When you go to a church as a pastoral candidate, you mind your manners. You are careful about what you say. You are not being hypocritical, you are just being on good behavior. When we came to this church as a pastoral candidate, my lovely wife sang a special. Before she sang, she shared with the congregation the story of when her slip fell off during church several years earlier. This is not a story you tell in that situation, but with Marsha it is not unusual. She just thinks differently. The Scripture says we are to be one flesh. It never says we are to be one mind. Good thing, in our case, for I never know just which direction her mind is going to go. I am not sure she knows, either.

          This is not a husband talking who is simply exasperated with his wife. Nay, nay. Instead of being exasperated I am highly entertained. My wife will mix up sayings. “You can lead a horse to water, but tomorrow is another day.” She will insert words into a sentence that make no sense. Sitting down to eat the evening meal she might say, “Oh, I forgot the biscuits in the coffee pot!” Of course, she would then get them from the oven. She will change topics from one sentence to the next, or even in the same sentence. “Goodness, its cold today, but Sarah said her mom is feeling a lot better.” It took me a good fifteen years to get a handle on it. That doesn’t mean I understand. It just means that I no longer let myself get a headache trying to understand.

          I am getting better at understanding, however, although I have no hope of ever catching up. One night at supper my wife spoke a sentence that had mixed metaphors, substituted words and a change in direction. I responded correctly, because I actually understood the flow. Our son, who was sitting across the table from me, looked at me with great respect. “How do you do that, Dad?” I just smiled, enjoying the moment. It is not every day you can impress your teenaged son.

          Once at supper I was joking with my son. He was getting a little perturbed with me, but I kept the conversation going. Finally, he said, “I don’t understand how you two have been married for so long! Dad’s annoying and Mom’s confusing!” Marsha looked up, oblivious, and said, “I’m not confused!” Adam didn’t know what to say.

          My wife once opened a bag of hamburger buns that had been knocked around a little in transit. The tops and the bottoms were separated. Talking all the while, she pulled two tops out of the bag. Looking down she said, “That’s odd.” She reached into the bag and pulled out the two bottoms. She looked at them and said, “Honey, this bag is defective. It’s all tops and bottoms!”

          Not long after we were married we were traveling down an interstate at night. I was exhausted and asked her to drive. She was a bit hesitant. Highway driving scared her and it was dark. “How do I stay in the middle of the lane?” I told her to keep the crease in the hood (cars don’t have creases in the hoods anymore, but they did then) lined up with the white line on the edge of the road and you would stay right dead center in the lane. With that I fell sound asleep in the passenger seat. In just a bit she woke me. “Now,” she asked me, “what do I do?” We were sitting in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn. She had followed the white line up the exit, into the turn and then into the Holiday Inn lot.

          My wife was city born and bred, while I was a country boy. For the longest time, she called cows ‘moo-cows.’ She liked milk until we went to my uncle’s farm and she saw a cow being milked. (“The milk comes from those things?!?”) While in seminary I earned a little money on the side working on cars. One fellow with a Volkswagen would give me a dressed out rabbit every time I fixed his car. Marsha had some trouble for a while eating bunnies, at least the ones that weren’t chocolate. Eventually, though, she really got to liking rabbit. Deer was the same way. One church had several hunters and we always had some venison coming in. At first, we were eating Bambi, but it wasn’t long and Marsha was a regular deer gourmand. Her venison chili is the best! In fact, she has come a long way in everything. But, the first time she saw a horse in a field relieving itself she was disgusted. Surely that horse could at least go behind the barn. But it has been refreshing. It is like seeing everything for the first time.

          One of the really great moments in our marriage occurred one night when we decided we didn’t want to be disturbed. This was BA (before Adam, our son) and we were young and very much into being with each other. Phone calls or drop in visits are common in the ministry, so we were constantly with others. The night in question was the conclusion of a long day for both of us. We just didn’t feel like seeing or talking to anyone. We unplugged the phone, turned out the lights and took the TV into the bedroom. We pulled the curtains closed, got out some big boxes of chocolate covered raisins we had bought and settled down on the bed to watch a movie.

          In the dark, we opened our boxes and poured the candy into a big bowl that was between us. We began to munch as the movie came on.

          This was Miami, Florida, so mosquitoes were always a problem. When I felt something on my hand I just slapped at it in an absent-minded way. When it happened again, I slapped again. When I felt something on my face, I began to wonder. When I realized my wife was smacking away, too. I turned on the bedside lamp. There from the bowl between us were thousands of ants boiling up and out across the bed. I turned to my wife to say something, only to notice that the remains of a crushed ant lay on her lower lip. Ants were all over the bedclothes and us.

          We ran into the bathroom and both jumped in the shower. Nothing sensuous in this joint shower. We were both fully dressed and half retching. The bedroom received a thorough cleaning, but we still slept in the living room that night. For days later Marsha claimed she could still feel them crawling around in her stomach.

