The blog of Greg DeLoach
Roswell Georgia
The End of Your Life Book Club
In part as a personal discipline as well as a need to better organize my reflections on books I have read, I will be sharing periodic book reviews. Books connect us, frustrate us, compel us and sometimes disgust us. Thank goodness for books because they give us something to talk about and give us something to think about. Below is a book I just finished and now wish to share a little bit with you. If you have read it, please tell me what you think. The End of Your Life Book Club By Will Schwalbe A good book enriches the self. A good book enriches our friendships when we share them. I want to share with you a good book – The End of Your Life Book Club. Yes, it what you think, but do not let the title mislead you that this book is a sad, morbid tale. It is filled with hope, joy, and love between a son and his mother and we are given the opportunity to share with them in their journey. I first came across this book listed in the New York Times as a bestseller. That does not necessarily make a book a good book, yet it never fails to get my attention. Nevertheless I passed over this book many times in bookstores as well as its steady presence on “the list.” A church member – recently widowed and a critical reader whose opinion I respect – passed along a copy for me to read. Fearing I would be “tested” on its contents I set to work on reading the...
Rum Balls
Are you ready for Christmas? I have fond recollections from childhood of my grandmother readying for Christmas by weeks and weeks of baking, boiling and kneading her way to December 25th. The kitchen and spare bedroom of her simple house would be stacked high with Tupperware containers filled with high calorie treats. Each year we could expect lady fingers, date nut balls, divinity, and my favorite – peanut butter fudge. Just before Christmas day she would buy a few coconuts (we never could grow any in Putnam County) and grate them for a homemade coconut cake. One year my brothers and I decided to help grate the coconuts but failed to properly wash up before plunging into the task at hand. Instead of a pearly white color, the cake looked more like a mud hut on the side of the creek. Needless to say the cake never made it to the table. Another year my grandmother was inspired to try something new. She had read a recipe in a magazine for rum balls. Like any good southern lady of her era, my grandmother was a staunch tee-totaler, but she had heard you can cook the alcohol out. She dispatched my father to go in the dark of night, so no one would see, and purchase a bottle of rum to make rum balls. Like most grandmothers, she did not always work with measurements so she added rum to the mixture according to what she thought looked right. Take my word for it – minors had no business eating those rum balls! When we took the lid off of...
My Prayer for Ferguson – and the rest of us too
Peace. What an elusive word. In this season of giving thanks it can be difficult to be grateful when you are not experiencing peace. Peace. It is sometimes difficult to imagine it. Just look to Ferguson, MO. Not much peace there. Not with the Brown family who had to bury their child. I cannot imagine their grief. Not with Officer Williams and his family. I cannot imagine their fear. Not with the residents in the national spotlight. I cannot imagine their division. Peace. It can be hard to come by. Ask the child frightened by gunfire in Gaza. Look at the housewife weary with abuse. Consider the alcoholic just trying to hang on. Peace. When Jesus was born the angels sang about peace (Luke 2:9). When Jesus grew up he preached about peace, saying “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God,” (Matthew 5:9). When he was resurrected he appeared to the disciples and said, “Peace be with you,” (John 20:19). Peace. It is a lovely word and it is a lovely thought and deep within us all is the longing for peace; to be whole; to be complete. Just imagine that things could be different; that you and I do not have to go on living divided against others or divided against ourselves. Just imagine that wherever you are in the tension between peace and conflict God is present. The Great Story in scripture is the reminder that no matter how un-peaceful things may be in this world or in your life, it does not negate the...
Saying Thank You
Like clockwork I can look at those Maples just to the side of the church, the ones that are near the welcome center, and know that Thanksgiving is near. These trees just blaze, like flares signaling that the time of giving thanks is near. Are you good at giving thanks? I am not talking about saying thank you to the server who brings your food or the teller that cash’s your check – although it is important to say thank you. Saying thank you is simply a matter of good manners. Giving thanks, however, is something more. Giving thanks is a way of life that is lived gratefully. One person shared the following line with me: what if you woke up today and you only had those things you thanked God for yesterday? I rarely pause and say “Thank you God for good health.” I know many people who are in poor health and say regretfully they did not realize how precious good health was until they no longer have it. While I do thank God for my family, I doubt I share that gratitude often enough with God. Maybe I do not say thanks that often because over time I have come to expect these things in my life: a hot cup of coffee in the morning; energy to get out of bed; my family safe and sound; friends I can call on; a roof over my head and a pantry full of food; a loving church just waiting on me. I suspect that deep down I think that I deserve all of this and therefore...
Whatever Happened to Generation X?
As far as demographic monikers go, we frequently read and hear about Baby Boomers (those born 1945-1964) and Millennials (1985-1994). Baby Boomers were at one time the largest demographic, but Millennials are a close second. Advertisers, marketers and churches have spent the last several decades scrambling to reach these two sizeable generations. Somewhere along the way a generation was labeled, but soon forgotten – Generation X (those born 1965-84). You guessed it – this is my generation. We are not sizeable enough to warrant the attention of marketers, or anybody else for that matter. At one time my generation was labeled the “Slacker Generation” which is now considered ironic because Generation X statistically holds the highest education levels among other age groups. The Pew Research Center has described my generation as America’s neglected “middle child.” Oh well, in time all generations will be forgotten. I guess my generation has a head start. As a people of faith our motivation is not to “target” one generation above another. We are here, to put it simply, to love one another. It is a faith issue. It is a justice issue. It is religion at its most basic. As I write this article, mid-term elections have just finished and now we will see if the victors will live into the promises. Here is my hope for my generation as well as all generations: That every life be valued. This includes the citizen who holds membership with the Daughters of the American Revolution as well as the immigrant trying to start over; the Native American living in poverty on...
