grace, all the cousins 1 through 13 are still around, and no one enjoys sharing family memories more than we do.  We were all blessed to grow up in a loving, close, God fearing family.  I write so we can remember and be grateful.

So to all of us– Duane, Susan, Alan, Robert, Mike, Lee, Steve, Butch, Debbie, Me, Nanda, Gary and Donna–   may we never forget the birthdays and big days we shared at Mama Sims’ house.

 

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:                                                                                                                                                                                         A time to be born and a time to die…                                                                                                                        

 A time to weep and a time to laugh,  a time to mourn and a time to dance,…
A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,                                                                                       

A time to remember and a time to forget… 

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”    Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, 4-6, 11.

 

 

 

 

“My August Sunshine”

The first time I met her I felt her warmth. Like a day with bright sunshine, everything felt better.  It was the last night of Samford University’s campus ministries retreat in August of 1975.  I married Peggy Skinner exactly three years later– August 22, 1978.

Our first meeting was all small talk in the midst of a dozen or more friends.  I’m not sure she noticed me, but I sure remember her and the way her eyes sparkled.  They still do.  We had all gathered just inside the entrance of the retreat lodge, about to make our way to a typical late night “Kumbaya” bonfire.  She was standing there with her older brother Larry who towered over her like a personal bodyguard– making sure she made friends, but keeping any fast moving guys at arms length just by the look on his face.  My roommate and closest friend, Andy, spoke a little Spanish– and practiced it on Peggy and Larry.  She spoke back to him in Spanish.  How I wished I could speak Spanish that day!

I remember how we all moved as a group in the dark toward the blazing bonfire.  She was so radiant in the light of the fire.  But Larry was present, and all I could do (all anyone could do) was admire from a distance.  Over the next two years, we saw each other now and then on campus.  We weren’t in the same classes, and she and I had a different set of close friends.  Still, I admired her from a distance.

I especially recall what happened a year and a half later, in the spring of 1977.  We were both involved in Samford’s campus ministries, and both had volunteered for a children’s neighborhood outreach in one of Birmingham’s poor, inner-city neighborhoods.  I was an actor with the skit team and worked with puppets on the stage.  Peggy was a kids’ team leader, in charge of a group of little children from one of the apartment buildings.

I admired how kind and loving she was to the kids.  I can still see her giving them rides on her back, and jumping and skipping with them between events.  She represented Jesus so powerfully.  To her it wasn’t a job, or responsibility, it was just another way to express God’s kind of love.  She loved Jesus SO much, and was never enamored by money and popularity.  She loved ministry, loved people, and loved God.  More than once I thought of her as the type of partner I someday needed in my life.  Still, my admiration was from afar.  I lamented the fact that she was dating someone at the time.  Larry had graduated and moved on, so someone took advantage of a green light.  I wished it had been me.

We both attended the annual campus ministries retreat again in August of ’77— Peggy as a junior, and me as a senior.  Peggy had been tapped as a leader of a small discipleship group of new Samford students.  One of the assignments was for her small group to perform a “skit” of some kind for everyone at the end of the retreat.  Fortunately (for me)…..I happened to be one of Samford’s “skit guys.”

To my delight, we happened to cross paths at retreat one day during lunch.  I had already heard that Peggy was now free and clear from her past relationship with another Samford guy.  Peggy saw me first, and started the conversation.

“Hey Mark.  Do you have a second?”

“Sure.  What’s up?”

“I have to put together a skit before Saturday morning.  I have no idea where to start.  Can you please help me with some ideas?”

(Oh yeah!  Heaven came down and glory filled my soul!)

“Sure!  I would be glad to.  Whenever you want me to meet with your group, just let me know.  I have an idea– and I’ll be glad to teach it to them.”

(Peggy’s eyes sparkled.) “Oh, that’s great.  Thank you so much. We’re meeting at 3 this afternoon.”  (They kept sparkling.)

“I’ll be there!.”   (My eyes googled.)  “Hey, can I ask your help on something?”  (It was the best instant, quick-thinking reaction that I’ve ever had in my life.)  “I’m teaching a Bible study in my hometown a week from Friday, and I was wondering if you could go with me and sing a song or two with your guitar.”

Now  Peggy had the voice of an angel, and could play the guitar– a super 1970’s cool combination, especially with bell bottom jeans and sandals!  She paused for just a brief second considering my invitation.  Then she gave me a great big smile, eyes sparkling again,

“That sounds like a great idea!  I’d love to.”

We went out to Farrell’s Ice Cream at Brookwood Mall and shared a bowl of sweet treat a few days later.  I used the excuse that we needed to “discuss the Friday night plans.”  She sang at the Bible study in Ashland– at my parents house, no less!  (Later my Dad told my Mom, “I sure hope Mark realizes that she’s a keeper!”)  And the rest is history.  We dated in the Fall, got engaged in February, and married on August 22, 1978.    Hey, the month of August has been good to me.  Really good to me.

When I fell in love with Peggy Skinner, I called her my “Sunshine.”  And after thirty eight years, she still is.  She reminds me of sunshine in several wonderful ways– let me count them:

Peggy is warm, friendly, happy– just like sunshine.

Like sunshine, she starts every day anew, with hope and a hug.  I look forward to it every morning.

She brings sunshine into my life.  Her ideas are good, her discernment is trustworthy, and her mind is sharp.

The sunshine is always there, even when dark clouds cover it temporarily.  So is my Sunshine lady– Sure, Steady, Faithful

Her sunshine is a healthy and healing sunshine.  Peggy nourishes me spiritually, and helps me grow.

She, like the sunshine, is a wonderful gift of God.

Sunshine sparkles, and so do Peggy’s eyes.

As Sunshine lights up the world– Peggy lights up my mine.

You Are My Sunshine.

Happy 38th Anniversary.

“Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”  Proverbs 31:28-29

“God created marriage. No government subcommittee envisioned it. No social organization developed it. Marriage was conceived and born in the mind of God.”  ~ Max Lucado

 

 

 

“The Crub Market”

For YEARS, at the southeast corner of 2nd Avenue South and the Mellow Valley Highway stood the Ashland Crub Market.  Yes, you read it correctly– “crub” market.  A ten foot, homemade  sign emblazoned with black letters on a plain white background greeted travelers headed south from town, just one block from the court house square.  Almost all Ashlanders will remember it.

Obviously, it was supposed to say “curb market,” which is an open air fresh fruit and vegetable stand, common throughout the South.  At curb markets, we could buy fresh produce by the box or by the item, cash only.  It was a quick, happy way to usher those fresh grown veggies into the kitchen– especially for Ashlanders who didn’t have time to work their own gardens.

The gentleman who owned the “crub market” said that his grandson had painted the sign, and probably wasn’t the best speller. (Duh. No kidding.)  The owner was asked numerous times why he didn’t correct the misspelled word.  “Now why would I do that?  People from all over Clay County come to trade with me, just to see the sign.”  He was a shrewd businessman in his own way, laughing all the way to the bank– which was only two blocks away.  (Three blocks away would be all the way across town!)

Mama Sims (my grandmother) always had a garden– at least until she was approaching 90.  It was a big one too.  It always featured the southern summer favorites– white corn, peas, squash, potatoes, peppers, green beans, and tomatoes.  In the fall, turnip greens and collards showed up.  She provided much of the extended Sims family with regular baskets of her bumper crops.  I don’t know how she did it, but her yield was always the most beautiful produce around.  For some reason, worms and bugs just didn’t bother her stuff.  (They all came to our house and devoured Dad’s feeble annual attempt to grow a few tomato plants.)  Mama Sims got tickled every time she passed by the Ashland Crub Market on her way to church in her white Ford Fairlane.  “That poor man can’t even spell a four letter word.”  Of course we bought very little from the Crub Market.  Mama Sims’ garden was our own personal produce stand.