          Marsha has a different way of looking at things. She experiences things in a way most people never do. Sometimes it is confusing. Sometimes it is exasperating. But it is never, never boring. How many people can say that the last 42 years of their lives have not had boring moments?

          The good old days. Kids listened to their elders. People had respect for one another. You could leave your doors unlocked. Those were the days.

          Or not. 100 years ago, the mortality rate for infants up to one year old in this country was one death out of every ten babies. Now it is one death out of every one hundred sixty eight babies. 85% of all males over the age of 14 were in the work force. That means 85% of all males worked from the age of 14 to death, whether death occurred at age 40 or age 95. There was no retirement, no Social Security, no Medicare; virtually no government benefits at all. We think of costs 100 years ago as being low, but that is only in comparison to our current costs. We don’t think of income being low. Unless you lived on a farm, the typical family spent 1/3 of their income on food. Compare that to 1/6 today. And the food was different. On the average, each American ate eleven and a half pounds of lard each year. Not straight up, but it was used in cooking. Now, the average American eats only one and a half pounds of lard. A century ago, our diets were less varied. Now, the average American eats 57 pounds of chicken. A hundred years ago it was 14 pounds. Most of that was consumed on farms. In the towns and cities, chicken was a rarity, something to be savored. In the so-called Steel Belt cities-Chicago, Buffalo, Detroit, Milwaukee, Gary, Cincinnati, Toledo, Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown and Pittsburgh-butchers would take scraps of meat of all kinds and tightly compress it in special molds into the shape of chicken legs, then stick tooth pick type skewers in it to hold it together and then sell it as ‘city chicken.’ You can still buy city chicken in those areas, but now it is usually three small chunks of pork held together with a long skewer. Back in the day, a city dweller could go their whole life and not eat any chicken. Back in the good old days, the country had one third the population it has now. Of that population, one half was under the age of 25. Retirement wasn’t much of an issue because most people didn’t reach what we think of as retirement age. If they did, they didn’t retire. They just did different kinds of work. Medical treatment at the finest hospitals of the day wouldn’t even be acceptable today at a little country clinic in our age.
          One hundred years ago radio was in its infancy, TV was a gleam in a scientist’s eye and computers were unheard of. Most people didn’t have phones. As for entertainment, well, you made your own at home with whatever instruments you had or whatever games you could devise. Community dances and gatherings were popular. A community would usually have a Spring dance, a 4th of July celebration, a county fair, a harvest dance and maybe a community Christmas celebration. At these gatherings, the latest in music would be played. One such piece of music a hundred years ago was Irving Berlin’s song “Keep Away From The Fellow Who Owns An Automobile”
[1st verse:] There's a certain flirtin' man with money in the bank
The man I mean owns a machine, the kind you have to crank
His great delight is to invite a girlie for a whirl
In his machine and I just mean to kind o' warn each girl
[chorus:]
Keep away from the fellow who owns an automobile
He'll take you far in his motor car
Too darn far from your Pa and Ma
If his forty horsepower goes sixty miles an hour say
Goodbye forever, goodbye forever
There's no chance to talk, squawk or balk
You must kiss him or get out and walk
Keep away from the fellow who owns an automobile
[2nd verse:]
Mary White went out one night in Harry's new machine
They rode quite far when Harry's car ran out of gasoline
The hour was late and sad to state no gas could Harry get
The latest word I overheard is that they're walking yet
Imagine, 40 horsepower was considered a lot and 60 mph was really, really fast! Churches were full back in the good old days, but that was largely because there was very little else you could do if you wanted to gather with folks and get the news (gossip) of the community.
          So, maybe the good old days weren’t quite so good. Maybe that respect people had for one another could be taught today as well as way back then. Maybe we should take what we have today and use it for good and Godliness rather than complaining about how depraved it all is.
          Times have changed greatly in the last 100 years. Just the fact you are reading this is testament to that truth. This being typed up on a laptop computer. It is being sent out on the internet. I can track the areas this blog is read. I have readers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and Taiwan. I find that amazing. It is even more amazing that this blog will be available at exactly the moment I push the PUBLISH button. It is even more amazing that some of you are reading this on your cell phones. One hundred years ago, if you had a phone, you had to crank it to make a connection, and then you went through a switchboard.
         The Bible covered a time of just over 4,000 years. The process of living life at the end of the writing of the Bible was pretty much the same as the process of living life was at the beginning of the writing of the Bible. It is a fast-paced world. But, the Lord hasn’t changed. He is still on His throne. He still offers salvation to all who believe. His Word is still true and unchangeable. The way we present the message may change, but the message is still the same. With the constant promise of change and ‘advancement’ in our daily lives, it is a blessing that we have one constant that will always rise above it all.

          I have been doing a lot of thinking about the past and the things I have, and have not, accomplished.  Considering the surgery I have coming up, I suppose that this is a normal thing. But, because my brain is wired the way it is wired, the funny things keep intruding on my retrospections. It’s not that I am not serious minded. It is just that I prefer to remember the chuckles. And there were more than a few.

