Scott Gill's Blog

Past Tense (Musings about my Dad)

When I talk of my Dad, I’ve caught myself using the past tense. “My Dad was quite the fisherman,” or “He could build anything,” I say, as if he were no longer with us. I don’t mean to, it just happens, for he’s a mere shell of the man I knew. That’s the cruel irony of Alzheimer’s, it’s a disease that erodes the memory of both the healthy and afflicted, so as his thoughts fade, we fight like hell to remember him.

A perusal through old newspaper clippings and even a cover shot on Memphis Magazine is enough evidence of his power as Legislator and city leader. But I saw something more than that, something deeper. I didn’t notice it then on all those election year nights when I piled in with friends and family cruising the neighborhoods, going door to door, but he loved people, loved his community. It was his home all his life and he sweated and struggled to represent her well. Rarely we ate uninterrupted (at a restaurant) as someone approached to shake his hand or ask for help, and although he sometimes longed for solitude, I’d hear stories later of his support when all others had turned their back.

I hear other stories as well. Stories from kids of absent Dads who chase success and or have decided the unthinkable and just left. I feel bad when they beg for tales of my childhood adventures because they most often involve Dad. Fishing on the Mississippi, duck hunting in Reelfoot Lake, even chugging along the Frayser streets on a bush-hogging tractor to our own field of dreams (he had found an abandoned baseball diamond and determined to reclaim it for our little league team), we did it all. I can’t think of a childhood adventure that didn’t involve him.

And he could do anything.

He’d reminisce of his own father while wiring our boat or building our lake house deck (or during one of the countless projects I helped him on), and how he paled in comparison. He’d weave stories of this almost mythical man. “He was a much better carpenter than me, heck, he could do anything, son,” he’d say, “Man, I loved that guy.” But Granddaddy Gill died when I was four and left me with only two images: an old black and white photograph where he and Dad had killed deer and a fuzzy memory of him in a doorway breathing from an oxygen tank. The only connection I‘ve had to this “greater man” is through one who was pretty amazing in his own right.

Which gives me hope.

See, one of the saddest things in my life is my kids never knew my Dad the way I did. They see “Pop” sitting on a couch, quiet, smiling some, but rarely speaking. It’s difficult to imagine his trembling hands gripping hammers and fishing rods, building houses and landing King Mackerel. His voice quivers now, a wisp of what once rang behind a lectern in the State House of Representatives. The only things I have to share of him are my stories and, flawed as it may be, me.

I guess I realized all this the other day. We fished that morning and I was able to weasel out a respectable catfish despite an otherwise slow day (July and August are not the best fishing months in Texas, especially during drought). That afternoon, I cut the final piece of sheetrock for Ireland’s room (I had just finished a week of demolition and rebuilding) to begin the long process of tape and bedding. I asked Aidan to do something that he found a challenge. I told him to keep at it, that I had been doing it by myself for a while. “Yeah, but Dad, you’re superman,” he said, and it hit me, I had become my Dad in so many ways.

His body wastes away now and I know it is only a matter of time. I hope; however, that one day many years from now, when we all get to the other side, that he’ll be proud, proud of the man and husband and father I’ve become. All I know to tell him is, “I tried to be like you.”

Parenting Sports Burnout

My junior year in high school I nearly quit baseball. Those that knew me then would say, impossible. The diamond was my life, fielding extra grounders at PE, batting in a nearby cage all week (A family friend was the local Jr. college coach and he gave me a gym key). With Ted Williams’ The Science of Hitting as my bible, I nightly studied my swing, watching the angle of my bat, my hands, envisioning the strike zone.

And I burned out.

The national pastime became my daily grind and fun was no longer welcome. I had a goal, an obsession, and I made myself miserable in the pursuit. I did this in a day when sports still had seasons, when the temperature changes and leaf color swept your mind to court, diamond, or field.