My excellent cousin Steve became her gardening partner when she was in her 80’s, just to make sure she didn’t over-do it. (Steve also loved to eat veggies at Mama Sims’ house.)  My dad was always afraid we would someday find her body lying between corn rows wearing a long sleeve shirt and a wide brim straw hat.  The truth is that her garden as the portal to heaven would have suited Mama Sims just fine.

As she approached age 90 she surprised Steve with an unusual directive.  “Steve, I don’t want us to plant any green beans this year,” she said.   Steve was aghast.

“Why not, Mama Sims?”

“I just don’t want to,” she answered.

Mama Sims was the family matriarch–  Sims’ family royalty– the Queen.  She had earned her crown.  Whatever she said, went, without question.  (My dad said it had always been that way.)  So Steve kept quiet and planted extra corn.

One day Dad dropped by to visit Mama Sims and check out her garden as it matured.  “Mama, where did you put in the green beans?  I don’t see any.”

“I didn’t plant any this year,” she snapped as they rested under the massive pecan tree in her back yard.  “Ya’ll will just have to get your green beans over yonder at the crub market this year.”

“What happened, Mama?   Did you and Steve forget to plant them when you made the garden?”  Focused on a young acrobatic squirrel in the sprawling pecan tree, she answered Dad without hesitation,

“No, Coolidge.  I’ve had to eat green beans all my life, and I’m not about to eat another one as long as I live.”

And she didn’t.

She died about four years later.

Just blame it on the green beans.

“God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”  Genesis 21:6

 

 

 

“Eau de Parfume”

Who remembers this famous brand of perfume?  It was all the rage from 1924 to 1980– at least for true perfume aficionados. My Sin (Mon Peche) by Lanvin, was created back in 1924 by a mysterious Russian lady called Madame Zed.  Here is its description by professionals who obviously have better noses than mine:

This feminine, provocative and dangerously seductive fragrant composition begins with aldehydes, bergamot, lemon, clary sage and neroli. The middle notes are: ylang-ylang, jasmine, rose, clove, orris, lily-of-the-valley, narcissus and lilac. The base is oriental – woody with vetiver, vanilla, musk, woody notes, tolu balm, styrax and civet.

Whatever.

My dad owned a small town drugstore in Ashland.  He always carried My Sin (only one bottle of it) but kept it locked up in a glass case along with one tiny bottle of Chanel #5.  It was a handy gift possibility for some panic stricken semi-wealthy guy who forgot his wife on Christmas, Valentines Day, their anniversary, or her birthday.  It’s amazing what people will pay when faced with the probability of lifelong scorn.  I can’t say for sure that I ever smelled the expensive perfume.  My mom didn’t wear it; neither did either of my grandmothers.  They stuck with Jungle Gardenia, White Shoulders, and Tabu.  I might have gotten a whiff of My Sin’s legendary fragrance when some rich lady sashayed through our church foyer, but who knows?

I do remember an episode of I Love Lucy that mentioned My Sin by name.  Lucy and Ricky were boarding an ocean liner headed for Europe.  Mrs. Trumball, a frumpy old spinster neighbor, went with them to the ship to see them off.  She slipped Lucy some cash and said, “I have something I want you to bring back to me from Paris– some expensive French perfume.”    “What kind of perfume do you want?” Lucy inquired.  Then Mrs. Trumball whispered something into Lucy’s ear.  Lucy blurted out, “My Sin?” as the old spinster cringed with embarrassment.  It was a funny moment.

Obviously Madame Zed chose the name, My Sin, to best describe her “sensual and dangerously seductive” fragrance.  It’s all about marketing.   I’m certain it wouldn’t have been wildly successful if named Eau de Cat Sweat or My Fungi.  The logo itself suggests a mysteriously dressed lady and a little child at her knees (certainly her “little love child”)– the result of “her sin.”  Even in 1924, the suggestion was unmistakeable.  It’s why Mrs. Trumball whispered and the Ricardo’s reacted with such surprise.  It was indeed brilliant marketing by the Lanvin Corporation.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s adulterous character “Hester Prynne” in The Scarlet Letter was sentenced to wear a bright red letter A embroidered on all of her garments, displayed on her chest for all to see.  She was permanently defined by her sin, visible at all times by the scarlet letter, and by her little love child, Pearl.  Both Hester and Pearl were shamed and disgraced for life– defined by an act of the past, and sealed by the never-ending condemnation it brought.  MY sin– with emphasis on the word My, is all too familiar to each of us.  How often do we say it?  It’s My sin, my depression, my sickness, my abuse, my failure, my mistakes, my guilt, my hang-ups, my secrets, my demons, my cross to bear.  OH WAIT!  Jesus carried my cross, why am I trying to bear it?  Exactly!

Since the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden, Satan has delighted in giving us ownership of our sin.  Satan tempts us with “Here, try this.”  And then the very moment we try it, he switches to, “Now look at what you’ve done, you sinner!  You should never have done that!”  He desires ownership of our sin be permanent.  “It’s YOUR sin; YOU own it; and you will NEVER escape it.”  He has two plans to make it permanent– plan A and plan B.

Plan A is to for a person live an entire life in sorrow and grief, never accessing the great Mercy of God that stands ready to forgive.  It’s an impossible burden to carry.  It causes a person to languish in condemnation and hate themselves.  And it’s so unnecessary!  Jesus offers to forgive, and not just to forgive, but to wipe the slate clean!  Only through the cross of Christ can that mercy become a reality, but His mercy is always available, to all people, all of the time.  “His mercy is everlasting.” (Psalm 100:5)

Plan B is for a person to celebrate sin.  “It’s MY sin, I own it, and I’m going to enjoy it to the fullest.  In fact, I’m not going to call it sin at all.  It’s just the way I am.”  Plan B is not based on truth.  Plan B’s purpose is to not access God’s great Mercy at all, but delights in remaining sin’s prisoner.  When Jesus declared to the woman caught in adultery (John 8) “neither do I condemn you…,” he didn’t end his statement with, “see ya’ later, have fun.”  He finished by giving her this command, “…go now and leave your life of sin”  (John 8:11).  In other words, You CAN LIVE without your sinful lifestyle.  It was His message of healing and hope.  That’s where this incredible thing called Grace comes in.  Look at this breathtaking truth:

“All who receive God’s abundant GRACE and are freely put right with Him will rule in life through Christ!”                  (Romans 5:17 TEV)

And to those who say, “I can never change……”

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the POWER (Grace) that works IN us.”  (Ephesians 3:20)

Look at it this way:

MERCY does not give us what we deserve.  Instead, of condemnation and judgement, we receive forgiveness of sin.

GRACE gives us what we do not deserve– the power to be freed from our sin, and not have to walk in it any more.

Mercy does not condemn us, and Grace empowers us not to fall back into the deadly trap of sin.

Mercy and Grace is the power of God to transform.  Together, they blend to create the most wonderful fragrance of all.

 

 

“Holy Horseflies”

In the summer of 1973 I was invited to preach a three night “Youth Revival” at a little church near my hometown of Ashland, Alabama.  I was a raw, seventeen year-old preacher, who had only preached a handful of sermons in my life, but quite  comfortable (too comfortable) with a microphone in my hand.  The little church actually had few young people to revive.  The term “Youth Revival” just meant that the evangelist would be younger than the pastor.  And I was young–  too young.