When Marsha and I were married we went on an extravagant, two day honeymoon to that worldwide vacation destination, Erie, PA. Yes, I am a big spender. On day three we headed down to Chattanooga TN where I was a student in a Bible college. It was a tough time, actually. We were newlyweds and wanted to spend every moment of everyday together. But, I worked, full time, on midnights for a textile company and went to school full time. And I served a church. We tried, though. We would talk late into the afternoon when I should have been studying and sleeping. Marsha would wake me up at 8:00 PM for supper when I should have been sleeping until 10:00 PM. She would feed me a huge meal when I should have been eating light so I wouldn’t get tired at work. 

          Well, all this worked on me. Even though I was young and full of energy I finally got to where I could barely stay awake at any time. The worst of it all was at 9:00 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. Theology of the Old Testament. Dr. Price. Auditorium 4. Just over three hundred students. Every class he called roll. The seating was graduated upward. That is, the podium was on the lower level. Each horizontal row was set higher than the row before it. Today it would be called ‘stadium seating.’ I don’t know what it was called then. I just know that it conspired against me. Because my name was near the end of the alphabet I was in the back row, which was the highest row. This is where the heat gathered. Once roll started I had to wait a long time till he got to me. So, there I sat listening to droning voices, exhausted, warm and waiting for three hundred students to say ‘here, sir’ before I could. I struggled, I sweated, I tried everything. But I could not stay awake. Theology of the Old Testament was hardly an exciting, gripping class. As I recall, the highlight was rollcall. It was a miserable class for me.

          Dr. Price would call my name, then have someone wake me, then he would tell me the importance of being alert. I didn’t fall asleep every day. In fact, it was only a few times that semester. But he always let me know that I had failed him, the school, the ministry and God Himself.

          Time passed. Eleven years later I was serving as an assistant pastor in a church hundreds of miles away from that school. My job was to lead the youth. Not just the teens, but all the way down to kindergarten. To that end my wife and I developed a Children’s Church for the little ones. It was excellent because they heard the Gospel and they heard it on their level.

          The church was going to have a series of revival services. The speaker was going to be Dr. Price. I thought this was great because I had never actually heard him speak. People said he was good, but for me, I was in a fog all of the time. I looked forward to the experience.

          But our pastor told me he wanted us to have the Children’s Church each night during the services so that the adults could listen to the good doctor without the burden of their children. Of course, I agreed, but I was disappointed.

          On the first night Dr. Price arrived just before the services were to start. (His plane was delayed.) As the pastor walked him into the church he stopped at the room where we held Children’s Church just to show Dr. Price what he had planned for the kids. As Dr. Price entered the room he looked up and saw me. His face split into a wide grin. Remember, eleven years had passed and I was just one of over three hundred in just one class. He saw over fifteen hundred students every day. But........

          “Ah, Mr. Wade! Are you getting enough sleep these days?”

          I was surprised, and so was the pastor. He asked if we knew each other. Dr. Price winked at me and said, “Oh yes. Mr. Wade was one of my more promising students.”

          With that he shook my hand, then accepted my introduction to my wife and left.

          Since I don’t think Dr. Price would have lied about it, I can only assume that he meant I was the student who showed the most promise of flunking his class. But that encounter impressed me. And it still makes me laugh.                                                  

          Ordination is a very serious business. I entered the ministry in October of 1975 when I was called as a youth pastor to a small church in Tennessee. The pastor wanted to ordain me, but I just couldn’t see that happening at the time. I was unprepared as far as education was concerned. I was unprepared as far as temperament was concerned. And I was unprepared as far as experience was concerned. For the next nine years I served as a youth and music pastor (I heard that snicker at ‘music pastor’), but Marsha and I always knew that at some point we would be in the pastorate. We served at a church in Ohio, our home church, and then a church in Miami, Florida, and both wanted to ordain me, but I wanted to wait until I was ready to be called as a pastor. I didn’t want to enter into it with the wrong attitude or lightly. And, more importantly, I didn't feel qualified Spiritually.

          In 1982 we went back to finish the education part of the journey. In 1983 I went as an interim Pastor to a small church far out in the boondocks of Florida. The interim was supposed to be for six months, but at the end of that time the church expressed a desire to call me as their pastor and I felt it was time that Sandy Creek Baptist Church of Pounce de Leon, Florida got to experience the good and bad of a new pastor. It all depended, though, on my ordination.

          I contacted the director of our association, a Rev. McClain. Mac was a genuinely good guy who cared about the pastors and the churches. Mac agreed to be the moderator of my ordination council and to set the whole thing up.