But that day nears extinction. For instance, baseball’s played all year with a fall, spring, and summer season. Football, too, has a spring season to go with its summer two-a-days that lead up to the fall. Basketball, which once entertained us when it was too cold has now become the sport we play when it’s too hot. I haven’t even touched soccer, volleyball, or lacrosse, each boasting multiple seasons.
And I wonder how kids keep up.

Different from me, where I finished football and went to basketball, then baseball, kids today play multiple sports all at the same time. It is not unusual to practice spring football during an athletic period, leave to go to baseball, or play a game late that evening on an AAU basketball team.

If you’re not exhausted yet, try multiple teams in the same sport during the same season. When I coached 7th grade football, players left practice sweaty, exhausted (darn Texas heat), only to strap on their own equipment and head back up to the field for their “Select Team” practice. In case you missed it; that was two football practices back to back in the Texas sun. Outside a short designated pre-season time, that activity is illegal for high school teams. But middle school parents sanction it by having “Junior” on a school team and a select team, and they often do these quasi “two-a-days” all season.

I’m not trying to be critical, but I can’t see where that is healthy. Where does the kid have time and energy for schoolwork? When does the family gather for dinner? Is there any time to just enjoy each other, to go fishing, hunting, camping, or a movie? Are we out of control, making youth sports professional?

Parental pressure is enormous. I’ve been there, I know. People brag about their kid going to this certain camp or playing on that travel team and how colleges watch those teams and you don’t want your kid left out, left behind. So you bite, spending outrageous money paying a coach, hoping he’s truthful about your kid’s future. Before you know it, you’ve crammed the family schedule with so much activity that there’s no time for family. But what those teams and coaches have not explained is the infinitesimal chance that any kid plays college sports (much less receives scholarship money), especially in baseball, football, and basketball (I think I read that 94% of high school baseball players will not play beyond high school). I’ve been there, and I’m afraid it’s a gamble not worth the payoff.

What I fear is in my pursuit of my kid’s greatness they’ll hate the game they once loved, or measure my love based on their performance. I fear our mind-numbing journey from practice to practice and game to game will only get in the way of our relationships, that we will only connect when they are “out there” and I’m on the sidelines cheering.

But it’s a hard choice and, barring a few hiccups, we’ve stuck to our guns. We limit our kids to one sport a season and we take the summers off (I know, we are radicals). It frustrates coaches and earns strange looks from parents, but it’s worked for us, kept us close. We still camp and fish together, have family movie nights, and our boys work, either around the house or at a job. It’s not perfect and sometimes we’re still spread way too thin, but we’re together, and in this topsy-turvey culture, that’s become a rarity.

Are you a "Mosey" or a "Plugger?"

“He’s a nice guy, “ the disgruntled church member told the elders (with me right there), “He’s just a ‘mosey’ that’s all. You know, just kinda moseys on through life.”

It was one of those meetings I hated as a pastor. Normally, I sat alone with the disenchanted church member who listed my offenses and their reasons for leaving my church. I’d apologize, try to console, and they’d go anyway. This meeting; however, was different, I was there with two of my church elders as they listened to a barrage of gripes as if I wasn’t in the room. Up till then I’d been called all sorts of things, but “mosey” was a first.

She was upset because I wasn’t one of those church planting pastors that hosted a community event every night, nor blanketed the neighborhoods every weekend. Unlike so many I’ve known, I didn’t work 90 to 100 hours a week.

But it wasn’t because I was a “mosey,” just ramblin’ through my days, ambitionless, happy go lucky, taking life as it came to me. It was because I was a husband and a father and no matter what the calling, I wasn’t willing to sacrifice that.

I’m not a “mosey,” I’m an “idealistic plugger.”

What she mistook for a lack of ambition was the high ideal I’d placed on family commitment. After 15 years in the pastorate, I saw family after family disintegrate from the man’s absence, off on his quest for greatness. Many of those families, sadly, belonged to fellows who gave their life to the church, which ironically, boasted commitment to the family. No matter the success, I was not going sacrifice my wife and kids.

I’m anything but ambitionless, it just takes me longer than most; I have to be a “plugger.”

