Before He Was Our Dad

 

Before He Was Our Dad

We just celebrated Father's Day ! This is about our dad from June 17,2017.

That's our dad above. It's a picture of a picture so it isn't a terrific example of photographic excellence. When Dad's brother, our Uncle Monroe, died several months ago, Aunt Julia went through their side of the family photos and sent me some of our father as a young man. I don't really comprehend him as a kid. He just sprung into my life full grown without the benefit of birth, infancy, childhood, or adolescence. He was just, well, Dad.

Last week, I spent some time with one of Dad's longtime friends. He told me he always was jealous of our father's perfect diction. The friend had grown up as the child of a coal miner who did not stress language while Dad grew up with Grandpa Hawley, a minister and perhaps the preeminent high school debate coach in the state of Michigan. Dad loved words and wanted, as Mom did, to make sure we did as well. Because of their example, we do. And so many other facets of their qualities and characteristics are ingrained several generations down the line, especially to love God. What parents teach is what their grandchildren learn. At least, it worked that way with us.

This morning as I was going through the checkout line at WALMART, the cashier at the next register wished me a Happy Father's Day! I replied thanks but I don't have kids! She responded with a nice compliment which left me with kind of a glow as I walked out with my groceries. What's funny is I remember zero Father's Days growing up. My recall commences when I began working basketball camp at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee every June and July. For fifteen consecutive years, I would be coaching and I would call Dad on a dorm pay phone on Father's Day which is the nearest thing to a tradition I have. As he got older, and as I did, too, I started calling him every day. They often weren't long conversations but we touched base which became more important as Alzheimer's stole Mom away from Dad. But these talks are precious to me now, more so than when we were actually conversing. Dad would always end our calls by telling me he loved me. In flawless English, of course. The Ten Commandments told us to honor our fathers and mothers. Ineptly, I did the best I could. We miss you, Dad.

Applicable quote of the day:
My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. 
Clarence Kelland


God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1

Hit And Run

 

Hit And Run

I have no idea of how this story played out! This is from June 22, 2017.
Several days ago, I read an article by sportswriter Tom Verducci about the changing nature of the way baseball is played in the major leagues. One point he made is that the ancient strategy of the hit and run has almost disappeared on the professional level. I witnessed a perfectly executed hit and run eleven days ago. Unfortunately, I wasn't watching a baseball game when it happened. Perhaps only thirty seconds after exiting my apartment complex on my way to Sunday morning worship service, I was behind a vehicle as I pulled up to a STOP sign, preparing to turn left across traffic on Fondren, a fairly busy street. My mind was elsewhere as the guy (I'm assuming it was a guy) headed across the accumulative four lanes. There was a minivan coming the other way at I would guess the speed limit which is 35 MPH on Fondren. The car, also a minivan type, ahead of me nailed the other vehicle. He never slowed down, either never seeing the other car or thinking he could beat them to the point. It wasn't quite as bad as the picture above but it isn't totally far fetched either. I was stunned and as I was at the STOP sign, I jumped out of my Honda and took a couple of steps towards the intersection. THEN, the car that caused the accident took off! The lady in the other car got out and started screaming at him as he took off into the neighborhood behind Fondren. And he got away... I think. A bunch of people came out of the adjacent laundry mat with the noise of the crash so someone may have a license plate or at least a description for the police. It will be hard to hide the damage.

Why would someone run away from the damage they caused another when they were so obviously at fault? Maybe they had been drinking or had no insurance. Perhaps their license was suspended or there was an outstanding warrant for their arrest. It doesn't matter. They could have caused a fatality and there was at least one child in the other vehicle. But we see the same mentality in everyday life. People who should know better walk away from situations, sometimes catastrophic ones, that they caused without as much as a backwards glance. It's easier to run away than to own up to the mistake/mistakes. We see it in kids in school and kids on athletic teams. Excuses outnumber the taking of responsibility. The kids have learned it from the adults or at the minimum have had it reinforced by the adults. Teachers and coaches, two groups  in which I claim membership, are as guilty as anyone. So are Christians, another one of my subsets. Often, we have created crises in our congregations and solve them by going somewhere else. I'm not blameless here. Many years ago, I switched churches over a disagreement at a sporting event. I showed a great deal of maturity back in the day. I would guess one definition of spiritual growth is the willingness to confront our mistakes and make the necessary corrections/apologies/pleas for forgiveness. It's easier to just drive off into the neighborhood and leave others to clean up our messes which is what I saw first hand. But collisions, even emotional ones, cause damages. And damages need to be repaired and paid for.