          Among most Baptist groups, ordination is bestowed by a local church. Other denominations can do it however they like, the denomination can ordain, the churches can ordain or there can be an independent group that ordain. Also, you can get ordained by mail or even e-mail. The mail or e-mail way is legal but it is also unethical. But among Baptist, it is mostly handled by the churches. This can be handled in any way the church decides is proper. Usually, a church leader in the area will be contacted to put together a council of other ordained ministers to question the candidate and then to report back to the church as to their feeling of whether or not the person is qualified. (In this, I was fortunate to know the associational director and to be able to ask him to head the council)  The church, then, would make its own determination. It is fairly rare for a church to go against a council, but since it is up to the church, it does happen occasionally. Sometimes, though, the local church would do something really odd. One of my seminary classmates was called to a church as pastor, pending ordination. At the first deacons’ meeting they voted to ordain him. No council, no questions, nothing. It worked out okay. More than half of my classmates have dropped out of the ministry, but he still pastors in Florida.

          The date was set for July 15, 1984. My mother and step-father came from Ohio and brought Marsha’s mother with them. That part of Florida was watermelon country, the big long ones that look like little torpedoes. Several people in the church brought over watermelons because they knew we were having out of town company. In the end we had fifteen huge, long melons stacked under a tree in our front yard. The night before the ordination the congregation had a fish fry in their pavilion on the grounds of the church. Fresh water and salt water fish either deep fried or grilled, huge steaks grilled to your liking, enough side dishes to make the picnic tables groan and homemade ice cream for dessert. My step-father made the comment that I wouldn’t have to wait to die to get to heaven if this was the way they intended to feed me. It was hard to disagree.

          But, I didn’t eat much. I was too nervous. The council would meet the next day at 2:00 PM. Mac had told me that he would send out twenty five invitations, but no more than a half a dozen would come. Having it on a Sunday afternoon would make it hard for a lot of preachers to come because they would also have evening services, which was a good thing as far as I was concerned. Out there in the country, at that time, a seminary trained preacher was viewed with some distrust. As one old timer on the council put it, "There’s two kinds of preachers. Them that’s called by the Holy Ghost and them that’s educated." Mac figured that by having it at 2:00 some of those old timers wouldn’t come. Besides, six was the normal number of council members. Still, I was nervous.

          And, as it turned out, I had good cause to be nervous. Twenty five invitations were sent out, but any ordained person could come. My ordination council had 29 members. No one had ever seen anything like it. Somehow, I didn’t feel very privileged to have the biggest council anyone could remember. For over two hours they threw question after question at me concerning the Scriptures and concerning my personal views on practically every subject you can imagine. Mac tried to keep the subjects strictly Scriptural, but Mac was one of those seminary educated preachers, too, so they did their best to ignore him.

          There was one older gent there who was a real character. Rev. Melvin Paul, pastor of the nearby Bridge Creek Baptist Church. He was born in 1900 and saw combat in World War One, which he still called the Great War. He rejoined the army and served on some of the same battlefields during World War Two. He was on the beaches on D-Day. Returning home (he was the pastor of Bridge Creek even then in the mid-1940s) he organized the first National Guard unit in the area. He served the unit as their sergeant. During Korea that unit was called up. He was told that, considering his age and the fact that he had served in two wars already, he didn’t have to go. He told them that if his boys were going, he was going. Although his unit was not slated for combat when they left, they wound up in combat. So, he had served in combat in three wars. He was one tough old dude, even in 1984. When we were introduced before the council I said, "It is nice to meet you, sir." He snarled back, "Don’t call me ‘sir,’ boy. I ain’t no officer. I work for a living! And I ain’t no educated preacher, neither. I am called by the Holy Ghost!" It didn’t look good for ole Larry.

          As the council time came to a close it was customary to allow the oldest minister there to ask the last question. Of course, no one was older than the 84 year old Melvin Paul. In asking the question, he started by telling me that in a council that size it was highly unlikely that I would get enough votes to confirm. (You needed some high percentage rather than a simple majority. I forget now what that percentage was) "If we don’t confirm you, what will you do then?" He was starting to irritate me. Every question he had asked had an edge to it. Had he asked the same question earlier I might have answered a little more diplomatically. Ah, well. "Brother, my call to preach doesn’t come from you or this council or this church. My call comes from God. If I am not confirmed I’ll just keep preaching somewhere." The council ended.

          I went into another room and sat with Marsha while they debated. We figured that the longer the debate went on, the better it would be. They came and got us in about five minutes. Not good, we thought. But, they did confirm. Unanimously. The church had their ordination service at 6:00. As the service ended I was called to the front of the church where I knelt before the congregation. Each minister who stayed came up individually and laid hands on me and prayed for my ministry. When Melvin Paul came up he laid those old warrior’s hands on my head and prayed the most moving prayer I had ever heard. He later told me that he had asked that same question at every council he had ever served on and I was the first to answer in just that way. “That’s the answer I always wanted. Ya’ll do well, boy.“

          All these years later it hardly seems possible that so much time has passed. The funny thing is that I remember the watermelons more than I remember anything else. Maybe it was because I had to get rid of them later. Even now, when I think of any ordination, and I have served on several councils, I can taste the watermelons.