A “plugger” hammers away slowly and steadily at a goal, almost unnoticeable to outside eyes. Andy Dufresne, the lead character in The Shawshank Redemption, plugged away for years, digging a hole with a tiny rock hammer in his prison wall, a hole hidden by his girlie posters. He worked a little at a time and spread the crumbling pieces in the prison yard though holes in his pockets. Until, finally, after 15 years, he escaped.

An academic dean at Dallas Seminary glared at me as I told him my plans for graduation. After outlining my goals of working, being a good father and squeezing the enormous four year degree into eight years, he told me I’d probably never make it. Said that most people give up, that I should consider asking my wife to leave her babies and go to work so I could finish in four years or less. Or, I could just accept that it wasn’t my time to attend.

That wasn’t my option.

He had no idea that I lived and died by the Chinese proverb, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” that I’d been taught by the most determined man in the world (my dad) to never quit. So I plugged away and kept at it and after eight years, graduated with family in tow.

Since then, I’ve changed careers and I’ve written my first novel, each activity being its own slow and arduous journey. I know some wondered what took me so long and maybe others mistook me for a mosey. But I can assure you, that isn’t the case. I wake up each morning at 5am to write another book, or I study to be a better teacher and coach. It takes me awhile, that is for sure, but I’m constantly moving forward, one step at a time, and hopefully always with family beside me, laughing and loving though every arduous mile.

Please, Paint the Possums!

I’ve crafted lattes at Starbuck’s, called for credit histories, clerked at juvenile court, landscaped, loaded trucks, and pastored a church, but one of the craziest jobs I worked was when I painted streets and made street signs for Shelby County, Tennessee.
I’d arrive at the sign shop after college classes, greeted by a broom-pushing inmate. We picked up guys from the local prison to do the grunt work. They’d sweep floors, handle 55 gallon paint barrels, set out cones, you name it. All were minor security, behind bars for multiple DWI’s or drug charges. They were happy to get out of their cells and most worked incredibly hard. I’d fill the sign order for the day, stop signs somebody ignored (and crushed), or a favorite stolen street name. The process was easy: take the metal blank (sheet metal cut out for the particular sign), place the specific sign design on top (made of a reflective rubbery material), and bake it in an oven. In 10 minutes I could turn out five or six of your everyday traffic signs.
But the real fun came when they’d radio me out to paint.
Sometimes I’d get to paint the white sideline that edges the streets (the yellow or dotted center line was more difficult and needed a professional). The driver would cruise about five miles per hour while you steered a wheel that lined up the paint gun. Then you’d hit the button to spray the glass beaded paint, and if you weren’t careful, your mistake would be seen by the countless number of drivers that cruised up and down the road daily.
Thousands must have giggled at Grady’s blunder.
After receiving a call on the radio, I jumped in an escort truck and sped out to the particular country roads that had been assigned. I knew I was close when I saw the fresh white and yellow stripes. Grady was the new guy and they stuck him on the white line right off the bat. For the most part he’d done okay, there were a few wriggles that would give a driver pause (might wonder at his sobriety) but that was normal for a first timer. Then I saw something crazy. The line suddenly jutted out into the lane like a chalk outline of a murder. It encircled a mound of fur, which as I neared, turned out to be a dead possum, hit on the side of the road sometime in the night. Apparently, Grady was so focused while painting the line that when he came up on the possum, he didn’t know what to do so he yanked the gun and painted around it. I pulled up to the parked paint truck as the boss corrected him, “Grady, next time you come up on a possum, switch off or paint him, don’t paint around him!”
Funny, sometimes in whatever we do, we become so focused on the details that we miss the bigger picture. Grady didn’t consider that it would be easier to just paint the possum, that we could just fill in the gap of the corpse. Now we’d have to cover the crime scene and redo the line. It’s so easy to miss the proverbial forest because of all those darn trees! I’ve known ministers (me included) so entangled in theological questions almost as silly as the number of angels that fit on a pin (3 as a matter of fact), that they forget a world fraught with staving people. As an educator, it’s easy to explode on “Johnny” for flicking a bottle top, distracting from my cool power-point, and forget he hungers for attention since dad’s death in a car accident. You name the job, it doesn’t matter, the point is, sometimes in minding the details, we miss most important things.
Sometimes it’s best that we just paint the possums.

