The blog of Greg DeLoach
Roswell Georgia
A Lamp Unto My Desk
At the tender age of 22 I had served the good folks of Unity Baptist for nearly two years. During that time I grew a beard, got engaged, married, finished college, and prepared to move to Louisville, KY to attend seminary. This church loved me through and through, even though I was not much better behind the pulpit than when I started and had lots to learn about being a pastor. Still, they blessed me and bless me still. My final Sunday with them came on a warm May morning. There was a covered dish luncheon following the service, so the pressure was on to keep my sermon brief. At the luncheon Amy and I were showered with affection, cards, well-wishes, and one very special gift from the church – a brass desk lamp. It was given to me with the hope that it would help me through my studies in seminary, as well as the many years ahead as a pastor. I have lugged that lamp with me – all the way to Kentucky and back – for the last quarter of a century. As a student it was perched on my desk in the corner of our tiny apartment, illuminating my studies even the Hebrew was still dark and mysterious. It has traveled with me to some great pastorates in Georgia including Mansfield, Chickamauga, Marietta and for the last ten years Augusta. On cold days I place my hands over the brass shade to enjoy a little warmth. When days are short and mornings and evening are dark, it casts a beautiful glow from my...
In-Between Addresses
We are living in-between addresses. I know that sounds odd, but I can find no better way to describe our living situation. Our house is now sold and belongs to another, and a new home waits in another city, so right now for these weeks stretching into the New Year, we are living in-between addresses. Among other things this means most of our worldly goods are packed up and in storage, including eight boxes of Christmas decorations that we have accumulated over the years. Could this be a year of no Christmas? Of course not. Thanks to online searching, Amy found a recipe for cookie dough ornaments: cinnamon, applesauce, and glue. They smell wonderful, but take my word for it, you do not want to eat one! The irony is that twenty-seven years ago we were doing the same thing, but with a different recipe, for our first Christmas – making cookie dough ornaments for our first Christmas together. You make do, with what you have. This year, along with some ribbon and craft acrylics, we decorated our freshly baked ornaments, strung a couple of strands of lights on a modest tree bought at a grocery store and at a total cost of about $40 Christmas has come to our “in-between address.” I suppose we all are living in-between addresses. We move from a past that can never be recovered and into a future that is anything but certain. All we have is the in-between times, the meantime, the beautiful and mysterious now. Advent is that cosmic pause in a universe moving rapidly from one space to...
For Everything There is a Season
The afternoon was mild and warmed with welcome fall sunshine. Ten consecutive days of rain had created a muddy mess all around the barn, but none of us gathered there minded the mud so much. I was standing with my two brothers and father on a concrete slab layered in mud and manure, gently pushing Holsteins, Brown Swisses and Jerseys toward the barn for a final milking. After 103 years – over 75,000 consecutive milkings – the DeLoach & Sons Dairy was about to milk its last cow. Even though at the age of 18 I could not leave the farm fast enough, I was not going to miss it. Amy, Clark, a couple of nephews, my sister, and the wives of my daddy and brothers were not going to miss it either. A switch was thrown and the familiar hum of the compressor that runs the milking machines came to life. It was time to milk the last herd of dairy cows. Outside four cattle trailers waited to load the cows and take them to the auction barn once the milking was complete. A local farmer who just a few years ago sold his herd came by to visit and commiserate. All of us laughed a bit, reminisced, and worked with cows placing the milking machines on their udders, and listening to the cows snort and blow oblivious to their next move. A few brief hours later, as the sun began to cast its setting glow along the pastures out back, the last of the cows came through. Daddy milked her and just like that it was...
Seeing and Saying Thanks
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 for the first six months of marriage. It seems so long ago and as I now recall that first year my heart is warmed with gratitude that Amy and I said “I do.” A few years later children forevermore changed our lives. I remember those early days when our boys were infants and the midnight feedings and diapering as well as 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 that Christmas decorations have been out since early fall. I am not Scrooge, but I have a deep problem with our rush to Christmas because in doing so we trample Thanksgiving. To be grateful is to both see and say our thanks. Alan Culpepper writes...
What Does God Look Like?
Every child wants to know, and many have the courage to ask, “What does God look like?” The adult in all of us wants to quickly answer in a theologically correct way saying, “God cannot be pictured. An image is idolatrous because no one image can ever be complete.” Still, the child in all of us wants to know, “what does God look like?” When I was in high school my art teacher shocked my juvenile prejudices when he showed me a picture of a mural he painted for his church. The scene included a depiction of Jesus. His Jesus had ebony black skin and wiry afro. This was no Jesus like I had ever seen. Yet it was very much Jesus to my art teacher and his church. Some see God as a triumphant king or a valiant warrior. Others see God as an ethereal mystery, elusive and distant. There are those that see God as a manifestation of Western values while others picture God only in the Southern Hemisphere. What does God look like to you? Look in the mirror. In Genesis are the words: “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” God is etched in our faces – young and old, shaded in a variety of pigments, reflected in our wholeness and brokenness. The idea of being created in the image of God is captured in the poetically beautiful phrase Imago Dei. What is idolatrous is when we attempt to contain God in a singular or exclusive image....