          Over the years, I have gotten a lot of quizzical looks from people when I have said, “I would rather do a funeral than a wedding.” What do you mean??? Weddings are wonderful!!! How can you say you would rather do a funeral??? Actually, that is not a 100% true. Some weddings have been very special to me. But on the whole, weddings are tragedies waiting to happen. The expectations are so high, so much is invested, people have come from all over……it just threatens to come unraveled at any moment. There is always someone who thinks it would be funny if…...or what if we do this……or let’s make the dog the ring bearer! With a funeral you get to minister to people, with a wedding you have to keep everyone under control. For instance;

 "America's Funniest Home Videos" was one of the few television programs that I actually enjoyed. It did, however, give rise to a stunt atmosphere, particularly in those things that are to be serious. Honest mishaps in a wedding can be funny. Intentional mishaps, or stunts, in a wedding can be, well, just stupid. I have had my share of such things.

          Ralph and Jewell were a young couple planning a wedding. Jewell was the usual bride, wanting everything to be just so. Ralph was the usual groom, a little out of touch as far as the wedding was concerned, but determined that Jewell would have the best day of her life. The problem rarely lies with the bride or the groom. It is with the family. In this case, Jewell’s father, a police officer, thought it would be funny to wait till I had pronounced them husband and wife, and then he would step forward and slap handcuffs on his new son-in-law. No need to tell the preacher or the groom. A laugh a minute. The bride's sister, a biker girl who normally was clad in biker leather, cooked up her own mischief. Disaster in the making, made all the more tragic by the actions of a little boy.

          To start with, at the rehearsal the bride's sister, who was also the matron of honor, decided I was a good mark for her own brand of weird humor. Having pegged me as something of a square and as a hayseed to boot, she made me her personal target. I still retain a slight southern accent from our years in the south and that seemed to set her off.

          After giving me a hard time at the rehearsal the night before the wedding, this dear soul thought it would be funny to frustrate me with the rings during the wedding. Her four-year-old son was to be the ring bearer. Both rings would be on a satin pillow that he would carry down the aisle. At the appropriate time, he would step forward and hold out the pillow and I would pull the simple knot on the ribbon and thus remove the two rings. Usually this simple little task is made difficult by the unpredictability of a four-year-old boy. It is the part I dread. But this little guy was perfect.

          His mother, however, was a long way from perfect. She had gone to the trouble of tying the rings in a hard knot. It was supposed to be funny when I couldn’t untie the silly thing. When the pillow was presented to me during the wedding there was no way I could untie her knot. It did alter my wedding practice, though. I always carry a knife now. Anyway, the groom could hear the snickers of his soon to be sister-in-law and knew immediately what had happened and who was at fault. Angrily he reached down and gripped the ribbon to try and break it. He succeeded, sending one ring shooting east and one ring shooting west. For five minutes the wedding party was on their hands and knees looking for the rings. One had rolled to the edge of a heating vent grate. What fun.

          It is important to point out that the bride's sister took her son by the hand during all of this to lead him over to where he should stand, right behind her. He was very hesitant, even trying to pull away from her. We found out why in just a very few minutes. He didn't recognize this woman as his mother. He was used to a tattooed woman with wild hair and wearing leather jeans and a halter-top. This woman was lovely, with the tattoos covered and her hair up in curls and ringlets and in a beautiful dress. This is important for later.

          Anyway, the rings were located and the ceremony continued. Everything was fine until I pronounced the happy couple. (Actually, at this point they were not very happy.) Then, the bride's father leaped to his feet and slapped the cuffs on his son-in-law. Silence followed.

          Remember the little ring bearer? He had watched enough TV to know that this was not good. He jumped up into the front pew, which had just been behind him where he was standing. With hands on either side of his face he began to scream. This was not an imitation of the boy in the movie "Home Alone." This event was before that movie. This was just sheer terror. His mother, the matron of honor, turned to grab him and comfort him (even the uncouth have maternal instincts) but he beat her off screaming "I want my real mommy, I want my real mommy!!!"

          I am sure that they didn't watch the video of that one very often and I have never seen it on America’s Funniest.

          Begorrah! Tis March the 17^th, 2017. St. Patty’s Day!

          Which to me, being Irish, is all rather silly.

          St. Patrick’s Day, like so many religious holidays that have oozed up within the Catholic Church, has become something totally different than what it was intended to be. Christmas has people exchanging gifts and drinking rather than really focusing on the birth of Christ. Fat Tuesday has people involved in debauchery rather than preparing mind and soul for the Lenten season. Easter has the giving and consumption of candy and the eating of a great ham to somehow commemorate the Resurrection of Jesus, who never would have eaten a ham. St. Valentine’s Day has people buying diamonds and chocolates and flowers and cards to honor a man for whom nothing is really known, except that he died for his faith in Christ. And St. Patrick’s Day, a day to participate in the drinking of green beer, parades and being involved in the drunken pub crawls, is to remember the man who brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Ireland.