For Fathers...Get Hooked!

I wobbled around in the jon-boat dodging lacy webs while Dad clamped on the trolling motor. For a little extra you could rent it with the boat. He shoved off and we hummed across the smooth water toward a cove of trees.

“Now, Son, you gotta be real quiet to not scare off the fish, and watch the cork, if it goes under, you got one.”

He showed me how to swing the long cane pole to get my line just where I needed it. I sat and and like the typical five year old, watched everything but my cork: a turtle sliding off a log, a spider, repairing the web we callously tore earlier.

“Son, would you hold this a minute?” and Dad handed me his pole. I set mine to the side and grabbed his, but it felt strange, there was tugging and pulling and then it doubled over.

“You got a fish! Pull it up!”

I yanked straight up and a Bream launched from the water, flying over the boat. As soon as he splashed down I yanked again and up he sailed back to the side he started. Instinctually, I stood to get control and the fish swung back and forth like a pendulum, slapping against the aluminum sides a couple of times before landing in the boat bottom.

That day that fish wasn’t the only one hooked.
Dad and I found our thing, fishing, and we’d deepen our relationship around it for nearly twenty years. Most relationships blossom around some kind of activity; Angie and I love to go get coffee and enjoy it on our deck, some people ride motorcycles, and others ski. But on that day, my relationship with Dad deepened around pole, hook, and worm.

One trip become two, and two became four, and eventually we stopped renting and bought our own boat. We’ve fished the Mississippi River, dozens of lakes in three different states, and even the depths of the Gulf of Mexico. There’s no telling how many fish we’ve caught, everything from bream (Dad’s favorite), to catfish, to shark, but what has meant most was the time, the talk.

On the water Dad and I discussed everything from politics to religion and what it takes to be a man, life lessons, passed on from father to son.

Yet, I feel, I’ve not done as good a job with my own kids.

Our boys were born when I attended seminary, when I dreamed of being a famous pastor, a gifted theologian. I worked full time as a youth minister and filled my other hours with study. I tried to not impact our family time, but we rarely did those things that I did with my Daddy. It wasn’t the fault of church or seminary, it was my ambition. To some, it was a good pursuit, the highest of callings, but sometimes I wonder if I sacrificed too much for religious notoriety.
I can’t explain the change, but it happened a couple of years ago. I received a tent for Christmas, and a ton of camping equipment. The boys and I would head off to some woods and feast on the outdoors, and every once in a while, we’d take our fishing poles. It was a periodic trip, a taste of the life I lived with my father.

And now we’re hooked.

So far we’ve gone fishing every week this summer, just like my childhood. The older two are even venturing out on their own nearly every night. We’re talking more, more than just “how’s your grades?” and “you did what?!” Little Ireland has even gotten in on the fun, sometimes catching twice as many as the rest of us. Fishing has become our thing and I’m holding on to every moment, loving every conversation, and I’ve learned most off all that it’s never too late to leave ambitions in the dust and find time with the kids. So, if you’re like me and realize that your relationship with your children can be summed up by drop-offs, pickups, and questions of their performance, may I suggest something? Grab a couple of cane poles, hooks, and some worms and find a pond somewhere. You never know what may happen, you could get hooked, I know I have.