The small church pastor was very welcoming and gracious to me.  The crowd that gathered in the small church the first night was larger than I had anticipated– albeit a sizable number of them were my family, my friends, and my family’s friends, all coming to “support” me at the three night Youth Revival.  Nonetheless, to my pea-sized brain it was because I was surely the second coming of Billy Graham, and this could mark the beginning of my worldwide preaching tour.

In honesty, I did love Jesus more than anything.  I was certain that He had called me into ministry, and I was ready– in season and out.  I had also recently experienced the infilling of the Holy Spirit, and my passion for God and HIs Word was soaring into the twilight zone.  On Thursday night I announced to the congregation that on Friday, the final night, I would be preaching on the Second Coming of Christ.  I was certain that Jesus’ return could not occur until I had thoroughly prepared them for His coming.

I woke up on Friday morning pumped about the evening service.  I spent most of the day preparing, praying and pleading with God for His Anointing– as I should have.  My mistake was that that afternoon I also took the time to read a short paperback book I had picked up at a yard sale entitled, We’ve Been Robbed.  It was all about how we have forgotten our rightful inheritance in Christ– robbed of our prosperity, robbed of our blessing, robbed of our power, and robbed of our authority.  It was a typical “name it and claim it” book that contained a kernel of truth, but was not good for a naive, immature seventeen year-old evangelist to digest just before taking the stage and a microphone.

The Friday night crowd was larger than the previous evenings.  It was a hot, sultry night and the big rotating fans hanging down from the tall church ceiling couldn’t keep up with the heat rising from the feverish crowd below.  Of necessity, a thoughtful deacon raised the huge windows along the sides of the sanctuary for additional ventilation.  I took the platform and began a biblical foray into the “signs of the times.”  Without screens on the windows, the church auditorium became a magnet for all kinds of summer insects– including the massive horseflies from the cow pasture adjoining the church property.

Before long the air was filled with the buzzing of horseflies flying and diving around the heads of the listeners.  I couldn’t help but notice people swatting and dodging the irritating dive-bombers from hell.  All of the sudden I remembered the paperback I had just read.  In my quick estimation, the horsefly invasion was simply a diabolical plot of Satan to distract and rob the saints of the truth emanating from the pulpit.  This has to be my opportunity to take back the power and authority that Satan, the thief, has taken from us.  Then, filled with what I thought was faith, I said the unthinkable.  It just rolled off my tongue before I had the sense to stop it.

“According to the Word of God,” I said,  “We have authority over all the creatures of the earth.  It’s part of the authority given to us by our Creator in the Garden of Eden.  I’m going to use that authority right now and command these horseflies to leave this church property!”  (I observed my sweet mother on the back row lower her head into her hands, dreading what I was about to do.  I know she was praying for God’s mercy on her poor son.)

“In the Name of Jesus, I command these distracting horseflies to leave this place right now– I rebuke you in the Name of Jesus!”

As I prayed my final, “…in the Name of Jesus,” one of those diving kamikaze horseflies crashed right into my front teeth!  I spit and sputtered all over myself, unable to get another syllable out of my mouth.  The congregation was stunned for a moment, and then began to snicker.  Some of my friends broke out into full-throated laughter.  I was humilated. (So was my mom.)  I’m certain most people felt sorry for me, but for some it was at least an entertaining show.  I apologized, gave no explanation for my failed authority, and moved on with my sermon.  It all ended OK, but it was my last night at the little Baptist church in the country.  (It was my last night there– ever.)

Looking back, I think I understand what happened.  Those horseflies were not Satanic messengers– they were commissioned by God.  Being humble is our choice; being humiliated is often the alternative.  He probably was forced to send an angelic pitcher to the mound to toss me a curveball– right in the teeth.  That holy horsefly gave his all to teach a young servant of the Lord three important lessons–  1) He mustn’t believe everything he reads;  2) everything that enters his mind is not from God; and 3) all authority belongs to God, and not him.

This is what I really learned that day:  I am called to be God’s servant, not his Prime Minister.

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.”     Proverbs 11:2

 

 

 

“The Other Man in the Room”

Dr. Mike Sims glanced at his watch as he pushed open the heavy glass door and exited the family practice clinic.   Depending on traffic he could be home in less than fifteen minutes.  He walked briskly toward the white Toyota Tacoma sitting almost alone in the staff parking lot.  A quick button press on the key fob unlocked it just a half-second before his hand pulled open the door.  A blast of heat greeted him as he slid into the truck cab which by now was thoroughly roasted by the hot Georgia sun.  Dr. Sims’  last patient of the day had required more time than he had anticipated.   Some people simply love to recount details– every detail of every pain that they have experienced over the last 48 hours.  But many years of experience had taught him to listen carefully, because somewhere sandwiched in the midst of insignificant details, was the tell-tale sign that provided the key to a diagnosis.  Dr. Sims was a good listener.  A warm, caring demeanor had always been his style, boosting his practice and retaining the respect and loyalty of most all of his patients.

Growing up in the small town of Ashland, Alabama, Dr. Sims had long admired the skill and compassion of a small town doctor.  In Ashland the local physician was more than a professional.  He was a neighbor and a friend.  Mike’s childhood peers were the local doctor’s kids.  They went to school together, played sports together, and worshipped God together.  Back in the day, house calls were not unusual, and malpractice litigation was almost unheard of.  Local families trusted their doctor because the doctor had earned their trust.  Being a family doctor with a small town flair in Georgia’s second largest city was the only way Mike knew to practice medicine.  It wasn’t a public relations stunt, it was his lifestyle.

Mike Sims had always been a gentle, kind soul.  I should know.  He’s my big brother.  Sure, growing up we fought as brothers sometimes did, but he was always my rock.  Mike could be counted on to do what was right.  Conscientious and thoughtful, Mike was always a guy  who made an impact on those around him, and they trusted him.  He was soft spoken, but not shy.  Where I was the loud one who ended up the “preacher” in the family, Mike’s message was not regularly spoken from a pulpit.  Still, he never held back expressing his personal faith in Jesus in public or in private.  Mike felt a calling from God to the medical field in the same way I felt God’s call into the ministry.  Praying with patients and sharing Christ with them is simply him being true to who he is.  Mike is a great doctor, a great brother, and an extraordinary man.

Mike exited the parking lot and easily merged onto Bradley Park Drive.  The afternoon drive time in Columbus could sometimes be daunting, but since it was already approaching six o’clock, traffic had settled down nicely.  He didn’t switch on the radio, but allowed his mind to quietly review the more than twenty patients he had seen that day.  The busyness of the day often required some quiet time to reflect, and driving home was a great time for it.  Randomly he thought of an elderly patient he had not heard from in several days– Loraine Moreway.  Loraine was under hospice care in her home.  The eighty-eight year old had developed an aortic aneurysm that was inoperable and had begun to slowly bleed out.  For Mrs. Morway it was just a matter of time–  perhaps a month, a week, or a day– no one knew for sure.  She was not in pain, but was keenly aware of her circumstance, growing weaker by the day.