Applicable quote of the day:
I compare it to being in a car accident. There's so much adrenaline rushing through you that you remember being in the accident but you don't remember any of the details. 
Brooke Langton

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1

Traveling Companion

 

Traveling Companion

I still do aerobic workouts but not in the pool anymore! This is from June 5, 2017!
I don't like working out with anyone else. When I have, I found we spent time talking with less results in spite of more time spent. I also never liked running with someone else. It's hard to keep on the same pace and some people make it a race. That's the great thing about swimming. You are in the water and it's pretty cut and dried (bad pun- sorry) that it's a solitary workout. My summer exercise routine looks like this. On T-TH-S, I lift in the morning and again in the afternoon. On M-W-F, I swim in the AM and again in the PM. On days I really feel motivated, I might sneak a swim in after a lift... or not. I do need to make up for the four weeks I will miss while in Vietnam!

June 2nd was a Friday, so I was in the aquatic mode. Friday morning, I got to the water at about 9:45 and I had the pool to myself.... but I wasn't alone. As I came out of the locker room and rounded the corner, there was a little boy of Chinese descent with his feet barely in the ramp that leads down into the water. I waved at him and he waved back. His mom was standing there as well but not with the intent of swimming. There was a tennis camp going on outside the indoor pool which is enclosed with glass. Mom told me she was also watching her ten year old who was a camper on the courts. I told her she had a handsome son. She beamed and told me his name is Hamilton and he is two years old. I walked to the far end, set my timer, and got in the outside lane. My routine is to swim 3/4s of the pool, run back to the deep end, and repeat the process. As I finished my first length, I was startled to see Hamilton standing right above me on the concrete. And as I ran back, he ran with me. When I reached the end and began my freestyle again, my two year old buddy accompanied me to my turn around spot and we repeated the process. His mom encouraged him and gave him running pointers. He seemed fascinated by both the water and by me. This went on for fifteen minutes or so until his sibling's tennis group went into the indoor courts to continue their lessons. Hopefully, we'll get a chance to work out together once more this summer!

I don't know why Hamilton picked me to emulate but he did. My guess is he is transfixed by water as I was as a little boy. He never tired of accompanying me lap after lap. (Well, semi-lap. If I swim all the way to the wall on the shallow end, the water is not deep enough for running.) I don't think he has any real concept of the danger of water yet but his mom watched him closely. Little ones are breathtakingly innocent while, with no malice intended, brutally honest. They were the ones praising Jesus in the temple on Palm Sunday with the words, "Hosanna to the son of David!" When the religious leaders objected, Jesus replied by quoting Psalm 8:2:
“‘From the lips of children and infants
    you, Lord, have called forth your praise’”
That's an amazing statement from the pen of David and further validated by our Savior. Our Father in heaven uses the youngest among us to be examples of worship to the Lord? I love what Charles Dickens said about children when he wrote, "It is no small thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us." Or copy us or act like us. We learn from children- they learn from us. They grow up into us just like we turned into the adults we witnessed. Maybe we can even grow closer to the way they glorify our God- that would be the best growth of all. The mustard seed grew into a tree but the tree was never given as a standard of faith. We cannot afford to overlook the little things, especially the little ones..... like my friend, Hamilton. He's got a future!

Applicable quote of the day:
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
James A. Baldwin

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1

Been To Canaan.... And Can Tho

 

Been To Canaan.... And Can Tho

Feeling nostalgic for Vietnam which hopefully will welcome me back in July of 2025! This is from June 20, 2017.
I was back at basketball camp Monday after spending last Thursday/Friday on the disabled list due to a knee issue. This morning, I was seen by a very highly respected knee specialist. After drainage and a shot, along with a prescription and the ordering of rest, ice, and a compression sleeve, I think I will live. I don't think my July 5th departure to Vietnam is endangered but do keep me in your prayers. And on a sad note, basketball camp is over for me for this June.