It Started With A Game (How a regular guy landed the girl of his dreams)

I bragged the day I was scheduled to work with Angie McGinnis, called my best friend up and rubbed it right in his face. We worked concessions at a local ball field, which meant busy weekends as cowbell-ringing parents and uniformed tots packed the diamonds playing all day tournaments. Brad and I consistently worked together (which was great, he being my best friend and all), but this time I had a sudden, unexpected opportunity: not only was I scheduled to work with arguably the hottest girl in school, but we were scheduled to work on a weeknight when the fat, retired, professional wrestlers played softball. Less sat in the stands than played on the field and that meant a slow night and lots of opportunity to talk, if she would talk to me.
I dwelled in the friend zone, perpetually it seemed, with every girl I knew. It didn’t help that most of us attended our small private school since first grade, so I was “like a brother” to all the babes. Angie, however, was different. She entered our school in 7th grade and she was an upperclassman. Now, don’t misunderstand, I never dreamed I had a chance with her, but this was the one girl who hadn’t put me in the friend zone, probably because we weren’t friends. In fact, we were nothing.

Yet, we talked a lot, right off the bat (no pun intended). I learned that she’d been to my house numerous times with her grandmother. My Dad was a Chiropractor and his office was on the front of our place, so when Mammaw McGinnis needed an adjustment, Angie was often in tow, hearing about the Doc’s cute son who shot hoops in the backyard parking lot.

I believe Angie was the one who first suggested a game of iceball, the game that would change the direction of my life. The rules were simple: you take an empty pickle jar (the boss always had a ton) and put it near the floor drain, then you grab ice from the ice machine, smush it in a ball, and shoot freethrows (with the health code standards today, iceball is probably not as popular). First one to 20 wins. The great thing about iceball is when you play between customer rushes, there’s virtually no evidence, just a pickle jar and a few puddles of water so the boss has no idea.

Angie will tell you that she won that night, which is ridiculous, but something did happen in that game, something sparked. I didn’t know it at the time, for the friend zone makes you ignorant to such things, but there was something between us. We had flirted for sure, but more than anything, we laughed, and the laughs continued night after night as we were scheduled again and again (Angie, unbeknownst to me, had requested it).

The summer ended and we headed back to school. I assumed because she was older and so fine, that our little friendship would be kept under wraps, so I played it cool.

But Angie wasn’t into being cool.

She confronted me at my locker and asked me if I was going to continue to ignore her in front of my friends. Shocked is a mild way of putting how I felt, I mean, this was the girl that all the guys wanted and I was an underclassman and she wanted friendship. I mean, when the fish are biting, you don’t change bait, so I agreed to continue the relationship we’d developed despite the audience.

But she wanted more than friendship and I was clueless.

See, the friend zone causes emotional callousness, screws up your relationship radar. Signals from girls are already difficult to decipher, but for me back then, nearly impossible. So as Angie drew and colored a Mississippi State Bulldogs print for my birthday (she is a gifted artist and I wanted to play baseball for State) and as her best friend cajoled me into to asking her to the winter dance, I still didn’t get it.

Until the night I realized I loved her.

After a football game, she jumped in another guy’s truck and I realized that it was supposed to be me. My pursuit began and nearly four years later we married. We were young, on fire, and convinced we’d change the world. We’d risk it all and move 500 miles away from family, only to experience years of ministerial disappointment to such a level that both of us sat on the counselor’s couch. There were weeks where pancakes were all we could afford with no paychecks in sight. Yet, through it all, we’ve continued to laugh and flirt and have a blast just like we did playing iceball.

It has been 20 years since the day I married Angie and 23 since we met. She’s bore me four blessed children so our laughter has multiplied. And sometimes, when we go out to dinner or watch a favorite movie, the debate ensues on who won that first iceball game. She’s still deluded about her victory and the argument is bound to continue. Which doesn’t bother me one bit, because I’d take another 20 years of this kind of fun any day.

Happy Anniversary, My Bride.

What Makes a School Christian?

This past year, here in my town of Rockwall, a Christian school fired a teacher for being pregnant out of wedlock. The nation’s leading news sources have reported the story and I’ve heard the drama is not over as the teacher considers a lawsuit. Now, I don’t know all the details, but having grown up in a Christian school (and specifically Baptist), I’ve witnessed similar situations with fellow classmates.