Mike had been Loraine’s doctor for over twenty years.  For a while she had also attended the same church as Mike and Kathy and their family.  They knew her as a vibrant Christian with a deep personal relationship with the Holy Spirit.  Gentle and humble, Loraine always had something good to say about Jesus, and of what He was doing in her life at any moment.  Mike always looked forward to her visits at the clinic.  She was positive and uplifting, and thoroughly devoted to God’s Word.  A timely quote from the Bible always graced her conversation.  Mike’s prayers for Loraine at the end of an office visit was always reciprocated by her praying for him as well.  With Mrs. Moreway, the doctor patient relationship was a two-way street.

Perhaps a brief visit to check on Loraine might be a good idea, Mike thought as he waited at a traffic light.  She’s day-to-day, and I don’t want to miss the opportunity to see her.  Although her house on Roxbury Drive was in the opposite direction from his home, Mike made the quick decision to make a house call, turning left onto Whitesville Road as soon as the light changed to green.  A quick call to Loraine’s daughter prepared them to expect his visit.  He whispered a prayer for Mrs. Moreway as he drove.

Loraine’s warm smile greeted him as her daughter ushered Mike into the room.  Her frail frame, barely five feet tall, sat comfortably in her easy chair holding her reading glasses in her hand.  He noticed her well-worn Bible sharing a space on the side table with a glass of water.  Her eyes were happy, sparkling as usual.  He saw no fear in them at all.

“Well look who’s here.  There’s a doctor in the room!”  she said softly.  “I’m so happy to see you, Dr. Mike.  It’s so sweet of you to come all the way over here to visit me.”

“It’s my pleasure to drop by and check on you, Loraine,” he responded.  “I just wanted to see how you were getting along, and have a word of prayer with you on my way home.”

Mike pulled up a chair and sat right in front of her, almost knee to knee.  She was eighty-eight years old, but didn’t look a day over seventy-eight.  Her silver hair was set perfectly in place as if she had prepared to go somewhere.  Her peach bathrobe was the only thing that gave the impression that she was sick.  Their conversation about her medical condition was brief.  He was relieved that she was not in any pain at all.  “Before I leave, let me have a word of prayer with you,” he offered.  Loraine’s daughter stood from her seat and moved over to join them.

“Yes, please do,” Loraine said eagerly.  “I always treasure your prayers, Dr. Mike.”  He held her frail hand and prayed a short, meaningful prayer with her asking God to allow her to feel His Presence, and to give her His perfect peace, ending his prayer with his usual, “In the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.”  Before Mike could raise his head he heard Loraine suddenly declare,

“Oh, He’s here!”   Loraine’s eyes were transfixed on something  just above and behind him.  “He’s come!”  Mike made a quick backward glance, seeing nothing, and then turned back toward Loraine.  She closed her eyes, bowed her head, and began to sink downward.

“Mother?” her daughter said anxiously.  “Mother!”  Mike heard Loraine take one quick breath and then relax, exhaling slowly and completely.  He felt her wrist for a pulse.

“She’s gone,” he whispered.  The powerful, loving presence of the Holy Spirit filled the room as they sat for a moment in silence.

When my brother called me that evening and recounted the entire story I was deeply moved.  As a physician for over thirty-five years my brother had been with many as they passed into eternity, but for Mike, this one was different.  As a pastor I have been with many in their final moment as well, but rarely experienced something as vivid as what he experienced that day.  Mike felt for that moment as if he was on Holy Ground.  The doctor was not the only man in the room.

Discussing his awesome experience strengthened our firm belief that Jesus Christ is real, heaven is real, and that because we have put our trust in Christ, we too will have no fear in death.  In Christ, the grave has no victory.  Death has truly lost its sting.

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”   John 11:25

 

 

 

“Breathe Mark, Breathe!”

  Breathe Mark, breathe!  It used to hurt my feelings when I heard it, and I heard it at least a thousand times before I was twelve years old.  My dad was the one who first crafted the phrase, but my mom and my older brother used it on me as well.  If I ever got distracted, or forgot to do something I would hear, “Breathe Mark, breathe.”   Nowadays, I would probably have been labeled ADD, but I came along about forty years before ADD became a diagnosis.  I wasn’t really hyperactive (most of the time), but simply had a problem of “paying attention.”  And it wasn’t the kind of thing that resulted in bad grades.   I just “forgot” things easily.

Mom might say, “Mark go brush your teeth and hop into bed; it’s bed time.”  I would dutifully head toward the bathroom with every obedient intention, but would almost always get distracted by something like– the old antique trunk in the hallway.  In a split second, that old trunk would become a pirate’s treasure chest containing gold coins and jewels beyond my wildest dreams. It would steal away all of my attention.   Then the next thing I knew Mom would be pinching the fire out of me, demanding why I didn’t obey her.  I was stunned that she would think I wanted to disobey!  My answer?  “Mom, I just forgot.”

Looking back, I lived in my own fantasy world of cowboys and Indians, kings and queens, knights and peasants, Roman soldiers, pioneers, and American GI’s storming the Normandy beaches.  For instance, I would dress up my compliant little sister like a queen and wait on a thumbs up or thumbs down from her on whether  I should spear the boxwood bushes in our front yard.  The bushes were, of course, wicked prisoners who had been condemned to death for their terrible deeds, and I was her loyal and brave knight, Prince Valiant.

Just behind my house was Mr. Brewer’s large cornfield.  (Yes, the same cornfield that showed up in my blog post of May 5th– “Speaking In Cursive.”)  Every  November, when the corn stalks were brown, crusty, and dead, they became an army of zombies daring me to vanquish each one with a skillful swipe of the sword.  It might take me two weeks, but by Thanksgiving they would all be subdued and the kingdom would be safe again–  as I, the hero, earned the gratitude of the king, and the hand of his daughter, the beautiful princess.

It all came to a head one day I after I brought home my fourth grade report card from school.  I was proud to show them my grades– all A’s and one B+ in arithmetic.  Oh yeah!  I would be the star player at the supper table for sure!  But unlike me, Mom read the WHOLE report card.  On the top right side of the report card were boxes that a teacher could check to report things other than academic performance.  Mrs. Bonner checked two boxes: 1. Frequently tardy;  and, 2. Comes to school with clothes soiled.    

It was like my mom had taken a bazooka shot to the face!   “What!  What does she mean by that?  That’s ridiculous!  Mark is always on time for school.  And he gets a bath every night, and I put clean clothes on him every morning!  The nerve of Thelma Bonner to insult me like that!   She’ll hear from me first thing in the morning.”

Mom was mad.  Really mad.  I knew it because she was crying while she was talking.  My mild-mannered, Southern lady-type mom rarely dared to show disapproval publicly, but this would be an exception.  My teacher had fired a shot at Mom’s competency in motherhood, and it pushed her right over the cliff.   Now I couldn’t wait for Mrs. Bonner to feel the full wrath of Mom!

The next morning we ate breakfast and got ready for school earlier than usual.  I could tell that Mom was nervous because she hardly said anything.  She probably hadn’t slept all night.  I heard her praying for God to help her as we were getting our stuff in the car for the ride to school.  It felt so great.  We were riding to school in the car, even though it wasn’t raining!  I usually walked to school since it was less than a quarter of a mile away.  Today was a real treat.  I could enjoy the ride to school, AND watch my mom put the fear of God in my teacher.  What better day could a fourth grader have?

