Good parenting, good detective work
I’m in Ohio, visiting my Mom. It’s a bit more snowy here than in Tennessee. Today Mom told me a fascinating story…
When my Dad died, my Mom had a lot of trouble sleeping. Not surprising, but thankfully, she lives in a safe neighborhood surrounded mostly by older folks. But one night Mom was awakened around three in the morning by someone ringing the doorbell about 12 times quickly. She ran to the door and opened it. She was shocked to see some things she couldn’t identify piled on her porch. No one was there.
Mom was terrified. She locked herself in the bathroom and called the police. When the deputy sheriff arrived, Mom came out and he showed her that her yard had been thoroughly rolled with toilet paper. The things piled on her porch were her lawn ornaments.
The deputy, much to his credit, did a little looking around. By following some footprints in the dew, and by ringing the doorbell of the house where they ended, he eventually found the three teenage boys who rolled Mom’s yard (and who did more serious vandalism elsewhere).
When Mom got up the next morning and looked outside, the yard was normal. Had she dreamed the whole thing? Then she saw a pick-up truck pull up. Someone’s dad (who also had his doorbell rung at 3 am - by the deputy sheriff) sat in the driver’s seat while a couple of teenage boys dragged a ladder out of the back and carried it across Mom’s yard to get a few remaining high strands of toilet paper.
Some time later, Mom’s doorbell rang again - this time during the day. A middle-aged man stood on the porch with his teenage son. The son had been brought by to issue his official apology. His father assured Mom that if she ever needed any work done around the place, she could call his son and he would definitely be right over.
We have all done stupid things without thinking about what kind of harm we might causing. The lucky ones had someone to call us on it.
“He who spares the rod hates his son,
but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.” Proverbs 13:24
Ben Hackett
Our church lost a great friend this week. Ben Hackett, one of our founding members, passed away Friday morning at age 91.
Everyone who spoke at his funeral talked about Ben’s optimism and his ability to encourage. That’s my main testimony about the guy too. It was my privilege to serve as his minister for the past twenty years. But Ben always acted like the privilege was his.
My tribute to a friend
Allean Bailey was a friend of mine and a long-time member of our church. She passed away last week after a long battle with cancer. I’m quite sure she never read my blog, nor any other web site. Here is my tribute to her.
Oh, Allean, how can there be a Morrison Hill Christian Church for me without you? After all, we joined the church on the same day, way back in May of ’88 – you, me, Howard and Cindy. Mr. Hackett received us at the front of the church and welcomed us all in. Having you up there with us was an important vote of confidence at the start of our ministry.
It didn’t take long for me to feel close to you, to come to consider you as a friend. In age, we were two generations apart, but we were much closer in more important matters – faith, first and foremost, but also in sense-of-humor and the enjoyment we got out of picking on one another. How many times did you tell me that my sermon tapes worked for you better than any sleeping pill?
I don’t remember exactly when it was, but it seems like it wasn’t long after my own Grandma died that you began telling me at the end of every visit or phone call “I love you” and pulling my face down to give me a kiss on the cheek. I loved you for that. Without really intending it (I’m sure) you filled up a hole in my heart.
The last time I visited with you was on Halloween afternoon. You offered me candy, of course. I thought you looked better, stronger, healthier than you had in a long time. I hope this means that your last couple of weeks were good ones and that the illness that finally took you home was brief. But no matter the case, that’s over now. I’m sure you faced all that with the same strong faith I always saw in you. And now I don’t need to worry about you at all because I know where you are. You are HOME. Put some candy out for me. I’ll be along eventually, and I’ll bring along some of my best sermon tapes.
I love you Allean.
Your preacher and friend,
Dennis
Sermon: Things my dad taught me about fatherhood
Sermon: Things my dad taught me about fatherhood
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How often do you blog?
How often do you post to your blog, friend? Don’t answer. I’ll tell you.
See, I read your blog feeds through Google Reader first, which pulls all your stuff onto one page (along with ESPN, Wired News, etc.) and alerts me immediately of your updates. Google recently added “Trends” to the reader, which tells me this…
The Shelf is the most frequently updated personal blog I read. Summer put up new content 0.8 times per day over the past month (and it was all good too!). I’ve faded to a pace of 0.5 (or a post every other day) over the past month, and I’ve realized how much it meant to me to have my Dad out there reading. Stats for other friends: Al Perry and Steve Conley (0.3), Kirby Waggoner and Sam Clark (0.2), Hannah and Marsha and Josh (0.1). Interestingly, as I line all of you up across the top of my screen in Firefox tabs, I see that six of you are using Blogger and only two use Wordpress.
How many posts is “just right?” There is no clear answer. For the blogs that attempt to put out thought-provoking, longer content, I find that less is more. Christianity Today (a magazine rather than a blog) posts 2.2 stories a day, and I’d guess that I find one worth reading every week or so. Out of Ur, CT’s church leadership blog is down at 0.3, but I read a higher percentage of its posts. 43 Folders (0.5) and Signal vs. Noise (1.2) are two of the most influential tech/design/creativity blogs out there, and they post infrequently - and rarely waste words. On the other hand, Lifehacker (which I link to often) is a deluge of posts (13.9) with one or two ideas a day I wish I had time to explore.