“Jenny” (fictitious name) begins to withdraw and others whisper, wonder. She and “James” (fictitious name) argue in the hallways, often explosive in shouts and tears. As the weeks pass, she wears baggy clothes and sweatshirts and looks ill. Then one day, she’s called into the office and then, she’s gone, no longer a student. In my school, James was allowed to stay but it was forbidden to talk about Jenny. In the whirlwind of rumor, the only facts that emerged was Jenny’s pregnancy and James’ fatherhood and the school’s need to “protect” its student body from their bad Christian testimony.

A phrase which has always bothered me, because what constitutes a Christian testimony? What defines an institute as Christian? Is it following a particular moral code as defined by the Bible? We have Christian bookstores, auto shops, builders, plumbers, and even a Christian “yellow pages” so you can find whatever business you need that terms itself as marked by Christ. So, what is it that makes these institutions in line with the Nazarene?

Which brings about an even deeper question, what makes Christianity different than other religions and belief systems? This has been a debated topic for over 2000 years and one particular instance and answer stands out in my mind. The story goes that in the UK, about 60 years ago, religious thinkers debated this very idea. C.S. Lewis entered the room and when asked what made Christianity unique, he answered, “Grace.”

Grace… the action of giving something to the undeserving. The very thing that Jesus Christ provided on the cross, the very thing St. Paul declares saves human kind from Divine judgment.

Grace.

Lewis didn’t say morality or the Ten Commandments. He knew, just like Jesus taught, that all religions and beliefs have a moral code, and the one thing that would distinguish people as His followers would be grace, love, forgiveness.

These distinguishing characteristics disturb me when I hear of situations like the teacher firing or when Jenny was quietly dismissed.

See, when these difficult situations occur, the vast majority of Christian institutions respond with taking a strong moral stance, but that just means they’re moral, not necessarily Christian. Christian means there is not only a strict moral code, but the forgiveness and restoration to accompany it when people don’t measure up (which they never will). So, although, these Christian schools expect their students and teachers to live a morally pure life, it seems they’ve forgotten the one symbol on all their signage and t-shirts, the symbol of grace and forgiveness from God, the cross.

There is not an easy answer for the Christian school, that is for sure, because if they truly considered the implications of being Christian and offer some form of institutional grace and forgiveness, patrons would balk. Threats of donation cuts, parents withdrawing students, future enrollment decreases and more would be the fallout. It has never been popular to tell the Pharisees to put down their stones. So it’s easier to toe the line, fire the teacher, or remove the student.

But that not is the way of the cross.

I agree that the teacher should have known what she was getting into, and all those friends of mine, and kids I’ve known, knew better. The teacher should have confessed that what she did was Biblically wrong, and against the school code. She had to have known that a resulting pregnancy would have endangered her job. Nevertheless, if a school is going to call itself Christian, it is invoking a larger set of principles, principles that go way beyond a moral code. And in my opinion, if it is not going to consider a position of forgiveness and restoration, it needs to change its name. Call it a private school, a preparatory school, a school of principles, but lets not call it Christian and don crosses because that’s false advertisement.

The Lesson of the Poopie Chair

With camp set and the steaks sizzling on the Coleman stove, it was time to relax and survey our work. We’d spent the better part of an hour of unloading the truck, erecting the tent, and lighting the fire. But there was one more important thing left.
“Dad, when you gotta ‘go’ where do we ‘go’?”
I knew what Brennen meant, but I was surprised he just didn’t take the liberty and head behind a tree (that’s what they do at home).
“No, Dad, we mean ‘GO’” Aidan emphasized.
I got the message.
“Oh, the campground has a restroom just about hundred yards that way.”
They took off in the direction I pointed while I finished searing sirloin. In less than 5 minutes they returned, rummaging in the back of the pickup. They pulled out a broken camping chair, opened it, and took a knife to the canvas seat, cutting a hole in the middle.
“Dad, the restroom was nasty, so check it out … the poopie chair.”
And they tromped down the bluff just out of sight and constructed a sportsman’ paradise. The chair overlooked a deep valley and was equipped with a branch to hold a roll of toilet paper. A shovel leaned against a nearby tree to cover “it” and dig another hole. There was no worry of clogs and missing plungers, just the small issue of a wayward hiker or curious creature. A nighttime run could also pose an issue if you’d grown up on movies like Friday the 13th, but otherwise, their idea served its purpose and was probably a lot more sanitary than the campground Turkish bathhouse.
Fast forward a month later.
While enjoying a meal before one of our favorite Sunday night shows, a rumbling echoed through our walls; the pipes groaned and shook. Water trickled from the faucet and I tore through the closets and cabinets to locate the burst. Dreading a late night crawl under the house, I finally gave in and grabbed the flashlight. A water park had opened in our crawlspace as “the leak” sprayed like an open hydrant.
The plumber’s words were as follows:

Well, you got three things going on down there. You got copper, PVC, and this old galvanized pipe (probably the main line) they don’t even allow anymore. I’m gonna shoot air through the pipes (the water had been turned off), and if the burst is the copper or PVC, no problem, fixed in an hour. If it’s that old galvanized pipe, you’re screwed.

I was screwed.

Three days, $4500 dollars, a tag from the city, and what looked like a mole trail through my driveway, and we moved back in our house.

Only to have our water heater go out a few weeks after.
Now, a new conversation with a plumber:

The city has changed its codes, real strict. You can’t have a gas water heater inside. You gotta cap the gas and run a 220 for electric, have a special drain out the bottom of your house connecting to the sewer line. That is, unless you wanna build a garage.

And then I could see where that conversation would go because our neighborhood has a certain requirement for garages and sheds, where they’re built and what they are made of.

That poopie chair looked better at every moment.

Have you noticed that as our society grows quicker, easier, and more comfortable, it has actually become incredibly difficult? Everything has a code, a law, a permit, a password, an expert, a specialist, and an exorbitant fee. You can’t just build a deck in your back yard or shoot a BB guns anymore. The occasional firecracker on the driveway brings a threat police and nobody cleans and eats the fish they caught from the lake (catch-and-release for ecological balance).
I know, I know, as I sit here and write I’m enjoying a modern convenience that has actually made the process easier. When I write, I don’t have to type on a typewriter and make it perfect or pull the page and start over and I’m thankful for that. But am I the only one who thinks that in our pursuit for greater things, we’ve made living harder? With summer break upon us, kids around here don’t just go out and play anymore, they are signed up for 15 camps or meet with personal trainers. Two ball fields behind my house sit empty during the day because if you just went out there and took ground balls or hit or played ghost baseball (like we did growing up), you’d be a liability.
So, when I’ve had enough again, we’ll pack up the tent and another broken chair and head off to the woods where there’s no cell signal and little noise. We will sit by that that campfire and tell stories and laugh and enjoy the simpler things. And when that fire goes down, we’ll just grab another log from the bundle of wood that is certified to burn in that park because foreign wood spreads unwanted stuff. It only cost me 10 bucks.

Why Ndamukong Suh Should Read Hemingway (A lesson from The Old Man and the Sea)

While dozens watched, cheered, and coached, I cranked the shark close enough for the gaffer. With occasional nibbles all week and two hooked Bonita snapping my lines, I doubted victory. Empty and exhausted, the patting hands weighed on my shoulders, the congratulations, and cameras clicked. It was my moment, my most vivid childhood memory, and one that an unlikely nine year old could have done alone.

But not so for old Santiago.

He was alone, gripping a line that pulled steadily down and out to sea. The Old Man and the Sea is a tale of an unlikely hero, an old fisherman who is washed up, unlucky to the level of cursed. The kid that assists him is even forbidden by his parents for fear the curse will spread. After 84 days of “skunked”, Santiago rows his nearly empty skiff out and hooks the monster. With little water and scant equipment, the old man faces impossible odds against a giant marlin.