Mom didn’t let me watch her epic takedown of Mrs. Bonner.  I had to go into the classroom while Mom and Mrs. Bonner talked out in the hall.  A few minutes later my teacher walked back into the room, motioning for me to go out into the hallway.  And Mrs. Bonner didn’t go out with me.  It was me and Mom in the hall alone, and the look on her face told me that I was in deep do do.  Busted!!  What Mom DIDN’T know, until I confessed, was that most mornings as I walked to school, I stopped by a small creek next to my house and checked on things like–  the rock and mud harbor I was building for my naval fleet of pine bark boats, and the secret burial chamber that I was carving out of the clay creek bank to place the remains of our blue parakeet that had died.  Obviously, Mrs. Bonner thought that my mom ought to know that something wasn’t adding up.  Checking the boxes was just her strange way of doing it.

My dad decided that my problem wasn’t that I couldn’t remember.  (I did well on tests at school except for mathematics, which since the advent of the simple calculator, should be an elective!)  No, he said it was because I didn’t know how to listen.  Selective listening?  Maybe. Probably.  But Dad was convinced that I wasn’t being disobedient on purpose.  I just didn’t know how to listen.  “Son, if you don’t learn to listen,” he expounded, “you’ll have to be told every move to make just to survive.  Am I even going to have to tell you every breath to breathe?”  And that’s when my sentence was passed down to me–  to hear that dreaded phrase a thousand times or more– “Breathe Mark, breathe.”  

On my way into the bathroom to brush my teeth– “Breathe Mark, breathe.”

On my way outside to feed the dog– “Breathe Mark, breathe.”

On my way to take out the garbage– “Breathe Mark, breathe.”

It offended me then, but now I understand.  I’ve struggled with it most of my life, and have had to apologize countless times to my wife, my family, and my friends– simply for not taking the time to really listen.  Over the years God has helped me and I’m getting better at it.

People have to learn to listen– to choose to listen.  It’s part of why our world is in such chaos now.  Everyone has an opinion, but no one wants to listen to anyone else’s opinion.  If  someone disagrees, call them a “hater” and keep talking.  Never listen.  Just create a fantasy world where you’re the hero, and you won’t have to listen; only give opinions.

It seems that Dad was right.  People don’t know how to listen.

“A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.”  Proverbs 18:2

 

 

“Via Veneto”

I remember it like it was yesterday.  I was in Rome, Italy.  January 20, 1977.  The day Jimmy Carter was inaugurated President.  I was a 2o year old college student studying abroad.  That may sound a bit Ivy League, but it really wasn’t all that.  I signed up for a Jan-Term archaeology course at Samford University that included a three week trip to Israel and Italy.  “Studying abroad” just sounds cooler.

Our class spent two weeks in Israel seeing the sights and visiting archaeological digs .(Basically, we visited what other people had dug.  Interesting, but not really National Geographic material. We were, however, housed in the cold attic of a three hundred year old church.  That was cool.)  I enjoyed the trip very much.  Just being in the land that Abraham claimed, that David ruled, and that Jesus walked was inspiring enough.  But we got to visit places that regular tourists couldn’t even see.  It was an exhilarating adventure.  I thought about Jesus every single day.  It was quite a spiritual romp for a twenty year old.

One day in Jerusalem was especially memorable. We were strolling through the Valley of Hinnom, on the southeastern side of Jerusalem, just outside the ancient wall. It is a beautiful municipal park now, but in the time of Jesus it was Jerusalem’s garbage dump.  No kidding.  In Jesus’ day it was called Gehenna, where there was always garbage burning and dead animals smouldering and swelling in the hot sun.  Imagine the stench!

Jesus, when speaking of the fires of hell, pointed to the Valley of Hinnom and said, “Hell is like Gehenna, where the fire is never quenched and the worm doesn’t die.”  Whoa!  I was actually walking through hell, or at least Jesus’ metaphor of it.  And then, if that wasn’t enough, it began to snow on that cold January day in Jerusalem.  What perfect timing!  Now I can say with confidence to my children and grandkids, “I was there the day hell froze over.”  (ba dum tsh, ba-dum ching!)

After the Israel experience, we flew to Rome and spent most of another week in Italy–  in Rome, Florence, Naples, and Pompeii.  On our final day in Italy our professor gave us a free day to do whatever we wanted, as long as we didn’t go anywhere alone.  I, however, wanted to visit some places that no one else wanted to go, so I set out alone– confident that I could take care of myself.

I set out first of all to find a bookstore where I could surely purchase a map of the city of Rome, in English.  After walking several blocks from the hotel, I found myself on the Via Veneto– a main drag in Rome.  It was a wide and busy boulevard full of shops, cafes, and important government buildings– including the American Embassy, where i noticed a proud Marine standing guard at the entrance of the embassy compound.  I crossed the to the other side of the Via Veneto, and was lucky to locate a tiny bookshop nestled tightly between a cafe and a shoe store, directly across the Via Veneto from our embassy.

A little brass bell jingled when I entered the narrow shotgun styled bookshop.  The Italian shopkeeper standing behind the counter at the other end reminded me of Clark Gable.  His jet black hair was slicked back, and he sported a thin mustache that gently graced  his upper lip.  He smiled and nodded as I walked in, but said nothing.  My eyes quickly located the tourist maps halfway back on the left, so I moved quickly to them and began looking for an English map among the ones in German and Japanese.

Less than a minute later I heard the bell jingle again.  Another patron entered chattering in Italian from the moment he stepped inside the door.  I paid no attention to the conversation between the two, but it never slowed down.  All of the sudden there was silence.  The silence was way too silent, so I glanced over my shoulder to see what was going on.  I froze.  My heart skipped a beat. The muscles in my neck tightened to the point of choking myself when I saw the Clark Gable look alike with both hands up in the air, and the chattery stranger holding a black pistol pointed straight toward the shopkeeper’s belly.

I didn’t move, hoping he would’t see me.  But it was too late.  The shopkeeper looked toward me, as did the robber.  Waving the pistol, he directed the shopkeeper to stand next to me.  Instinctively, I put my hands up as well.  The gruff intruder said something to me in Italian, and I squeaked out a response in the best Spanish I knew–  “Ingles?”  (I know, Spanish and Italian are not the same.  I was stressed, ok?)  I could smell his nasty cigarette breath as he leaned in and said, “Money.”

I figured that was what he wanted.  And the truth was, I had all the money I owned in the world on me that day!  But it was hidden in a money belt that I had strapped tightly under my underwear for safe keeping.  Hoping he wasn’t a perv, and that he wouldn’t strip me naked, I eeked out, “Here’s all I got, and you can have it.”  (Not true, but a necessary lie.)  I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a few hundred Italian lira– amounting to about $5.  He laughed at me.  I raised my hands high again, still gripping the Italian lira.

That’s when everything went into slow motion for me.  He methodically placed the pistol barrel right next to my left ear, giving my lobe a couple of nudges.  My whole life raced before my eyes.  I thought of my family back home in Alabama.  I assumed he would kill me and dump my body in the Tiber River where one would ever find me.  My poor Mom and Dad would be broken hearted, never knowing what happened to me.  Thoughts came like lightning bolts.  I wondered why the brave Marine didn’t leave his post and bring a brigade of the proud and the few across the street to rescue an American citizen!  I thought about pain.  About dying.  About Jesus.  About Eternity.

Just then he moved the pistol down to my belly, and gave it a push into my belly button.  “That’s better, I thought.  Maybe he’ll just shoot me in the stomach or the leg and let me go.  I’ll take that any day over the alternative.”  A few seconds passed– or maybe a couple of minutes– I don’t know.  Strangely, the surly gunman pulled back his overcoat and inserted the pistol into a holster strapped to his belt.  I noticed a gold seal with gold writing pressed into the leather holster– Roma Polizia— Rome Police!  Good grief!  That sucker has killed a policeman, stolen his gun, and is holding us hostage in a bookstore!

