by Greg | Aug 9, 2011 | Blog Posts
Not so long ago Amy, the boys and I headed “home” to visit my family. Due to a rather demanding summer I had not been home to visit my daddy since last May. Keep in mind that they are only just over an hour’s drive away. A visit was long overdue and greatly welcomed. At supper we sat down to the usual bowls and dishes that we each contributed to feed the masses. One platter stood out – okra, fresh from the garden and fried to perfection. It was my brother Scott’s offering. I did not know he even knew how to cook. There are several good restaurants where you can eat fried okra and most of them do a commendable job. Nothing, however, compares to homegrown okra fried the old-fashion way. It tasted like home. I thought about this a few days later when I was kneading dough in preparation for cinnamon rolls I would bake on the first day of school. The dough recipe I use is the one my grandmother shared with me when I left for seminary. Her sour dough bread was a parting gift to me when I would head back to college. In seminary I learned to bake it so that no matter how far away I lived, I could always have something that tasted like home. Perhaps one day my boys will have families of their own and share with them cinnamon rolls or Amy’s sweet potato biscuits and their taste buds will remind them of what home is like. What is it that tugs at your heart and calls you back...
by Greg | Aug 1, 2011 | Blog Posts
For owners of the MINI Cooper there is a unique culture. It is a quirky English car that has been around since 1959 and so most references to the MINI are couched in English colloquialisms. The “bonnet” is the hood; the “boot” is the trunk (yes, it has a trunk), and driving one is described as “happy motoring.” Well, after more than eight years I am out of the MINI, having traded it for a more grown-up car that can better transport my kayaks and navigate Forest Service Roads, and, quite frankly, it is easier to get in and out of without making those groaning noises. When I bought my first MINI in early 2003 it was a novelty car. For the first couple of years people would stop and ask me about the car – “What kind is it? (MINI Cooper) Who makes it? (John Cooper Motorworks) Where do you keep the clowns? (Underneath the hood, they power the motor)” Over time church members have taken great delight in gifting me with toy MINI cars not much smaller than the original. In my study at the church I counted 15 toy MINIs along my book shelves that have been given to me and there are several more similar toy cars at home. What do I do with them now? About a year after I purchased my MINI I was in a pretty bad wreck on the interstate that totaled four cars, including my own. It did such a good job protecting Amy and I in the wreck that I went straight to the dealership and ordered another and...
by Greg | Jul 6, 2011 | Blog Posts
The line is well known among Jimmy Buffett fans and the era of sun tan oils (as opposed to blocks, lotions and creams). Here along the Gulf Coast, however, it calls to mind other kinds of oil that we would rather not see. Happily, no oil is in site around St. George Island and the DeLoaches are enjoying spending some time with good friends along the beautiful beach. Mornings are spent planning what we are going to eat for breakfast. Near noon we are scrounging for lunch and most of the afternoon is dedicated to planning for supper. In between meal planning we are kayaking, sunning, catching up and slowing down. We probably are not the only ones taking a little time off this summer. July is one of the busiest months for summer travel. Many in the church are “missing in action” during this month attempting to squeeze out the rest of summer since school will be starting back in just a few weeks. I am heartened that in spite of wide-spread travel among our membership we are seeing a surge in church involvement. Choir mission trips, Vacation Bible School and Youth Camp have been some of the best ever. In a week many of our high school students will be leaving for a mission trip to Jamaica. Wonderful Wednesdays and “One-derful” Wednesdays have kept our mid week calendar full. I state all of the above to say that I am quite encouraged by the positive spirit flowing throughout this community of faith. There is much that the recession cannot touch, including our sense of being the church...
