The blog of Greg DeLoach
Roswell Georgia
This is Not What I Ordered
Some like it hot…But not that hot. It all started when my son, his girlfriend, my wife and I sat down at a table in a half-full (or half-empty depending on your perspective) restaurant. I have eaten here before and was looking forward to my usual order of chicken wings, specifically the ones on the menu listed as “Hot Buffalo Wings.” For the uninformed, no buffalos are harmed or used in this product. As for the chickens, well, that is another matter entirely. While the wings I ordered on the menu are described as hot, there are four other categories of wings that are spicier; much spicier; as in “melt your lips off and leave you hallucinating” spicier. Surely you can guess where I am going in this story. After not one, or two, but five of the ten wings I ordered, my lips were melting and my nose was running and my eyes were blurring from the heat. I could take it no more. Pushing aside the remaining basket of hellish poultry parts, I asked our server, “Um, maybe my order was mixed up.” She looked at it, and said, “Yeah, I just found out in the kitchen that your order was accidentally replaced with “Slow Burn.” For the record, there was nothing slow about the burn I was feeling. It is the restaurant’s hottest and spiciest wing offering made with the demonic-sounding “Trinidad scorpion peppers.” I think the good folks of Trinidad grow those peppers as a joke for their neighbors across the hemisphere. This is not what I ordered. I get the feeling I was set...
What Are You Worth?
Everything, and I mean everything, has a price or a value. Today, as of this writing, a barrel of oil is just under $37; gasoline is worth about $2.09 a gallon; milk is $3.52 a gallon; and the average sale price of a home in Atlanta is just under $290,000. What are you worth? What price do you place on your family, your friends, or your spouse? I suppose that is not particularly fair, since it is impossible to put a monetary value on a relationship. Still, you can appreciate that everything has a worth. One of the core values at the organization I serve – Developmental Disabilities of Georgia – is dignity. It means self-respect; pride; and worthiness. Deep down we all want dignity, that is, to be treated with respect, to be valued, to feel as though we have worth in this world. It is also a value to be shared, because everyone needs to be reminded of their sacred inheritance. Dignity is sharing a smile with another, instead of avoiding eye contact or pretending someone is not there. Dignity is laughing with someone, instead of laughing at them, or worse, sarcasm. Dignity is offering words of encouragement, especially when someone is discouraged, instead of quickly pointing out their faults or short-comings. Dignity is recognizing that everyone wants deep down to be loved, instead of labeling others with words that stereotype or belittle. Dignity is forgiving someone for their wrongs, instead of keeping scoring and holding grudges. Dignity is taking time to look, listen, and care when someone needs to be heard, instead of being in a hurry...
Giving Away My Pulpit
My parish has changed, which means I have traded pulpits so to speak, and now walk alongside persons with developmental disabilities and their families. On a recent visit to a home where four men and staff members live, I was joined with my wife and a friend of ours. I wanted to show off this house filled with men full of smiles and love and hope. To be greeted with uninhibited enthusiasm and embraces of welcome is a beautiful gift of hospitality that is good for both the heart and soul. One of the residents, Al (not his real name), was eager to show us around his house and especially his room. For the most part Al’s room is just like any other bedroom among the many houses our organization supports: the wall was decorated with snapshots of visits to parks, sporting events, and family and friends; there were posters of athletes and teams that were his favorites; and on his bulletin board he had proudly tacked up and displayed medals from his years of participating with Special Olympics. Lined up along Al’s bureau were several bird houses he had painted. As he was proudly showing off the bird houses, and we were remarking how beautiful they all were, Al picked one up, thrusted into the hands of my friend and said, “Here, this is yours.” Of course my friend was overwhelmed at the gesture, but tried to say, “No, that is not necessary, this is too generous”, etc. But he was insistent. We all made quick glances at the residential host, who nodded that it was okay,...
The Beloved Belonging
Not so long ago Amy and I slipped away for a few days to go camping in the Smoky Mountains. The trees were still stark and bare, which hold their own kind of beauty. Although we had intermittent rain, we also tromped around in some snow while hiking. We love the mountains even though we did not grow up in the mountains. We both hail from Middle Georgia environs surrounded by gentle, rolling hills where the closest thing to a mountain was a fire-ant mound. Yet each time we return and lose ourselves “up there in the hills” huddling around a campfire we feel a certain re-connection with our past. Many of Amy’s best childhood memories are of family camping trips. My grandparents rarely left the dairy, but the two or so times I remember them traveling away from cows and kin, it was to head to the mountains. One time it included taking my brothers, sister and me to see those mountains for the first time. Every time we are up in mountain territory – in a tent, on a trail, a hotel room, or just riding along the winding highway – we feel a reconnection, a belonging as if we have always been there. Deep within every one of us is the need to belong. Young children take pride in belonging to their parents; adolescents carve out new identities and belong to their friends; emerging into adulthood there is the need to belong to independent ideas and convictions; and it is not uncommon that as we grow older and age we seek out our past recovering what...