Then, like I was coming out of a trance,  I noticed that the shopkeeper was no longer holding his hands up.  In fact he and the stranger were laughing!  Together!  At me!   The man with the nicotine breath gestured in my direction, “American0!  Joke!”

All the blood that had drained to my feet suddenly came rushing up into my head!  I trembled. I felt feverish. I thought my head was about to explode.

“Some joke!” I screamed as I jetted out of the bookshop slamming the door and abusing the poor bell as I exited.  Storming up the busy Via Veneto sidewalk I pursed my lips tightly until I couldn’t hold it in any longer.  I ruptured into tears, sobbing and snotting all the way through the intersection to the opposite side of the busy boulevard.  I buzzed at the gate of the American Embassy, hoping for help and vindication.  A big  bellied American in a ill fitting suit asked me what my business was.  I told him the whole story– with drama enough to win myself an Emmy.  His response?  “Welcome to Rome, Buddy.”

It was truly the first time in my life I had ever felt my mortality in my throat.  It was a day that I have lived and relived many times in dreams and nightmares.  The only way to make peace with the whole affair is to laugh at it, and get others to laugh with me– because it WAS a joke– a cruel joke, but a joke none the same.   Still, I remember the day I lost my youthful invincibility, and became a mortal man.  It was then that I realized the truth in Ecclesiastes 1:11.  “He has set eternity in our hearts….”

 

 

“Greasy Hair and Silly Prayers”

It was 1970.  I was 14 years old and needed help with life.  Being the shortest kid in my class was hard enough to handle, but couple that with my inability to excel at anything athletic, and anyone will understand why I needed help.  The eighth grade is ground zero for male insecurity.  Everybody knows that everything matters in the eighth grade– voice, wit, romance, odor, clothes, and especially HAIR.   In 1970 it was a guy’s hair that told his story.  The crew cuts and flat tops of the 50’s and 60’s were history, and guys were finally liberated to look like Jesus– or at least like the Beatles.  The coolest men on TV sported locks of hair down on their shoulders and plenty of facial hair.  Add bell bottom jeans, wide leather belts, and love beads and any guy could possess undisputed coolness.

Unfortunately, I was a 14 year old shrimp with only a little facial fuzz and very traditional parents who thought long hair was a sign of satanic rebellion.  I tried showing Dad multiple pictures of Jesus in my Sunday school quarterly to prove that long hair could be a godly look, but it was of no use.  He wouldn’t even let my hair creep over my ears, much less flow across my shoulders.  We were able to work out a compromise though.  I WAS allowed to wear my hair down on my forehead like Paul McCartney, just so the back was neatly trimmed and the entire ear showed.  He didn’t like my “bangs” hovering over my eyes, but it was a compromise he was willing to accommodate– especially when he noticed how many of my friends were actually chasing the Jesus look, while their parents were obviously looking the other way.  For me it was just the best I could get, even though I looked like a clean cut guy with love beads and a brown possum resting on my forehead.

One normal Sunday morning as the Sims family was busy getting dressed for church, a crisis erupted in our pink tiled bathroom that ruined the entire day– and could have ruined my entire life.  I was meticulously working to get a thick swoosh of hair to rest perfectly on top of my eyebrows when I heard Mom bellow from the yellow bathroom, “Where’s my Aqua-Net?”

Aqua-Net was, of course, the hairspray of choice for moms everywhere.  It was basically shellac in an aerosol can.  It was the only way to guarantee that hair would stay in place all day– no matter what.  My mom had a ninety mile an hour hairdo that lasted a week– from Friday to Friday, when she would again visit Hilda’s beauty shop.  Between Fridays, it was Aqua-Net that preserved the shape of Hilda’s weekly sculpture on Mom’s scalp.

“Mark’s got it,” my 7 year old sister turned spy announced.  That was NOT good news for my Dad to hear.  Having been dressed and waiting impatiently for the last hour, Dad freaked out and made a bee line to the pink bathroom. In the mirror I saw his eyebrows raised high as he barreled in– man on a mission.

“No son of mine is going to primp in front of a mirror with a can of hairspray in his hand!”  My normally cheerful Dad was really upset. “Follow me to my room,” he barked jerking the Aqua-Net out of my hand.  I obeyed, but should have kept my big mouth shut.

“Come on Dad, what’s the big deal?”

“If you don’t know, I’m about to show you!” he answered without slowing down.  I followed him into the yellow bathroom where Mom was getting ready.  She didn’t say a word as he handed her the Aqua-Net.  Dad yanked open the cabinet drawer and pulled out a tube of Brylcreem.  Brylcreem looked like a tube of toothpaste, but was actually something used to slick down men’s hair so that a comb could tame it.  Brylcreem was  an emulsion  of water, mineral oil, and beeswax.  It looked like lard and made hair look wet and greasy.  No!  This was 1970!  The “dry look” was in.

He squirted a generous amount of Brylcreem into his hand (although the Brylcreem jingle said, “a little dab’ll do ya.”) and began working it into my scalp!

“No, Dad, please don’t!” I begged.  He grabbed his comb and began combing my thick bangs straight back across my head.  I was mortified!  I looked like my 60 year old school principal.  How could he be doing this to me?  I could see that my Mom was disturbed.  Somehow she knew this would not be good for my self-esteem.

“Coolidge, you don’t have to do that,” she said calmly.

“Oh yes I do,” he retorted.  “He’s got to learn how to look like a man.”  Mom slipped out of the yellow bathroom without saying anything else, but her body language was loud and clear, “Momma’s not happy.”

Dad was defiant.  “He’d better be glad I don’t have scissors in my hand right now or I’d whack it ALL off.”

The drive to church was silent.  I was teary-eyed and pouting in the back seat with my sister staring at my face the whole way.  I would have screamed at her to stop looking at me, but I was afraid to say anything that might make it worse.  Mom just stared out the passenger seat window silently feeling my pain.  I wished my brother was in the car for moral support, but he was away at college doing who knows what with his hair.   Oh, the injustice!

Dad parked the big Buick in the church parking lot, but I didn’t want to get out of the car.  How in the world could I walk into the intermediate boys Sunday school class and face my friends looking like Conway Twitty?  I was ruined.  I was done for.  I would be the laughing stock of the class today, and of the school tomorrow. “Cool” would never define me, and no girl would ever want to “go steady” with a greaser.  But skipping Sunday school was not an option in the Sims household.  Deep darkness crept in as I slowly made my way into the church and up the stairs.  I hid in the bathroom for a few minutes just to gather my thoughts.  I was already late, and at least two dozen of my friends would see me and gasp when I entered the room.  Alas!  My life was over!

“Oh God, help me!” I prayed in the boys bathroom.

Suddenly I had an idea.  It simply had to work– there was no other option.  I grabbed a broom from a corner in the men’s bathroom and burst into the Sunday school room, using the broom as a microphone.

“You ain’t nothing but a hound dog.  Crying all the time.” 

Elvis had entered the room and they loved it–  Brylcreemed hair and all.

An insecure fourteen-year old survived.

 

 

 

“Neo-Natal Meltdown”

In my more than thirty years of pastoral partnership with Ron Cox at Kingwood Church, my mind has amassed dozens of humorous stories that we experienced together in ministry. I learned quickly to “expect the unexpected” when working with Pastor Ron. He is like a lightning rod, attracting bizarre and unpredictable strikes in his direction. It’s not that terrible things occur when he’s around, but that hanging around Ron Cox sometimes opens the door to rare adventures—usually originating from life’s most common circumstances.