by Greg | May 18, 2011 | Blog Posts
…Or is it right? I am sure someone will clarify this tradition for me before the week is out. I am not graduating from anything, mind you, but I am proud to have a son to complete this phase of his life. I am trying hard to not sound cliché when I write that it seems like yesterday when we were taking this nine pound infant home from the hospital and immediately our lives were forevermore changed, BUT it does seem like yesterday. Like those nesting eagles I wrote about a few weeks ago, soon he will be launched from our home and into the waiting world (we do plan on changing the locks). Many of you parents are going through this too. It is a good feeling, but one that comes mixed with a little nostalgia for the past as well as some understandable regrets – there is much I would do differently if given the chance to “do-over.” Do you remember your first graduation? For most of us it was High School, as it was in my case. The dignified ceremony for Putnam County High School was held in the auditorium of Rock Eagle. I was part of an august class of 109 students. I remember next to nothing except for lumbering up and receiving my diploma and feeling as though I had just been handed a ticket to the world. That was 27 years ago and I have not seen most of my classmates since. A few have died. Many never left the dairy capitol of Georgia. Some, so I am told, moved to far parts...
by Greg | Apr 26, 2011 | Blog Posts
A couple of weeks ago a thoughtful church member shared with me the following link to an internet site: http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles. This link is to a webcam that provides live 24 hour coverage of a pair of bald eagles and their three young eaglets that hatched earlier this month. The nest is 80 feet in the air, atop a research center in far away Iowa. For the last two weeks in between writing, emails, naps and phone calls I have watched this nest of eagles feed on rabbit, survive a blanket of snow, houseclean their nest and stare icily at the hidden camera. It is a reality show like none you have ever seen on television. While the eagles laid their eggs back in late February, thirteen years ago insects all throughout the Deep South were doing the same thing. I am certain not a one of us noticed this event in our yards but now we can hear the results. Cicadas! Specifically, “Periodical Cicadas” and they are called so because they come out every thirteen years. The males give off a steady “buzz” during the day that at times sound like a pulsating hum. Their empty shells can be found clinging tenaciously to leaves, stems and bark. Eagles and cicadas and spring time in general remind us that the earth is alive and new life abounds. God is not just about doing new things in nature, but I believe is working for newness in each and every life. That is one of the lessons that we are reminded of in the Easter season. Like the cicadas that are leaving...
by Greg | Apr 13, 2011 | Blog Posts
For some spring break is just another date on the calendar or a memory of a seasonal vacation no longer observed. For many, however, it is a brief window of opportunity to get away or at least change the pace. How did you spend your spring break? Did you go to the beach and get a pre-summer tan? Did you don mouse ears and skip through the Magic Kingdom of Disney World? Did any of you stay home and work on your garden, planting tomatoes and peppers and such? I am sure many from our church here in Augusta found some time and opportunity to cross the bamboo boundary and watch some exciting golf. While my two sons worked long hours related to The Masters and earned some “walking around” money, I spent my spring break walking along the Appalachian Trail (AT). My walking was more like huffing and puffing along a section of rolling mountains in the southwest North Carolina. The AT is a marked hiking trail in the eastern United States extending between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. It is approximately 2,181 miles long. I have hiked all of Georgia’s section and much of North Carolina’s part. In order to hike the entire trail, however, you will need more than a spring break because it will take about six months to cover the distance. This is “thru-hike” season which means those desiring to hike the trail need to leave Georgia between March 15 and April 15 if they want to make it to Mt. Katahdin before Maine closes access on October 15. During my...
by Greg | Mar 3, 2011 | Blog Posts
It seems like a distant memory now, even though it was less than two weeks ago. On top of a mountain with my family, we were doing something Amy and I never dreamed of doing when we were our children’s ages: snowmobiling. We were in Breckenridge, Colorado and along with a small group of other vacationers we were snowmobiling along the backside of the Rocky Mountains. The temperature hovered in the teens but the sunshine was full and we were all having the time of our lives; each one of us commandeering our own snowmobile. These are powerful machines that are something like riding a four-wheeler and a jet ski combined. By the end of the afternoon my face was purple with cold, my beard was layered in frost and my grin was frozen in place. One of the great things to be enjoyed while snowmobiling is seeing parts of the mountains not accessible to skiers. There were winding trails and beatific vistas. The best view occurred near the top of one mountain. Due to the risk of avalanches we could not go to the very top, but we went as high as possible – 12,500 feet. We were above the tree line and in a simple way felt as though we were on top of the world. Soon, too soon, our time was up and it was time to not only take our snowmobiles back down the mountain, but take ourselves back home. Life has its highs and lows; this we know all too well. For a time in my life I worked feverishly to create and then...