          Patrick didn’t have an easy life. Stolen as a boy, he spent six years in slavery. As a man with a calling to share the Gospel to the Irish people, he battled paganism on every side. While he lived, Patrick was a hated figure. He was trying to lead people away from what they thought to be truth. His life was under threat at all times. His selflessness as a man who loved a people who hated him eventually began to allow him to accomplish his life’s work. Hardly seems fitting that such a man is remembered in the way he is remembered.

          Not that I didn’t try to use St. Patrick’s Day to my own benefit when I was younger. Before I was married I would say to a pretty girl on St. Patrick’s Day, “You know, lassie, anyone can be Irish on St. Patty’s Day. But a girl kissed by a true son of the Irish sod is herself Irish for the whole week!” Pretty smooth, right? It never, ever got me kissed. But it was the effort that counted, I suppose. I was young and foolish in a lot of things.

          I don’t drink or brawl or parade for St. Patrick’s Day. And I don’t wear green for St. Patrick’s Day, either. Irish Catholics wore green, Irish Protestants wore orange. I don’t wear orange on St. Patrick’s Day. Doesn’t look good on me.

          But I have thought a lot about Patrick. A fifth century evangelist who gave far more of himself to the service of the Lord than he gave of himself to the Church. A man despised by the people he was reaching out to and still reacting with love and compassion. A man of courage, but one who shunned violence. A great man.

          He died in 461 AD at the age of 76. He never knew anything other than hardship. And now, he walks with Christ. Not because the Catholic Church says so, but because he was a believer in Jesus.

          Doesn’t seem right to knock back a brewski in remembrance of such a man, does it?   

          Some background to set this particular story up.

          At one time, I was a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors. This was a national organization of counselors who had to meet certain requirements of education and experience to belong. In our county in Ohio there were only two of us and in the next county over there was only one. Consequently, other pastors would occasionally call me and ask me if I would meet with someone in their church. This got to be such an occurrence and took so much of my time that our Elders finally asked me to not take any more people from other churches. I agreed. It was taking a lot of my time away from my own ministry.

          In our small town, we had an Episcopal church. The priest there was a woman whose first name was Anne. The custom in the Episcopal church is to call their priests ‘Father.’  Anne insisted on being called Father Anne. I just called her Annie. Anne had been married three times and had come away from the experience pretty much hating all men. Her dog’s name was Bock, which was a combination of Bob and Chuck, husbands number one and two. She said it was fitting since they were real dogs. She had bought a hamster just so she could name it William, for husband number three, whom she said was a rodent. The first time we met she chewed me out for being male and for hating her for being a woman minister. I told her that I didn’t hate her for any reason. I told her that the only yardstick I had for was that she be a good pastor for one of the churches in my community. After that, for whatever reason, I was her good buddy.

          That’s the background. One day in February 2002, Annie called me. She had a married couple in her church who were headed for divorce. She had been counseling them and clearly saw the handwriting on the way. The husband was seriously at fault, a regular brute, and there was just no way this poor, defenseless wife could continue to be married to him. But, to do due diligence, would I be willing to meet with them. I agreed and set up a time with the wife first.

          Based on description, I expected Stella to be a defeated, weary woman. What I got was a fiery, belligerent woman who was on her way to hating all men. She was a tiny woman but was filled with venom. I could clearly see evidence of Annie’s counseling efforts. But, the story she told was interesting. Her husband was all business. He had been on a business trip to Los Angeles and had been gone a week when Stella got sick. She had been going along just fine until one evening she passed out at her Mom and Dad’s house. They rushed to the hospital and found she had an infection. She went into a coma for two days. At 9 AM the next morning her father called her husband. I asked why the delay and she said that her Dad said that everything was so chaotic that he actually forgot to call till then. But her husband didn’t bother coming home for four more days. She woke from her coma terrified and her husband wasn’t there.  

          There are two sides to every story, but this story seemed pretty cut and dried. Regardless of the business deal, you would think that if a man loved his wife he would have gotten on a plane and come home. Still, I would meet with George in a few days and get his side.

          When George walked in I expected, by Annie’s description, to see an arrogant bully of a man who had no respect for anyone but himself. What I got was what I had assumed Stella would be. Weary, beaten, confused. Tears in his eyes. He sat down and started to tell me his side. After he got to the phone call from his father-in-law I interrupted and asked why he hadn’t gotten a flight home. He looked at me with a puzzled look. “You don’t know what day I got that phone call?” No, I replied. “Her father called me at 6 AM LA time on September 11, 2001.” Right at the moment the first plane was flying into the World Trade Center. I called the airline and booked the first plane to Cleveland. We were ready to board when they announced that every private and commercial plane in the country was grounded. Rail was halted for a few days, too. I rented a car and drove straight back, catching an hour or two of sleep at a time at rest areas. I just couldn’t get home.”