One of those “never to be forgotten” moments occurred when Pastor Ron and I were doing routine hospital visits one hot, summer afternoon in downtown Birmingham. We had made a trip to the UAB Hospital’s state-of-the-art neo-natal unit to visit a sick child. While we were there we discovered that one of our church members was a specialty nurse on the unit. She was eager to show us around her workplace, and even allowed us minister to some of the families who were desperately hoping for their tiny loved ones to get well. The quick visit turned into a long and busy ministry opportunity which we welcomed with open arms.

Just before we left, the nurse took us to the part of the unit where the most delicate premature birth babies were struggling for survival. Both Ron and I were moved by the tiny children we saw gasping for breath and fighting for their lives in the incubators. One of them had been born so prematurely that his razor thin skin was nearly transparent. We could actually see his internal organs, and watched his tiny heart beat like it was under opaque glass. The neo-natal nursery was amazing.

As we exited the high-tech unit I could feel my stomach getting queasy. The pitiful sight of those tiny babies was more than I could handle. A sudden onrush of nausea hit me like a ton of bricks. My head began to swim and I could feel my face becoming pale. At the same time Pastor Ron announced, “I am so sick, Mark. I think I’m going to black out.”

“Me too,” I muttered. I knew I had to lie down somewhere—immediately. “Hey, Ron,” I said in a faint whisper, “I’m going to lie down here just a minute until I feel a little better.” I slowly sunk onto my knees and then stretched out across the cool tile floor, trying to do anything to keep from fainting. Meanwhile, Ron was gently sinking to the floor as well, searching for a quick and safe resting place before he hit the floor with a thud.

We were a sight lying there—two grown men in suits and ties, lying spread-eagle and hugging the cold floor in the middle of the hall. Several medical professionals scurried over to us when they saw us hit the deck. “Are you guys okay? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I somehow mumbled. “Give me a couple of minutes. I’ve got to cool off my face on this floor. It’s no big deal.” That made perfect sense to me at the time, although I’m certain the guy who heard it thought I had lost my mind. I don’t know how long they stayed with us, but we eventually got up and made our way out of the hospital (great men of faith that we were). I’m certain we were the subject of more than a few laughs that day in the doctor’s lounge.

 

 

 

“Ugly Words and Shooting Birds”

I grew up in a Christian home.  My parents did not allow foul talk or “cussing” in our house.  I never heard it come from either of my parents, and I knew it wouldn’t be tolerated if I tried it.  But I always fantasized what “cussing” would sound like coming out of my own mouth.  I was in the sixth grade, and had just heard some brand new, juicy words on the school playground that day.  Oh, how I wanted the courage and the freedom to say them!  How I wanted to fit in with the guys, and feel the power of those words slicing through the air, making the girls cringe and my pals take notice.  But I just couldn’t do it.  I knew that if I did, it would surely make it’s way back to my folks.  I lived in a small town, and somehow in my community everybody knew everything about everyone.  It’s just a fact.  Besides, I remembered when my older brother had been exposed after letting one fly during junior high P.E. class a couple of years earlier.  It brought pure scandal to our household, and a crying jag from my disappointed mother.  And my brother paid for it dearly.

Upon returning home from school that day I devised a scheme– a way to get away with it.  I would go behind the green storage shed in the back corner of our yard, face the September cornfield just behind it, and all alone, and without anyone in hearing distance, I would let ‘er rip!  What an incredible feeling it would be to empty my soul of those nasty words that were brimming to be released!  And I did just that!  What’s more, I even broke another family taboo when I gave the innocent rows of corn the middle finger several times during my verbal vomit session!

Just when my secret tirade was slowing down, I saw something moving among the corn stalks.  It was old Mr. Brewer, our neighbor from across the field!  He had heard me, no doubt!  As quick as a flash, I made my way back to my house, red-faced and thoroughly embarrassed.   As supper approached,  I began to imagine what would surely happen.  The phone would ring, my mother would answer, and Mr. Brewer’s wife, Nettie, would inform my mom of everything! What I had done was unforgivable.  My brother had only violated the taboo with one word, while I had used a whole string of them, and had “shot birds” as well!  It was a grievous offense indeed, and I was was in it way too deep.  Death seemed preferable to facing what I had done.

Just before the family gathered for dinner I exploded.  Like a volcano, I erupted, blurting it out to my mom in the kitchen.  I was sobbing so hard she could not understand my words, so I had to tell it all to her again!  Double the shame!   But then I  felt her loving arms wrapping around my eleven year old frame as she whispered, “It’s ok.  Thank you for telling me. It looks to me like you’ve learned your lesson.  Doesn’t it feel good to get it off your chest? ”  And that was it.  That was all.  It was over.  Supper was fabulous and we never talked about it again.  And Nettie Brewer never called.

 

 

 

“The Chief and Me”

The following is an excerpt from chapter three of the rough draft of a new book I am presently writing.  The book focuses on the last months of my elderly father’s earthly life, and the myriad of conversations we had during visits with him at The Oaks, an assisted living center.  Dad had just moved out of the house he had lived in since 1957, and away from the small town he had called home for over 80 years.  It was no easy decision for him, but it was one of necessity.  In this exchange, I was helping him unpack his stuff the day after arriving at his new home– a modest two-room apartment that would serve as his final home address.

       Together we unloaded the final container of stuff I had brought, giving us a unique opportunity to talk about things past.   In the box were a few pictures and some small items that had special significance to him. I placed the black and white five-by-seven picture of my mom next to his bed as he had ordered. Among a few framed pictures of family and friends, one item caught my eye. It was a small, brown leather book no larger than four inches square, packed full of names, addresses and phone numbers. Turning back some of the pages, I saw that most of them were obviously quite old—entries written in fountain pens, and even addresses without zip codes.

          “What in the world is this, Dad?” He stopped digging in his billfold long enough to look intently at what I was showing him.

           “That’s my little brown book. I’ve been keeping important information in there for years. Give it here; let me show you.” He adjusted his gold wire frame glasses, lifting his head high enough to peer through the bifocal lens at the bottom.

He fumbled through the brittle pages jam-packed with entries written in black or blue ink, and some in fast fading pencil. I eyed his knotted, swollen finger joints as they worked together in clumsy fashion to separate the pages that the passing of years had caused to stick together. These were the same hands, once nimble, that I had watched in the prescription room type medicine bottle labels at break-neck speed, and then accurately count out capsules and tablets, load them into pill bottles, and screw the cap on—all with the deft precision of a concert pianist.

          “Here’s Dr. Wickersham’s address; you remember him? And, look-a-here, here’s one for Chief Elliot.”

          “Chief Elliot! I responded incredulously. “He’s been dead since I was a little kid. Look Dad, his phone number has only four digits. How long ago has that been?”

            “I’m sure that you, of all people, remember Chief Elliot, don’t you, Mark?” With a slight tilt of my head to the right I gave him a puzzled look.

            “All I remember is who he was—the Police Chief,” I stated confidently.

            “You don’t remember the day Chief caught you playing with my German war souvenirs?” he asked.  And then, suddenly it all came back to me.

            “Oh that Chief Elliot!  Heck, yeah, I remember—I couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. I had put that heavy German army helmet on my head and strapped the bayonet around my waist, and was playing in the front yard.”

            “That wasn’t all,” he added. “You had that Nazi flag I brought back from the war, tied it to a pole, and marched up and down the driveway!”