Before our afternoon camp session began at 12:45 yesterday afternoon, I was sitting at one of the lunch tables in our cafeteria when I struck up a conversation about basketball with a gentleman who had dropped off one of our campers. There was one more step I had to take before I joined the staff on the court. I had taken my shoes off at lunch and subsequently could not put my left one back on, as the range of motion in my left knee prohibited the procedure. One of our coaches, Augusta Guthrie, came over and graciously fitted it on my foot and perfectly tied the laces. The man asked and I told him I had somehow injured myself in Vietnam and it had without warning recurred. He asked what I had been doing in Vietnam and I explained I had spent the past six, soon to be seven, months of July in Can Tho, working with a church and the English school established by some of the members. He told me he had been in Vietnam as well.... as a soldier. I asked how long he was there and it will take a long time for me to forget his answer, word for word:
"Twelve months, sixteen days."
He told me the name of his airborne unit. I told him Vietnam is a beautiful country; his recollection was different. I told him that if I had known as a kid I would be riding down the Mekong River in a small boat, which I have done, it would have been in combat. He laughed as I recall. Then he said something I thought was very poignant. My new friend told me he really struggled for twenty years after his return from Southeast Asia but after several decades, he began feeling yearnings to return to the place he hoped he would never see again. He asked about volunteer possibilities and  I told him although mine is a unique situation, I am sure there are programs where he would be welcomed. The whistle blew, the conversation had to end, but our conversation has stayed with me the past twenty-four hours.

When I was young, I loved the Carole King song, Been To Canaan. It was kind of a love song but more one filled with nostalgia:
Been so long, I can't remember when
But I've been to Canaan and I wanna go back again....
That's  the way I feel about Vietnam and more each successive trip. And in a funny way I think that's the way that soldier has begun to feel. One of the great gifts I believe the Lord has blessed humans with is the ability to move past the past over time. We might need to make peace with a decision or a mistake or a heartache or a nightmare. For the closure, we might have to walk those fields and streets one more time that we despised. Sometimes we have to forgive, sometimes we have to be forgiven, and sometimes we have to forgive ourselves. Lord willing, I'll be back in Vietnam in eighteen days to be blessed by those I have come to love in the Lord. Someday, I hope my friend can go there to put some bad dreams to rest. We all have our reasons.

Applicable quote of the day:
“We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.” 
 Pascal Mercier

To listen to Carole King sing, Been To Canaan, click or copy/paste the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug9ffdhIlo0

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1

Gifts Of Children

 

Gifts Of Children

Camp started today and though we have had to change our procedures for a year, we will do a photo op next week with our kiddos! This is from June 6, 2012. 

 Jesus told us the kingdom of heaven belongs to little children. He must have been thinking of the youngsters in these two shots. This morning, during basketball camp, we moved the coins we collected for the support of orphanages in Haiti and Honduras from my classroom to our business office for transfer to the bank. We made a pit stop in the main lobby to pose for our Westbury Christian School Creative Director, Michael Fonville. Not including our Head of School, Greg Glenn, and me, everyone in these shots is a current WCS student. (You can see we have quite an age range!) Once again this year, our school family raised almost $10,000 to be divided between Mission Lazarus in Honduras and Hope For Haiti's Children, both of which operate orphanages where little ones are protected, nurtured, and raised with the love of Jesus Christ. I have always been amazed at what children will do if you give them a goal, paint them a picture, and offer them an opportunity. All our kids have done that throughout the past fourteen years here. I could tell you stories of individual sacrifices our students make to help little ones who speak a different language and whose paths they will never cross but that's for another time and place. We are blessed with an administration that not only allows us to carry out this project, which has become part of our school culture, but encourages us. Private/Christian schools run a fine line when it comes to student fundraising project- it's easy to overdo it- but we are a mission minded school from Greg to our three year old kindergarten kids. Our prayer is that as our students leave WCS, they will continue to walk in the words of James 1, verse 27:
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." 
That's a pretty good blueprint for a righteous life.

Applicable quote of the day:
"Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it's at the end of your arm, as you get older, remember you have another hand: The first is to help yourself, the second is to help others.” 
Sam Levenson

To see where these pennies/nickels/dimes/quarters will be going, please click on these websites!
http://hopeforhaitischildren.org/

http://honduras.missionlazarus.org/

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1

Strangers At The Table

 

Strangers At The Table

 

I wrote this on November 26, 2020 but due to high emotions at the time in the US about COVID, I held off posting until today. (June 13, 2021)

I'm staying at Scott and Karen's house in Wichita and have been here since Saturday. Tonight, I'm moving to Dave and Sally's for the duration of my time in Kansas. I'm blessed that my two sisters-in-law are willing to take me in during both Thanksgiving and Christmas and not just tolerate me but pamper me! Yesterday, I mentioned on Facebook that Scott and Karen were about to have some foundation work done in the basement and Scott was doing some prep down there. People laughed at my part being confined to hauling debris to the dumpster and doing errand runs to Home Depot- I know my strengths! Scott stayed up late to get ready for the crew from the company he contracted with after research. They showed up at 8 AM ready to go. The three are young and well mannered as well as professional. Scott made a good choice.

