by Greg | Feb 2, 2009 | Blog Posts
Not so long ago I made the suggestion to my beloved that we should take a yoga class together that is offered at the “Y” next door to the church. You read this correctly: yoga…together. I have never taken yoga in my life but I did as a kid love the television series Kung Fu and the characters often looked like they could at least lead a class in yoga, but I digress… Last Friday we started our first yoga class. I figured how bad could this be? I am in good shape, jog regular and lift weights. Yoga is just stretching, right? Amy and I joined a group of ladies (yep, I am the only man in this class, but I am okay with that) who were all far more experienced than the two of us. I have to admit that the class itself was not that bad. True, I have the balance of a hippo on a high wire. At times the instructor would have us place our legs in positions that my body has never seen except for that time I fell off of a silo as a kid. But other than some rather impossible contortions and strange positions, it was not so bad. I barely broke a sweat. The next day, however, is another story. I was hurting in places I did not know existed with muscles I did not know I needed! I did a little reading on yoga and discovered that its history goes back to ascetic practices in the Hindu tradition. “Oh,” I am thinking to myself, “it is suppose to hurt.”...
by Greg | Jan 27, 2009 | Blog Posts
…was one of those metal types. I hear there are people who collect them. I still have this lunchbox complete with thermos and they are both somewhat prominently displayed on our bookshelf. It is a bit scratched up, but otherwise is in pretty good shape and if you open it up it still has the faint smell of peanut butter sandwiches and potato chips. This lunchbox has the cartoon characters from Peanuts on all its sides. Each day of the first grade Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Snoopy and Woodstock would join me in the cafeteria of Eatonton Grammar School for lunch. Nine years ago alongside many around the world I mourned the passing of the creator and illustrator of Peanuts, Charles Schulz. His death was somewhat poetic in that he died literally hours before his last strip was to be published in the Sunday paper. In the course of fifty years of Peanuts, many of us grew up with good ol’ Charlie Brown, and the rest of the gang. I am not sure if I ever missed a Christmas without watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” I practically learned to read, along with millions of others, due to my love of comic strips like the Peanuts. One of the things that I admired about Schulz’s life (and death) was his commitment to create right up until the very end. He understood that God had placed him here on this earth to positively contribute to his culture. He brought smiles to faces of all ages. He gently challenged and prodded our assumptions and prejudices. He wove in theology and spirituality and...
by Greg | Jan 3, 2009 | Blog Posts
…That is what it has felt like anyway; that we were packing away Christmas. We waited as long as we could but honestly the tree was becoming a fire hazard. It has been up since a day or two after Thanksgiving so I suppose it was time. Ten or eleven years ago when we lived in Chickamauga our Christmas tree was completely, 100%, bonafide dead a full week before Christmas day. On the 23rd I finally accepted the truth after I inadvertently sneezed on the tree and there were no needles left. Fortunately I found an abandoned tree lot and found a perfectly good tree resting in a ditch! This year our tree held up much better, but nonetheless it was time to pack Christmas away. This past weekend Amy and I carted box after box back up into the attic, each filled with Christmas decorations that marked another Christmas in Augusta. This is always such a melancholy chore for me. Our house was festively marked with Christmas present and Christmas past. The ornaments we used included those we have acquired throughout our marriage including some cookie-dough ornaments we made as newlyweds. We had about a half-dozen ornaments from my grandmother’s tree that she used when my father was a baby. And each year we receive several special ornaments that are added and find their place among our collection of ornaments. Once the ornaments were placed back in their box, the tree was the last to go. There is such sadness in stripping a tree of its ornaments and lights. Standing by itself, its branches dropped and dry, the...
by Greg | Dec 16, 2008 | Blog Posts
I wrote the following article a couple of years ago, but I thought it was worth repeating. Every year I am amazed at the lengths people go to in decorating their homes for the holidays. I say, “go for it!” I use to poke fun at some of the gaudy decorations I would see in people’s yards. Over time, however, I have come to better appreciate the efforts people make so that their houses are festive. When I jog through the neighborhoods I know the houses that will use nothing but blue lights, and the ones that will decorate with blinking lights. I can take you right to the home that has an electric candle in every widow – the bulbs are bright red. The last few years I have seen more and more yards festooned with those giant inflatable characters. With every home that hangs quaint evergreen wreaths there are two more homes that have a giant inflatable bear in a toy soldier suit. By comparison, our yard is rather drab. We have some garland hanging over the banisters with magnolia leaves as accents. Right in the center hangs a Moravian star. That’s it. The star doesn’t sing We Wish You a Merry Christmas and the lights on the garland to not change from purple to blue and then to red. When my children were younger they begged for gaudiness. They wanted lights, and lots of them. One year we added a few white lights to the shrubbery but that was not good enough. They want multi-colored, disco-infused, dancing lights. “Too gaudy” I say. But I think I...
by Greg | Dec 9, 2008 | Blog Posts
A few weeks ago our associate pastor Dr. Rodger Murchison gave a delightful children’s message centered on the joy of giving. In it he recollected when he was eleven years old and made this discovery in planning, preparing and giving his mother a Christmas gift. As I listened to him I tried to think back when I “learned” this lesson. To be candid, I am not sure if I have although I do remember the many times I took sincere pleasure in giving someone a gift. About every few years I can come up with a good surprise and give Amy something for Christmas or her birthday that she does not expect. Sometimes I will surprise her with a trip to some place we talked about wanting to see. A couple of times I actually took the bold step and selected jewelry to give. One year I collected several reels of her family’s 8mm home videos taken when she was a little girl and had them converted to DVD (I forgot to pay for a sound track for the background so it is a “silent film”). The joy of giving a gift happens for me, I repeat, only every few years. It is not that I do not like giving, but let’s face it, we are at a place and time in our life when we have what we need and creativity invariably has its limits. Gift giving for people we love often ends with frustration and desperation. Crocheted covers for the toilet are not as appreciated as they once were (trust me, I know). Is it really better...
