You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2007.
Today my daughter Shaylee and her cousin Kyler were playing and I overheard Kyler say, “Ask your dad if we can play with the big CD’s.” I must confess, I still own several records and miss playing them.
I love summer food. Fresh green beans, sweet corn, cucumbers & vinegar, zucchini, fried cabbage and the list goes on. I’m a big meat eater, but during the summer I can live on veggies. But nothing, and I mean nothing, compares to a summer homegrown tomato. One of my favorite foods of summer is the classic BLT. I grow my own lettuce & tomatoes so it’s extra nice eating something I’ve grown myself. It reminds me of one of my favorite songs. Written & sung by Guy Clark, but made famous by John Denver:
There’s nothin’ in the world that I like better than
Bacon, lettuce and home grown tomatoes
Up in the morning and out in the garden
Pick you a ripe one, don’t get a hard ‘un
Plant ‘em in the springtime eat ‘em in the summer
All winter without ‘em’s a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin’ and the diggin’
Every time I go out and pick me a big’un
{Refrain}
Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What’d life be without home grown tomatoes
There’s only two things that money can’t buy
That’s true love and home grown tomatoes
You can go out and eat ‘em, that’s for sure
But there’s nothin’ a home grown tomato won’t cure
You can put ‘em in a salad, put ‘em in a stew
You can make your own, very own tomato juice
You can eat ‘em with eggs, you can eat ‘em with gravy
You can eat ‘em with beans, pinto or navy
Put em on the side, put em on the middle
Home grown tomatoes on a hot cake griddle
If I could change this life I lead
You could call me Johnny Tomato Seed
I know what this country needs
It’s home grown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don’t bury me
In a box in a cold dark cemetery
Out in the garden would be much better
Where I could be pushin’ up home grown tomatoes
“If it weren’t for electricity we’d all be watching television by candlelight.”
- George Gobel
“And now, will y’all stand and be recognized.”
- Gib Lewis, Texas Speaker of the House, to a group of people in wheelchairs on Disability Day
“I cannot tell you how grateful I am — I am filled with humidity.”
- Gib Lewis, speaker of the Texas House
“For most people, death comes at the end of their lives.”
- GLR broadcaster, UK
“I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father.”
- Greg Norman, Golfer
Last night Jody and I celebrated our 14th anniversary with a steak dinner and an overnight stay in downtown Indy. I am the luckiest man in the world to have found such a jewel as Jody! As we were waiting for our food I decided to play a little game. Since we’ve been married 14 years I told her that she needed to come up with 7 things that attracted me to her before she married me and 7 things that attract her now. I won’t share what she said to me, but I will share some of what I told her. Some of it is personal so I won’t share it all.
Before:
She played the piano.
She was serious about serving the Lord.
She was consistent in her devotions.
I loved her family.
She loved my family and treated them well.
She was absolutely beautiful! (And still is)!
She laughed at my stupid jokes.
Now:
She is an asset to my ministry and not a liability.
She is an awesome cook.
She is an awesome mother.
She is my biggest cheerleader.
She still laughs at my jokes!
And so much more!!!!
Happy anniversary Jo, I love you!
I have a rare privilege of having tomorrow off. David Fry is preaching for me in TEEN CHURCH so I spent most of Saturday cleaning up my office. I cleaned out my tape library and several books. I’ll take them to UBC in August & leave them in the men’s dorm. Some preacher boy will be tickled to have them.
I decided to start to go through my grandpa’s sermons. He passed away a year ago this week. He was such an influence on my life. He was a good preacher too. I have a trash bag full of his sermons. I even came across a sermon he turned into his homiletics class at Frankfort Pilgrim College back in the 40’s. He got an A!
I also came across a poem of his. Papaw was so good at writing poems. I’m not sure when this was written. At the top of the paper it says: Weisbach. Weisbach Community Church was where Papaw first pastored & I think, at least according to this poem, where he preached his first sermon.
In was just a one room school house
Where I started out for Him
With little seats for all sized kids
And no benches or seats for them.
Now I don’t know just what I said
I think I know the thought
The Scripture that I used was plain
Of the sermon which I brought.
I don’t know how long I preached
Probably not too long
But I do know that God came down
In power upon that throng.
I felt my feet weren’t even down
Touching the very floor
But I do know the tempter came
Before I went out the door.
But in all these years that have past and gone
I never have forgotten that day
I remember the anointing of that night
It has never passed away.
I miss my grandparents so much, but I’m so thankful for the assurance that I have that I’ll see them again someday.
Today I’ve been thinking about my good friend, Dale Bailey, who went home to be with the Lord yesterday morning. Dale was only 51 years old and before his sickness he was the perfect picture of health. My heart is grieved. Grieved for his family; grieved for his parents; grieved for the hole that’s in my heart; grieved for my pastor, Dale’s best friend. Dale was the director of or bus ministry, he was chairman of our church board, and when it came time to work he was always the first one there and one of the last to leave. He was pure gold. I don’t know how many times I told my wife when we were pastoring at other churches, “I would give anything for a Dale Bailey in this church.”
But even though I’m sad, I’m also joyful. That’s one of the great paradoxes of the Christian life. I’m joyful because Dale is in a place where words like cancer, pain, sorrow, and suffering aren’t even in the dictionary. These words don’t exist in heaven. Isn’t heaven what we’re living for anyway? He just got there a little before the rest of us.
Dale, look for me soon; in light of eternity, in won’t be long. We love you, we miss you, we’ll see you soon.
Phillip Yancey describes grace in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace? He writes, “Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more—no amount of spiritual calisthenics and renunciations, no amount of knowledge gained from seminaries, no amount of crusading on behalf of righteous causes. And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less—no amount of racism or pride or pornography or adultery or even murder. Grace means that God already loves us as much an infinite God can possibly love.”
Woman runner-up in one-horse race
A grandmother won second prize in a cake-baking contest, only to discover she was the only entrant.
Jenny Brown, 62, entered her Victoria Sponge into the competition and was initially pleased to have come in second.
But she was left shocked when a friend revealed to her that she was the only person to take part.
She said her own baking was subject to another strange decision.
“About 11 years ago I entered a show with some fruit scones. I was the only entrant but I came in third.”
The Screwtape Letters is a work of Christian fiction by C. S. Lewis first published in book form in 1942. The story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior devil, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood, so as to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of an earthly man, known only as “the Patient.”
Each letter is a masterpiece of reverse theology, giving the reader an inside look at the thinking and means of temptation. In the body of the thirty-one letters which make up the book, Screwtape gives Wormwood detailed advice on various methods of undermining faith and promoting sin in his Patient, interspersed with observations on human nature and Christian doctrine. It’s not too often that a book written in the 40’s is still fresh and relevant for today. That’s what makes C.S. Lewis such a great writer.
Some quotes:
“Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing.”
“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one–the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
“If it is impossible to remove spirituality from his life…then we must corrupt it.”
“Surely you know that if a man can”t be cured of churchgoing , the next best thing is to send him all over the city for the church that ’suits’ him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches…the search for a ’suitable’ church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil.”
“As long as he retains externally the habits of a Christian he can still be made to think of himself as one who has adopted a few new friends and amusements but whose spiritual state is much the same as it was six weeks ago.”