          So, that was the other side of the story and that changed everything. When next I talked to Stella she told me that Father Anne told her that George was very resourceful and could have gotten home if he had wanted to have gotten home.

          The moral to this story is that sometimes we can become so blinded by our own perceptions that we fail to see the whole picture. We can be convinced of something, really believe it is God’s will, and still fail to see the other side. We may feel totally right about something, but while what we feel may be eight, there may also be multiple ways of achieving the goal. When we close our minds to any other concept, we have lost.

          Just so you know, last I heard from them, George and Stella were living in Atlanta where George had taken a good job with no travel. They are happier than they have ever been in their lives. Their experience with Father Anne drove them away from the Episcopal church and they are happy members of a Baptist church just outside of Atlanta. Once Stella allowed herself to see the predicament George had been in and once George understood the terror Stella had felt when she woke from a coma, the rest was easy. And, believe it or not, Father Anne was angry at me for not counseling divorce.

          Feel with your heart, act with your mind.

          There is going to be an interruption in getting this blog out. I am not sure when that will begin because I am still waiting for a call from my doctor. But the interruption is coming and will last at least two weeks. One must do what one must do. After the interruption, I will be changing some things in my life, one of which I will be avoiding fried foods. As the years have gone by we have gotten further and further away from fried anything. It is kind of a rarity now to have fried meat. But, as I think back to my childhood, everything was fried and everything tasted great.

          My mother was from Kentucky and was a true genius when it came to making fried chicken. I asked her once how she did it and she sang a little song. The tune and words were quite unique.

Take a chicken and kill it

And put it in the skillet

And fry till its golden brown.

That’s southern cookin’

And its mighty fine.

 

Take a K and an E and a N

And a T and a U and a CKY,

That spells Kentucky (eee-haw!)

But it means Paradise

          I suppose there was more to the recipe than that, but I didn’t really care. All I wanted to be sure of was that a golden country fried chicken leg graced my plate every Sunday afternoon. Life was good so long as visions of skillet fried hens danced in my head.

          Then, I got married. Marsha, the city girl, had little knowledge of anything kitchen related. Not surprising, considering her mother was a genuine kitchen hazard. We were pretty safe with grilled cheese sandwiches and we were on solid ground with boiled hot dogs, but beyond that it was a bit dicey. Understand, she is a great cook now. It is hard to believe that it is the same woman who, when first married, thought ’city chicken’ was actually chicken. (For those who don’t know, city chicken is actually small chunks meat, usually pork, that have been either molded into the shape of a chicken leg or held together with a wooden skewer, and then fried. Popular in the so-called Rust Belt, it dates back to the Depression era.)

          Marsha knew my love of fried chicken and she was determined to make my favorite dish for me.

          We had been married for two weeks and were living in Chattanooga, Tennessee where I was in college. I was working midnights in a textile plant across the state-line in Georgia, so it was home from work at 7:30 AM, first class at 8:00 AM, home by 2:00 PM, to bed by 5:00 PM (after a few hours of study) and up and getting ready for work at 9:30 PM. My shift started at 11:00 PM. I normally ate my supper around 10:00 PM.

          We had been to the grocery store for the first time, which is always a milestone in every young married couple’s life. Trying to act grown up. Staying within your budget, looking for deals but not really not knowing what to buy. It is sweet and memorable. But my wife did know that she wanted to purchase a chicken to fry.

          And she did purchase that chicken. She promised me that on the following Monday night I would dine on authentic southern fried chicken.

          On the appointed night, I awoke to the smell of, well, something really bad. Almost as if you had cooked that skunk you found lying on the street. I sat on the edge of the bed and wondered what it was I was smelling. My wife was bustling around in the kitchen humming the tune to the Kentucky chicken song I mentioned above. There was no way I was smelling fried chicken, but it was coming from the kitchen, so what else could it be?

          It was, indeed, the chicken. It was just coming out of the pan as I walked into the kitchen. What a knock-you-off-your-feet smell. But the wife was beaming with pride as she set it down on the table.

          Actually, it looked alright. Maybe a little over done, though still recognizable as chicken. But it was certainly lighting up my sinuses.

          “Mmmmmmm. Baby, that smells good!” Lying never came easy for me, but Marsha didn’t seem to notice. 

          We sat down to eat and I said grace. I seriously wondered if God would consider it blasphemy to say grace over something that smelled so rank, but I prayed anyway. After praying I helped myself to lumpy mashed potatoes, corn, peas and three pieces of that finger-licken’ good chicken. Marsha, on the other hand, shied away from the chicken. She didn’t like poultry to begin with, so I said nothing about that at the time.

          I ate with gusto. What else are you going to do? Married less than two weeks, the wife going to a lot of trouble, her pretty eyes on me to see if I was enjoying. Even though it tasted like it smelled, I shoveled it away like a starving man.

          “How is it, honey? As good as your mom‘s?” Such a sweet voice! Such a sweet face! The love of my life!