Broken Things…
Several weeks ago I was making my routine Sunday morning rounds during the Sunday School hour. It is one of my favorite parts of the day as I stick my head in classes, say “good morning,” grip and grin and maybe snag a pastry (any pastry will do) on the way out. Please do not worry about the last part, the part about the pastries, because I limit myself to only three or four; maybe five if it is homemade. Anyway, on this day I was hustling out of the preschool building in kind of a hurry because, as we all know, doughnuts are hard to find in a preschool. It somewhere between the lobby and the door when my beloved coffee cup – the one made by a gifted local potter – slipped from my hand and broke in three distinct pieces. Ugh. I carried the remains back to my office, searched for some glue, but in vain gave up and left the cup on an unsuspecting assistant’s desk (whom I thought might have glue). Two days later my cup was back on my desk, mended and restored. It was almost as good as new, except for the mended cracks. Some broken things can be mended. Some not. Last year we learned of the death of comedian and actor Robin Williams. He was a broken man who just could not get mended. I am still sad for the loss of this life. Every day we are moving around and alongside broken things and broken people. Some things you see: a wheelchair, a cane, a cast, a band-aide...
Old Notebooks
Since 1985 I have kept notebooks and journals to record personal thoughts, make notes, list needs to be remembered in prayer, and offer reflections on everything from the weather to a new idea picked up in a book. For the better part of a decade I have also kept a “garden journal” where I jot observation of the goings and comings of my back yard. There I note how things are growing (or not), what is blooming and when, and what mammals, birds or reptiles are on the move. At the church office I keep a journal that was given to me when I left for seminary. It is record book of baptisms, marriages and funerals (thanks Dede Maddox for keeping that one up to date!). For no particular reason, I will occasionally take one of those old notebooks from the shelf and read snatches from my past. Some inclusions are pithy and simplistic and quite frankly embarrassing to read. I am thinking to myself, “I cannot believe I wrote that…thought that…how naïve!” Yet it is part of my past. Some entries list the names of great people whom I heard preach, teach or lecture; many of which have returned to the earth from which they were created. My personal journals include thoughts and struggles as well as joys and hopes. My old notebooks and journals are simple reminders of where I have been – good and bad, memorable and forgettable. In the end they are just pieces of paper that will one day come to nothing. No doubt you are familiar with the saying, “Life is...
A Spare and a Prayer
Last week I was in North Georgia plowing through a forest service road looking for a spot to pitch a tent and count some stars. To the uninformed and uninitiated, a forest service road is off the beaten path of the comparatively tame asphalt byways. This particular road carves through a national forest used by campers, hikers and I assume national forest workers (although I have never seen the latter). The road was, well, challenging – packed dirt, loose rocks, with divots, holes, and the occasional carcass of something that did not make it across the road. A few miles into the ride, just around the bend my tire pressure light lit up on the dash panel indicating I was losing pressure fast. This was not a good place to have a flat tire – miles away from anyone and well out of cell phone coverage. Of course is there ever a good place to have a flat? Well into jacking up the jeep, and fumbling with the spare, a mountain biker chugged by and offered to help. “I am fine,” I said, wondering just what help a dude on his bicycle could actually provide. Soon a truck ambled by and its driver also offered to lend a hand. “No thank you,” I answered, now confessing gratitude that on this lonely road there were folks willing and able to help if needed. I was grateful too to have both a spare and a prayer. A spare and a prayer; these are the tools to help get the job done and inspiration to see it through. What...
Time is But the Stream
“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.”― Henry David Thoreau, Walden On a morning that radiated summer heat, several of us gently gathered into the sanctuary to sit awhile with our thoughts, remembering and giving thanks for Dr. Wilson Hall. For some he was a colleague and friend, who could be found coaxing a fire at a campsite, or paddling his canoe along a river, or mulling over an article just published. For others, including me, he was a professor and mentor. His lectures were laced with snatches of German, quotes from Thoreau, and musings on God. Gentle, but solid, he changed the lives of many, including my own, by reminding us that life was too beautiful to live carelessly; too brief to live without passion; too precious to live without hope. Looking around that morning there were fellow classmates now thirty years older and thirty years grayer, as well as former professors long retired from their lecterns. It was a tender time with the air filled with eulogies (good words) spoken and unspoken. It was a blessed moment in time where tears were mixed with gratitude. Just a few days later I was back in Northwest Georgia visiting dear friends from my first pastorate – Unity Baptist Church. Quite a few years ago they invested in me when I was toddling 21 year old, head-strong and full of answers no one was asking. Still these members believed in...
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