When the Earth Falls Away
It happens, doesn’t it? You walk on this earth long enough and there will be times when what you have stood upon, depended upon, slips out from under your feet. I got the call the other day from my stepmother asking me to come home. Daddy was cutting the pastures along the creek-bottoms when the bank of the creek gave way and down tumbled my dad, tractor and all. Thankfully my father is okay – bruised and shook up, but otherwise okay. It was an accident that could not be prevented and it happened as suddenly and surprisingly as the earth simply disappearing. There are times in every life when the earth just falls away beneath our feet. It can come as an accident out of nowhere that disrupts or our normalcy. Sometimes a nagging anxiety of failure shakes our sense of grounding. The earth falls away whenever we experience a disappointment or a breach of trust. How have you experienced the ground from which you stand give way? A demotion? A bad grade? An illness? A death? What gets you back on solid ground? For my dad it was my brother and nephew who were “first responders.” Lifting him out of the cab from the muddy waters of the creek onto the solid ground of the pastures restored his sure – but shaken – footing. We all need someone who will reach into the darkness, into the calamity, into our fears to give us a steady hand of assurance and stability. The joy of belonging in friendship and family is the peace of knowing...
Our Place in This World
There is one thing we all share in this world – for better or for worse, we come from a family. Families shape us and mold us and are the singular most influential force in our life. Some of the most enduring images of God are birthed out of our experiences with our mothers and fathers. Some families take interest in learning about their family histories. Over the years I have asked questions, done some research, and listened to the stories as shared by my “elders.” The stories I like best are the sensational and scintillating ones that have passed through the generations with a bit of embellishment added in the passage of time. My great-great grandfather, for example, was arrested on Christmas Eve for swindling someone out of fifty cents. Today it is a humorous story. At the time I feel certain it was not so funny. He was the same guy that shot the locks off a church door just to get out of a revival meeting – or at least so I am told! Not so long ago I was hiking up in the Great Smoky Mountains and took a side trail that was not on the map. It had to lead somewhere, or so I thought, and so I hoofed up it, zig-zagging through the woods, going up, down, and through ravines, bends along the path, until I finally round a corner to a small level place of ground. It was dotted with headstones, primarily unmarked, of an old family cemetery. These were folks “left behind” as mountaineers left the land when it...
Blood Moon
Not only is this the month of the Blood Moon, we have also witnessed a lunar eclipse. The moon in all of its full glory was glowing an eerie shade of red affected by the earth’s shadow. I read that the best place to view the eclipse was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I believe our side of the hemisphere proved to be a lovely spot too. I noticed it while I was out jogging, which is a great time to watch the stars when I should be watching where I am going. While we admire the Blood Moon and this rare eclipse, the ancients often viewed such celestial events with a foreboding sense of dread and fear. Not knowing what they were seeing, it was assumed that it was a portent of things to come. Now we know better and even can predict the next one (in April, 2015). A few hundred years ago it was thought that the earth was the center of the universe. Now we know that not only is the earth not the center of the universe, but it is not even the center of the solar system of this galaxy. Furthermore, our galaxy, according to some astronomers, is just one of hundreds of billions of galaxies. Our solar system is more like a suburb among the other galaxies, known and unknown. The very thought alone draws me into a sense of Biblical awe and reverence. Long before telescopes the Psalmist thought as much. In Psalm 8 David wrote (and no doubt sung) “When I look at your heavens, the work of...
Faded Pictures and Faded Memories
Amy and I are toying with the idea camping next year in Yellowstone National Park. We have camped in Yellowstone one other time. We were newlyweds about to move from a garage apartment in Rome, GA to seminary housing in Louisville, KY. As we were boxing up our few belongings we determined we would have one great adventure before seminary, churches and children make the impracticality of such an adventure immutable. That was twenty-five years ago. Here are a few things I remember: we drove for three days in a small car with nothing but a road atlas. Today that sounds simply foolish since we are pampered by GPS, smart phones and the internet guiding our every move. I remember that Yellowstone was cold; freezing actually. We prepared to camp as if we were setting up a tent in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina in June. June in Wyoming is something altogether different. Each morning we awoke with the inside of our pup-tent glazed in ice, formed from our breathing during the night. I remember that mountains were bigger than anything I had ever seen in my life, and yes, those mountains were covered in snow. I remember waiting a long, long time to watch Old Faithful erupt (note: Old Faithful is not as faithful as it used to be). I remember taking a short hike to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and was dumbfounded at its size. I also remember seeing the remains of the great wildfire from the previous year (that was in 1988) and felt strangely sad by this act of nature....
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