          “Sweetheart, I’ll guarantee you that my mother never made chicken that tasted like this.” Of course, that was not a lie. Since I was saying it while I was chewing a piece of chicken and acting like I was really enjoying it, she took it to mean it was better than mom’s.

          Later, when I had to leave work and go to the hospital with food poisoning, I found out what had happened. The chicken was actually spoiled. It came from the store like that.  Marsha said that when she opened the package the smell made her gag. But she assumed that all Tennessee chicken smelled that way.

          Sweet memories! 

          Everyone likes the idea of angels. Heavenly beings, flitting around, watching over us. There have been TV shows about angels. These shows didn’t talk about Christ not did they mention God very much, but they were all about angels. You can collect them, wear angel pins, read books about angels, and watch movies about angels. It seems that they are everywhere these days. Lots of money is made in the business of angels. The thought of these heavenly creatures give us comfort and peace. It is too bad that the world’s current understanding of angels is largely not Biblical.

          For instance, not all angels have wings. In fact, in Scripture wings are the exception rather than the rule. Most of the angels we see in Scripture are wingless. Often the angels are mistaken to be human. The idea of flaming angelic swords held by soaring creatures bathed in heavenly light is mostly false.

          Actual angels are beings that can eat, walk, speak, sing and do all the things you and I can do. Of course, they can also do much more than we can do. They can appear and disappear, they can influence our actions and they can come into the physical presence of the Lord.

          The purpose of angels seems to be to give praise to God and to act as messengers between God and men. The word actually means “messenger,” although the way of delivering messages may be varied.

          The Bible tells us to be careful how we treat strangers because we may actually be dealing with angels. Maybe you meet someone who touches your life in some special way. While you are in contact with that person you never witness them in the act of sin, but that doesn’t even occur to you till later. They may seem to have some sort of wisdom that is beyond yours, but there is no arrogance in that wisdom. Or, it may be just a quick contact that you never think of again.

          That kind of a visitation may have occurred in my life. I cannot recall a time when I dealt with somebody who had that unusual wisdom and who really touched me, yet was only in my life for a very short while. I have had, however, momentary encounters with people that have left me uplifted but strangely baffled.

          One such event occurred while living in Miami, Florida. One very hot day I drove through the drive-up at a fast food restaurant and got my meal. A large mall was nearby so I drove over to park in their parking lot and eat while I read. It was a huge parking lot and, at noon on a Tuesday, was mostly empty. I found a spot that seemed to be a half mile from the nearest car and parked my pick-up. I left it running with the windows up so I could keep the air conditioner on and then settled back to read my book and enjoy my burger and fries. 

          I had read every bit of two paragraphs when there was a sharp rap at my window. It startled me so much that I started to yell at the person who had ruined my solitude. However, when I turned to see who it was I was met by the steady gaze of a wizened up little old man dressed in a heavy coat and looking like he needed a shave and a good meal. He looked like many of Miami’s homeless. The heavy coat was to store all their earthly belongings and to provide padding when they lay down at night. It is a sad story that is repeated over and over in America’s cities.

          Anyway, I rolled the window down and asked the gentleman what it was he wanted. All he wanted, he said, was a dollar so he could go back to the same fast food place I had been at and get a coffee and some fries. (This was a long time ago, if a dollar could buy coffee and fries.) I felt bad for him, so I gave him a five dollar bill and told him to get a meal. At that time he could eat Two meals on that five dollars. He thanked me several times and held the bill up like it was prize. He smiled a big, toothless smile, said thank you again and set off in the general direction of the restaurant.

          I had just rolled my window up when I thought about the long walk to the restaurant. It was a long, long way to the next car. The fast food restaurant was even further. There was absolutely nothing around, not even a tree, for a long distance. The old guy would have to walk a pretty good piece under a brutal sun dressed in a heavy coat. Giving him a ride and getting back to my spot would take all of about five minutes. I jumped out of the truck to call to the man and tell him I would run him over to get something to eat.

          He was gone. He hadn’t had the time to get much farther than my tailgate, but he was gone. It was just as though he had never existed. I looked in the bed of the truck to see if he had crawled in there. I dropped to my belly and looked under the truck to see if he had fallen and rolled under. I jumped into the bed of the truck for a higher view and looked around. Nothing. He was gone.

          There was no where he could have gone, but he was most definitely gone. I even pulled my money out of my wallet to see if I was five dollars short. (That may sound weird to you, but I am one of those people who knows how much money I have at all times and all of it faces the same way. The twenties come first followed by the tens and fives and ones. Come to think of it, that sounds weird to me.) I was short the five dollars, so I knew I had given it to the man. Everything had happened just as I remembered it, only now the man was gone.

          I have told that story many times and someone always has an explanation. Alien abduction is my favorite. Some have said that I fell asleep and didn’t realize it. Others say that we all lose track of time occasionally. But I was there and I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was just an instant. So where did he go?

          Home, I suppose. I think he just went home.

          Blessings to you all.