One other thing: I do love the Kara blog from my neighbor girl, but it doesn’t have an RSS feed attached, so Google Reader can’t find it.
Dying well
Dad’s funeral is over and the reality is beginning to set in. Of course it’s a rough time, but it would have been worse except for Dad’s faith-in-practice, which he demonstrated more during his last weeks than ever. For one example, he sent this email to his minister Dean Hammond on April 23, one day before his 66th birthday:
Hi Dean,
As you well know, I don’t know the outcome of this disease. In the event, however, that you officiate a memorial service for me, I would like the following to be read:
Mourn for me for a season for that is only natural. But, please, make it a short season. For I immensely enjoyed my life, I loved my family, friends, acquaintances and experiences. Also I’m now experiencing wonders you can’t even imagine. I’d like to leave you with something I read somewhere; seek to love God with all that you are. Having done that, learn to love yourself. After that, love others as you love yourself.
That’s it Dean. Because of the sensitive nature of this, I would prefer you treat this with all possible confidence…
Love,
Fred
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Philippians 1:21
Nothing left unsaid
In an hour or so, Cindy and I will leave for Ohio to (in the best case) walk with my Dad through his final hours here on earth. We found out six weeks ago that he has an aggressive and advanced form of cancer, and it appears that this cancer will win a (temporary) victory in the next few hours or days.
There are days and days of conversations that I still want to have with Dad. And yet there is nothing important left unsaid. Dad’s faith is strong and his mind is sharp. I have no doubt of his love for me, and I’m sure he has no doubt of mine.
I can’t tell you how important this man has been in my life. If MY life, ministry or friendship has had any kind of positive impact on you, my Dad deserves much of the credit.
Dennis
Sunday Seven
- Journey through a dark valley. Here are my Dad’s own thoughts on his struggle with cancer, grief and peace. Thanks to any of you who might be praying for him.
- Forget the other six today…
My Grandpa and Thanksgiving
My Grandpa Mullen died last Saturday morning, after 91 great, positive, optimistic years. He was a Christian and he was also blessed with good health up until the last two years, and even these last two were fairly good considering his age. Cindy and I went to Ohio in the early part of this week where I had the honor of doing his funeral.
I was close to my Grandpa and I feel like I knew him pretty well, but I found out this week that I didn’t know him outside the circle of our immediate family. But I found out that Grandpa had a wide-ranging and positive influence on a large group of people that I had either never met or didn’t know very well. Both at the funeral service and in the newspaper’s online guest book, people wrote moving tributes about my Grandpa and his optimism, positive spirit, and the encouragement he gave them. These tributes came from his nieces and nephews, people who lived next door to Grandma and Grandpa, people he worked with, people he worked ON (as a masseur) and other friends he met through the course of his long life.
In my own tribute to Grandpa, I said that he was absolutely the most positive person I had ever met, prone to excessive bragging on his grandkids and kids. Whenever I would see him, even during the last couple of years, a typical exchange would be: “Grandpa, how are you doing?” “Man, I’m doing so well, I don’t know how to handle it!” Or: “I am more blessed than anyone has a right to be.”
The Thanksgiving season seemed like the perfect time of year to pay tribute to a guy like my Grandpa. After all, Christians ought to be much more like him than we are. I should be much more like him than I am. So with all our blessings and faith, why is it easier sometimes to see the negative things about life? Why do optimism and thanksgiving come so hard, at least for some folks like me?
This will be my topic for Sunday, so your comments are welcome (and they MAY appear in the sermon!)
Read my Dad’s tribute here.
Dying too young
“Why does God take some home who still have so much to offer…
when there are so many others he leaves behind who could more easily be spared?”
I’m paraphrasing that quote from Ken Burns’ Baseball documentary. I believe that baseball commissioner Landis said it at the death of Christy Matthewson at age 45. The press called Matthewson “the Christian gentleman” because of his integrity at a time when the game was dominated by morally questionable men like Ruth, Cobb, gamblers, bootleggers, and even Landis himself.
I’ve thought about that quote a lot since Saturday evening when our MHCC friend A. L. Woody died of cancer at age 37, one day after his wedding anniversary, leaving behind a wife, Barbara, and twin daughters Casey and Sarah, age 10. Why would God take someone like A. L., who still had so much left to do when God knows there are others who could more easily be spared?!
The thing is, A. L. didn’t think like that. John Pryor, in his funeral talk yesterday, said: “His attitude was not ‘Why me?’ but ‘Why NOT me’? He firmly believed that he would remain alive as long as God wanted him to - and that God always knows best. In his struggle against cancer, A. L. remained unflinchingly brave and regularly encouraged those around him. He fought hard to live because he wanted as much time as possible with his family, but he never feared death or doubted his salvation.”
In the end, I have to admit that A. L. was right and I am wrong. It’s true that A. L. had to leave undone his work as a father (work that only he could do) while others (myself included) seem to have less pressing tasks. But the world hasn’t operated with fairness and equity since Eden, and it won’t again until God’s Kingdom fully comes. To choose faith over despair is to make a commitment to trust God when it doesn’t all add up and wait for the end of the story to be written.
Thanks, A. L., for doing that. Wish you were still here though.