by Greg | Nov 25, 2008 | Blog Posts
I have added a few more books to my reading list for 2008. Like I have said before, not every book was a good book, but every book gives me an opportunity to dialogue. If you would like to dialogue further about any of these books mentioned here or those I have listed elsewhere on the blog, by all means write me. Fiction The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho and Alan R. Clarke. The story is a simple fable, a bit inspiring, and twenty years later still influential to the vast numbers who have read it. It is a journey, and what I am about to say will sound cliché, towards spiritual enlightenment. The Shack, by William P. Young. This is not a book I would ordinarily read but due to its popularity among many church members and that many fundamentalists have marked it as heresy, I had to read it. My thoughts are mixed. First, the author does a reasonable job in creating a “fantasy” envisioning the Trinity. Because of that, a reader is given the opportunity to dialogue about such important theological ideas like Trinity, incarnation, theodicy (the problem of evil) and such. While there are plenty of gaps in his theology, I did not find them heretical. It was simply incomplete. Christians with an ultra-conservative bent may have a difficult time with how he portrays the trinity (using masculine and feminine images) but the book itself rightly denotes that God transcends gender. I thought the book was poorly written, and therefore made for laborious reading. I did not care much for the story line or how he...
by Greg | Nov 20, 2008 | Blog Posts
Charles Dickens penned this opening line in his book A Tale of Two Cities almost 150 years ago. Could these be such times today? Our financial structures have been shaken to the core and whether you are a custodian cleaning bathrooms or an executive pondering spreadsheets, the trust in markets and commerce has all but completely eroded. It is not just finances that have us so worried. Wars outside our borders and violence within have us anxious. It is difficult to read the papers these days because there is so little to give us courage, or hope, or purpose. In spite of finally putting the election behind us, the letters to the editor, the comments, jokes and in some cases acts of racial violence remind us how divided we seem to be as a nation. To be a person of color is no longer about ethnicity, but about blue states and red states. It all seems so discouraging. Yet I am encouraged. This is our time – we who call on Jesus as Savior and Lord. This is our time if we remember whose image we bear. I was pondering this notion last night as I was teaching the weekly Wednesday night Bible study. I was addressing the familiar story of Jesus who was cornered by religious authorities and asked whether or not it was lawful to pay taxes. Most of us know the story well. Jesus asks for a denarius (the coin used to pay the poll tax in question), which he was promptly handed, and asked: whose image is on it? (Luke 20:20-26) What is interesting about...
by Greg | Nov 18, 2008 | Blog Posts
There is so much in life that is not fully appreciated until it is a memory. Relationships come quickly to mind. When Amy and I were newlyweds we lived on a very meager income, rented a garage apartment that smelled of mothballs, and did not have a television set for the first six months of marriage. It seems so long ago and as I now recall that first year of our life together my heart is warmed with gratitude that Amy and I said “I do.” A few years later children forevermore changed our lives as they do for all parents. I remember those early days when our boys were infants and the midnight feedings and diapering and the long sleepless nights of colic. To be honest, it was just about impossible to notice and be grateful. Yet looking back I am grateful, even for those grueling days of early parenting. Through the years we would gripe about driving all over the state to visit relatives during the holidays and wonder if we should just stay home. Now many of those same relatives are dead and we wish we could just share a sandwich. We do not always see our gratitude until it is a reflection of the past. And then we are often rushing right past gratitude on the way to something else. Perhaps it is too obvious to point out our indignation that Christmas decorations have been out since early fall. Already there is a radio station playing Christmas music 24 hours. I am not Scrooge, but I have a deep problem with our rush to Christmas...
by Greg | Nov 6, 2008 | Blog Posts
I try to keep a log of books I have read each year. Throughout the year I make periodic updates to this blog as I finish a book. Please visit the above tab titled “Reading Lists” that covers books I have read since 2005. Not every book was a good book and not every book I would recommend. Still, I find it helpful when people share with me what they are reading and why. I hope you will too. If you have read something of late that you would recommend, I would appreciate hearing from you. Just post a comment here and share the book with me and other visitors. Happy reading,...
by Greg | Oct 30, 2008 | Blog Posts
You could say this is “Part 2” from last week’s article. We have returned from our camping trip and, as always, there are more tales to tell along the hiking trail. This time I had company – my family. It was Amy’s idea that she and the boys join me and I thought, “Wow, that’s neat. We will hike into the mountains together as a family just like they do in the movies.” I picked out a trail loop that was just under six miles and followed one of the creeks. It also had several beautiful views of the surrounding mountains. Around mile two things were not going so well. Amy failed to factor in that mountain trails are, well, hilly. She was getting tired, did not bring water, and by mile four was wondering did the trail ever go down hill. She looked at me as if I designed the mountains that way on purpose. At mile four I leaned over to Aaron and said that in a few minutes we would reach the top and then begin a rapid decent back to camp. I was planning to move ahead “double time” and fetch some water for Amy. At about the time I shared my plan a heard a bumbling commotion alongside the trail and a black blur rush by. I turned around to Amy and Clark and said “catch up with me, there is a bear.” About that time Clark was staring at the bear’s face and Amy just passed all three of us on the way back to camp. A little motivation goes a long way!...
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