Around noon, Karen was cooking lunch and when one of the guys walked through going to their truck, she noticed him glancing over and sniffing. When the food was ready, Scott went down and asked the trio to join us. It wasn't an elaborate spread- pork tenderloin sandwiches, chips, and cheesecake with pop- but it was absolutely excellent. They sat around the table with us and were extremely effusive in their praise of Karen's offerings. I'm not sure they knew what to think when Scott led us in prayer and asked the Lord for their safety along with gratitude for  the  wonderful meal we were about to enjoy. They talked about where they grew up and their Thanksgiving plans and I felt like I had a decent grasp on their lives by the time we cleaned the table. And when they finished their part of the project- a different crew will come in next Monday and handle phase 2- they thanked Karen and Scott again for making sure they were well fed.

(I should note here that Scott made sure before they entered the house that they had been tested for COVID. They had; in fact, all their workers are tested every Monday.) Hospitality is, if not commanded, strongly urged in the Word. Many know the entertaining angels phrase in Hebrews 13:2 but we probably need to focus more on the first part of the verse which is Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers. We talked after they left that we guessed that might have been the only time a family has asked them to be guests in their home on a different level than simply employees. Food has the ability to bring people together, even if hunger is not an issue. Jesus called Himself the bread of life. The least we can do is give others a chance to be served a slice or two. Karen and Scott were the bakers today.

Applicable quote of the day:
"A guest never forgets the host who had treated him kindly."
Homer- 8th century BC Greek poet

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1

Friends Like That

 

Friends Like That

I take many things for granted, including an abundance of friends! This is from June 21, 2017!

If you are a regular reader, you know there have been several references the past week about my situation with a knee that seemingly out of nowhere left me with very limited mobility and unlimited (in my exaggerated state of mind) pain. My short-term life has changed significantly; no working out, can't coach basketball camp, and I've been outside the confines of my apartment very little in the past seven days. Because I was not able to straighten my left leg, driving became nearly impossible. The Lord blessed me with neighbors like Paul and Ann Arnold. They live in the same complex as me as well as being colleagues at WCS and fellow members of the same congregation. Sunday, they picked me up for worship, having to help me put my shoe on in the process. On Monday, Ann was my ride to school and back for camp. While at school Monday, I was able to ascertain that the specialist recommended to me by our former athletic trainer was indeed on our insurance and was able to secure an 8:30 AM appointment at his office in Sugar Land, about a thirty minute drive with the morning traffic. This created a problem with my not being able to drive. No problem- Paul graciously gave up his morning to be my chauffeur and made sure I got everywhere I needed, a time frame that took about four hours. And now I'm on the road to recovery.

Let me go back to my opening line: If you are a regular reader...... If you are, you might remember several days back  my referencing a WALMART cashier who wished me Happy Father's Day even though I'm not a dad. Well, this young lady was working yesterday when I took my anti-inflammatory prescription into WALMART for filling. She saw the sleeve and asked why I was limping. I told her I would be back through her line in a little while and I kept my promise after picking up the medication along with a cart of groceries. As she rang up my order, I told her about my morning. I told her Paul took me to the doctor, waited for me, took me to school to tell Trey Austin about my camp situation, and how he was waiting in the parking lot outside so he could take me home after I finished my shopping. And she said, "I wish I had a friend like that." I'll be honest. My mind may have added the like that to her declaration. It doesn't really matter. What she said is the harsh reality of life to many in this increasingly cold and lonely world.

As we pulled away from the store, I told Paul what the young lady had told me. She's from another country and may not have family here or a good network of friends. I took a quick inventory as I kind of grieved for her. I have more friends like Paul and Ann than I can count. I could have picked up the phone and called any number of people and received the same assistance, but who would she call? It's a security blanket, knowing if there is a crisis, I won't be left by myself. My school family and church family, which is somewhat cross pollinated, are the families I have here while living without biological kin. My confidence doesn't come from a common business address or the nearness of church pews, though. It comes from the bond in Jesus Christ. I listened to the epistle of 1st John today as I concentrated on healing. What struck me was the continual references to dear friends and love. So many miss those bonds which mark believers in Him. My hope is I'm as good a friend to those in need as Paul and Ann. I'm an introvert which doesn't always lend itself to a quantity of friendships but my hope is others can call me if they needed a ride, a hand to move furniture, or just an ear to listen. I'm blessed beyond measure tonight even if I still walk with a limp. But you can be sure that I'm not walking alone, even when I'm simply icing down my knee.

Applicable quote of the day:
Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light. 
Helen Keller

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1