Broken Down and Rusted Out
First Week of Lent 2016 Out hiking on a trail, I have encountered a few surprises over the years. Deer, snakes, skunks and elk live in the woods, so I do not know why I should be surprised whenever I see them in their home. Several years ago I was quite a few miles into a day hike on a mountain trail when I became disconcerted and not a little bit disturbed by an unpleasant odor of what I assumed was a bear. As I was running through my mental list of “what to do when you encounter a bear in the woods,” I realized that the bear smell was me! Recently, I was out hiking with a friend (if you are going to encounter a bear it is good to have a friend, preferably one who is slower than you). We were deep in conversation when we rounded a wooded corner, and there to the side of the trail was a beat-up, rusted out old car. Trees were growing around it, indicating it had been there for quite a few years. In fact, outside of the narrow walking trail, there was no other sign of a road. It was as if the heavens opened and placed this old car alongside the trail. I suppose someone decades ago ran out of gas, or maybe had a flat, or simply blew the motor, and just parked it. Broken down, rusted out, and discarded. This happens to people too. Someone ceases to be useful and gets “parked” or discarded or forgotten. It happens to the elderly, to the disabled, to the...
Do You Ever See a Jogger Smile?
There is a park alongside the river that is a convenient place for me to stop on the way home from work. While traffic hums by, there are trails winding through patches of woods, greenspace and the river itself that makes it ideal for jogging (or in my case lumbering). Just the other day as I was huffing and puffing and wondering if I was burning enough calories for a well-deserved desert, I noticed that most everyone I met along the trail was smiling at me. Some smiles are suspicious; other smiles have a hint of ridicule. But these smiles seemed genuine, happy. “Gee, there sure are a lot of nice people around here.” Everyone knows that joggers usually do not smile. And then it occurred to me: I was wearing my “smiley” shirt, but not just any smiley shirt. This shirt had the mud-splattered smiley face inspired by the fictionalized account from the movie “Forrest Gump.” They are smiling at me, but more specifically they are smiling at my shirt. I attempted to live up to my good natured shirt and smile back! Living up to the smile. Sometimes smiles are fake, and most of us know one when we see one. Sometimes smiles are just a feeble attempt to cover up melancholy. I never like it when someone tells me, “Smile!” especially when I just do not feel like smiling. Yet there are times when I think we are far too guarded with our smiles, as if a smile makes us vulnerable or appear weak or indolent. It is true that I sometimes smile a bit too...
A Place to Call Home
That’s what has occupied most of my thoughts of late … a place to call home. Over the years Amy and I have been pretty good at nesting for ourselves places to call home – even when we knew our stay would be temporary. Our first “home” was a tiny garage apartment in Rome, Georgia. Whenever our landlady would crank her ’72 Buick, the roar of the motor would shake books off of our shelves. Our next home was our seminary apartment. It was an efficiency unit which meant that you could place your hand in every room in the apartment while seated at the kitchen table. We loved our apartments, even though through youthful eyes we longed for something more, something better. Since seminary we have lived in two very fine parsonages that we have called home. We have lived in temporary homes (indeed, aren’t all homes temporary?) for months at a time until we could find something more permanent. Last week, after living for three months out of suitcases, we moved to Roswell, Georgia and into a place we call home. Now I work alongside others who, in part, seek to provide a home for those who are often most vulnerable at not finding a place. The work of Developmental Disabilities Ministries can be summed up in its byline: Hope Lives Here. Everyone should have a place that they can call home. Each time I hug a neck or share a few words with these special friends I am so grateful they too feel the welcome and the hope of home. Home is much more than a...
An Uncertain Life
Entering into the infancy of this new year, I am reflecting over all the changes I have experienced in the span of just a few short months. Through a period of prayerful discernment and many miles walked with my wife in the evenings as she patiently listened to me talk it out, I accepted a new position and in many ways a new calling that would involve us relocating. Just as homes were being decorated for the fall, our home of ten years was sold, and soon we were scrambling to pack our things away and live in temporary quarters. As others were packing away Christmas decorations, we were once again zipping up suitcases and moving away from church and children to start a new life and work. We have enjoyed the company and rekindling of old friendships, and have cherished revisiting familiar places, but still everything is so new, so uncertain. I am still learning names and responsibilities of my colleagues at Developmental Disabilities Ministries. I have yet to visit all of the wonderful homes populated by our friends who live there and are loved there. Even now as I write this article I am still not settled. There is a house to close on so that we can claim it as our own (along with the bank that was so kind to loan us the necessary funds); and all our worldly goods are still packed up on the back of a truck waited to be unloaded. It is indeed an uncertain life. And so it is for all of us, even those convinced that what they have...
Baptizing Kevin
Kevin’s mom approached me and abruptly said, “I think Kevin is ready for baptism.” It is certainly not uncommon for me to hear from parents of twelve year old boys this type of request. But this request was anything but common. Kevin is a child with significant developmental disabilities. He was born premature, which plays a role in his disabilities. For the first two years of his life – the most important for development – Kevin was tragically neglected, which only exacerbated his disabilities. By God’s grace and love Kevin was adopted. I still remember when Kevin was brought to church for the first time. He could not talk, walk or even crawl. He whimpered and required near constant care. “What are we going to do about Kevin?” I heard others ask. All of us – from workers in the nursery to ministers on staff – felt unqualified and helpless against Kevin’s formidable challenges. What we did was love Kevin, just as he was, and in the process discovered how deeply we were loved by him. Through the years we watched Kevin grow up, so to speak. We watched him learn to crawl and then toddle and before long lumber around the classrooms and church grounds. He went from whimpering to smiling. In time he began to speak a word or two, then phrases, and now he can easily share a sentence with you when something is on his mind – and something is always on his mind! In preschool and later children’s choir we watched him stand alongside his peers while an adult held him...
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