by Greg | Feb 2, 2011 | Blog Posts
Which do you think is easier to believe? To believe in what you do not have or to believe in what is hoped for? We know what we do not have and it is usually in the category of never enough. It is quite another thing to believe in something that is only a hope. We have two great stories in the Bible: one in the Hebrew Scriptures of the wilderness wanderings of the children of Israel and the other of the hungry crowd pressing in on Jesus. Both stories involve hunger and both stories involve feeding and both stories deal with a stronger belief in what they do not have instead of what is hoped for. Israel had been led out into the wilderness to escape their Egyptian captors. They came to believe, however, that they were led out to starve. “The rabble among them had a strong craving; and the Israelites also wept again, and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.” (Numbers 11:4-6) They came to despise God’s provision of manna, also called “bread of heaven,” and all they saw was their scarcity, what they did not have. Now glance ahead through the centuries and through your books in the Bible to this story in John. In fact this particular story is told in all four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke as well...
by Greg | Jan 10, 2011 | Blog Posts
Living in Georgia all of my life, I have had very few snow days, so nearly every one of them is memorable. I can easily recall one winter ice storm when I was a little boy that took down power lines and waited along with befuddled dairy cows needing badly to be milked for Georgia Power to restore our electricity. Even now, where school is a fading distant memory, there is a bit of hopeful anticipation to see if our school will be cancelled. Throughout Sunday we tracked on television and on the internet the progress of the cold front that was promising to bring us snow, ice and sleet from the heavens. Some, especially those that work outside, saw this as an ominous foreboding. Others, especially students, saw this as a gift from the Creator. I saw this as a nice diversion. Getting up at my usual hour Monday morning I soon found out that there would be no hospital visits, Rotary Club, or a staff meeting on my agenda. I could not even see our road. Instead, it would be lots of hot coffee, intervals outside with the family, and working by way of the laptop for most of the day. Wet, mushy, thick and cold – snow day! What is so special about a fresh snowfall that even the most cynical among us cannot refuse? Is it the wonderful blanket of silence that morning snow leaves or those mysterious tracks left behind by some bird, rabbit or squirrel cutting across the yard and into the woods? Have you ever watched a sunset surrounded by snowfall? Breathtaking....
by Greg | Jan 5, 2011 | Blog Posts
How do you begin a journey? Do you have to have all the details worked out before making that first step or do you just tromp ahead and let the surprises be the point? Amy is a planner and loves to make (and strictly abide by) lists. I, on the other hand, tend to just plunge ahead, impulsive and at times foolish. Last week Amy and I “tromped” into the New Year by making a small journey of sorts. My beloved and I hiked five miles through nearly a foot of snow near the Amicalola Falls in North Georgia and then spent a cozy night at the Len Foote Hike Inn. You can only access this inn by hiking in and hiking out. Perhaps the term “inn” is a bit generous. It is rustic, bare-bones, and no-frills. They do provide a hot meal at night and one more in the morning before sending us back out into the snow to hike back down the mountain. It was a lovely way to close out the year and prepare for the start of a new year. In this particular jaunt, Amy depended on me for the details since I do most of the hiking and backpacking. Wanting to make a good impression, I worked a bit harder on some of the details and she, likewise, trusted me with some of the surprises. Fortunately our surprises were mostly positive and even when things were less pleasant than planned (like frigid temperatures in our bunk room) we made plans to adjust (I brought a winter sleeping bag that was warm and toasty). In...
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