            “That’s right,” I recalled, ”Chief Elliot pulled into the driveway in his police car and started screaming at me. I was petrified. I had no idea what he was saying to me.” Dad could hardly stop chuckling as he finished the story.

            “The Chief came into the drugstore afterward and told me what he had done. He was so embarrassed. He said that you threw the flag down and ran crying back toward the house. Chief said that the huge, heavy helmet was bobbing up and down on your head while you ran. He realized that he had scared you, and tried to call you back and apologize—but you were gone.”

            “I do remember that! I was scared to death of him from that day on.” We continued our laughing and remembering. “I think I have emotional problems as a result.”

            “What you didn’t know,” he informed me, “was that he lost a son in World War Two. Seeing you in that Nazi gear was just too emotional for him. He was getting on up in years and kind-of snapped.”

            “I didn’t know what a Nazi was,” I said in defense. “I just liked to play army, and your souvenirs were fun to play with.”

            “Oh, I know,” Dad said, still laughing a bit. “Do you remember what I came home and told you?”

            “Not really. I guess it was too traumatic a day for me.”

            “I came right home to check on you,” he said. “I let you know that I wasn’t mad at you. You were too young to know what Nazis were, and you were so imaginative when you played. I didn’t have the heart to tell you that you couldn’t play with my souvenirs anymore. I just told you that the next time you played with them, do it in the back yard, not the front.”

 

 

 

“Brother Wells and the Sink Bomb”

Brother Cliff Wells had worked tirelessly as a maintenance worker all of his life. He was one of those rare gentlemen who could fix just about anything.  Brother Wells was a short, rotund fellow who always sported a wide grin and friendly eyes, and spoke with a conspicuous lisp. He kept his straight silver hair tucked away neatly under a gray pinstriped railroad hat he wore every day except Sunday.

After one of Glenda Cox’s cooking binges, her husband, Pastor Ron, came in to find the kitchen sink clogged with all kinds of food waste. The Coxes didn’t have a garbage disposal, but Glenda often used the sink drain as a trash pail just the same. All evening Ron tried in vain to unclog the sink, but could get nowhere. Even a trip to the store to buy drain opening chemicals and other plumbing paraphernalia yielded no success, so Ron made a quick call to Brother Wells to request his help the next morning. Meanwhile the backed up sink remained a lake of nasty water, grease, eggshells, and vegetables.

Brother Wells arrived bright and early the next day, wearing his familiar railroad cap and a smile. Eager to give aid to his beloved pastor, he unloaded his tools and began to help Ron with the stubborn sink. After about thirty minutes of fruitless effort, Brother Wells took off his pinstriped cap, scratched his head, and breathed a sigh of frustration. “Bwotha Cox,” he said with his familiar lisp, “I don’t know if I’ve evah seen a dwain in quite dis bad a shape! What do ya weckon Miss Gwenda put down dis sink?” Cliff was seriously concerned, but Ron could barely keep from chuckling aloud in amusement.

“I don’t know Brother Wells, but she did cook turnip greens and made a squash casserole yesterday afternoon,” Ron gleefully responded, now enjoying every minute of their kitchen quandry.

“I tink we’re goin to need someting stwonga to get dis job done,” Cliff said as he squatted down to inspect the pipes under the sink. “Pweacha, I beweave we might need d’call wota woota.” Ron felt on the verge of laughter, but didn’t want Brother Wells to be offended, since he had been so kind to volunteer to help him. He regained his composure, and then remembered something he had recently discovered in the basement.

“Brother Wells, I have something that might just help us. I found it the other day among a bunch of half used cans of spray paint in a box downstairs. Here it is. It’s called a ‘plumbers bomb’.”

“Well I’ve nevah heard of one of dem, Pweacha,” he said. “How’s it work?” Ron read the directions for use on the metal canister and responded,

“It says to aim it into the sink and then press the red release button. It’s supposed to send air into the sink and dislodge the clog,” Ron reported. Why don’t we try it? What have we got to lose?”

“Okay, Bwotha Cox. Twy it. Maybe it’s just what we’ve been wooking for,” Brother Wells said, joining the pastor in his enthusiasm for the idea. Ron placed the canister firmly into the right sink drain while the happy plumber peered over his left shoulder. The very second the air bomb was released, the pipes under the sink were blown apart at the joints, and a geyser of mucky water came jetting out of the left sink drain just like Old Faithful—straight into Brother Wells’ face!   Spitting and spurting out a mouthful of nasty water, he wiped wet pieces of turnip greens and egg shells from his face, trying to see what had just happened. With his glasses barely hanging off the end of his nose, the kind old gentleman surveyed the damage and exclaimed, “Whew wee, Pweacha! I beweave ‘dat willy was a bomb!”

 

 

 

“Courage, Grit, and the Lunchroom Ladies”

I grew up in the small southern town of Ashland, Alabama.  It was a wonderful place to call home.  It was “Mayberry” in more ways than one.  My grade school years coincided with the time known as the Civil Rights era– the 1960’s.  I began elementary school in a racially segregated world, but entered high school in a totally different world where blacks and whites graduated school together.  It was a changing time filled with uncertainty for everyone, especially in the Deep South.  But I had a advantage over many of my friends– my grandmother.

Grandma Nichols was different from her contemporaries.  She would have been perfect to play the part of Skeeter in the movie, “The Help.”  She was truly color-blind, in the symbolic sense.  She was gifted in mercy, compassion, and generosity– for black and white the same.  I stayed with her on Saturdays while my parents worked in their retail business.  We would spend much of our Saturday distributing leftover lunchroom food to needy families; checking on elderly persons in their homes; visiting patients in the nursing home; and cooking for folks who were sick.  Black, white, or green– it made no difference to her.  Compassion was for everyone.

Grandma Nichols, or Estelle as her friends knew her, was a “lunchroom lady.”  In fact, she was THE lunchroom lady, in charge of the entire lunchroom mechanism for the local public school.  Even before the Civil Rights era, she gladly hired workers of both races.  Where most hired minorities so that they could pay them less, relegating them to the back room washing dishes and peeling potatoes, she promoted any deserving worker to the “front serving line,” and paid everyone the same regardless of race.  She was sharply criticized on occasion, but it made no difference to her.

One day she received a threatening letter from the regional grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan who lived in a neighboring town, but she refused to be intimidated.  After reading his threatening letter, she stormed into her bedroom and locked the door behind her, mumbling under her breath all the way.  A short while later she reappeared holding a sealed and stamped envelope in her hand.  Without saying a word to anyone, Grandma grabbed her purse and keys, climbed into her 1956 Chevrolet, and headed toward town.  It was assumed that she went to the post office, but there was no way of knowing since she refused to talk about the incident ever again.   For almost twenty years she was silent about the letter.

But then, as Grandma Nichols aged and became childishly fond of reminiscing about old times, the truth came out.  She had read his ugly letter, and then wasting no time, shot off a terse letter of her own in response.  With fiery pen she informed him that the lunchroom ladies were well aware of the many illicit affairs he had carried on with women in the county, and that publishing the details in the weekly newspaper would be no problem for her and the lunchroom ladies!  She dared him to bring it up again.  She never heard another word from him.

She was tough, but she cared about people.   Her kindness wasn’t a “care program” sponsored by the government or by the church, it was all from her heart.  She cared about their jobs, their dignity, and their souls.  They were her brothers and sisters in Christ, and considered her caring for them as part of her Christianity– and she was right.    Grandma Nichols defined for me where courage and compassion intersect.