It is an epic hero story, one that has been told and retold in almost every culture of the world, but something is different about Santiago. He’s a humble hero; respects his opponent, even praising the beauty of the fish, apologizing for his inability to measure up. He is otherworldly. Simply, Santiago is noble, and sadly, most of our modern heroes are completely void of the quality.

Dwayne Wade barked and fumed at his coach on national TV last week after his own horrific performance against the Indiana Pacers. Earlier, during this year’s NFL season, defensive lineman, Ndamukong Suh, slammed a tackled ball carrier’s face to the ground and finished him off with a kick. Both of these men fill a role in our sports driven society of hero and model. They may not have asked for the position and may have warned kids against it, but they are regardless.

American kids love their sports stars and they mimic these men (I would bat like George Brett in the mirror daily). As a coach of middle schoolers, I hear boys laud the actions of these child-men, hear them brag about being tossed from games because of fighting with opposing players or even referees (and these are the “good” kids). Nobility is rare in sport, in competition, especially the brand imagined while reading Hemingway’s great tale, and when Santiago-esque nobility does surface, the press seems to downplay it as an act or ignore it altogether.

Yet, the epic story of the noble hero continues to be told which suggests that something in humanity longs for such ideals. The humble, unlikely fellow facing impossible odds and persevering, nearly losing his life in the process, and somehow overcoming, that is what we thirst and our throats are quite quenched by Hemingway’s hapless hero.

Struggles in Faith, Part 2

I think many envision seminary as a monastic-like existence; silent, peaceful grounds dotted with men in contemplative prayer, or hunched over solitary desks interpreting ancient texts—a place of study and deep faith and… doubt.

At Dallas Theological Seminary, I crammed 4 years of study into 8 (an over-achiever, I am). During the course of those years I examined the mysteries of the Holy Trinity, the nature of man, and the eternal existence. I poured over all of Scripture, learning Greek and Hebrew, peering into Holy Writ in the language of its writers. Some days I strutted on campus, full of faith, eager to reach a dying world while on others, I lurched in doubt unsure of anything I believed. How much of the future does God know and control? If God is good and all powerful then why is His world dominated by evil? Are we free or is everything pre-determined? How does suffering factor in God’s plan? Or the “big kahuna” for me: did God cause the Holocaust or sit back flippantly and let it happen? Or was He unable to do anything? Or, even tougher, why did He let it continue? The more I sought answers, the more I wondered.

My struggle intensified when Winfred died. Winfred was a gifted student from Africa. He came, against all odds, to DTS to study Scripture in hopes to return to his tribe and translate the Bible into their language. He knew it was God’s will for him to be at DTS and he worked toward that end for his people. He was the epitome of a man on fire, burning to give his life for the mission of Christ. One evening on a dark Dallas street, a drunk driver weaved along and hit Winfred, killing him just blocks away from the seminary, extinguishing the bright flame.

When tragedies strike people like Winfred, we grope for answers, often finding silence. I remember debating a fellow pastor who constantly claimed that he knew God’s will for his life. I would cite Winfred as an example of our actual lack of knowledge. Winfred was just as godly and just as confident and Winfred was dead. I questioned everything. Is God’s will knowable? Does He still speak to us as so many of my mentors had claimed? Can His will be thwarted? Had Winfred been mistaken, or, had God led him to DTS to allow his life to be taken? For all my $50.00 questions, I received $5.00 answers. The only voice that seemed reasonable was one that had a British tone and a sharp wit. That voice belonged to the old Oxford professor, writer, and Christian apologist (defender), C.S. Lewis.

I heard the other day that comedian, Joy Behar, chided Sarah Palin about C.S. Lewis being her favorite writer, making light that the former Alaskan governor’s choice of literature was a children’s writer. Since the renewed popularity of The Chronicles of Narnia, I’m sure many people have made the same mistake in thinking that Lewis was this guy who did nothing but pen kid adventures. But that was only one a small facet to the man that everyone knew as “Jack.”

Lewis was an expert in Medieval Literature, teaching the subject in both Oxford and Cambridge. During World War 2, he was a regular voice on the BBC answering some of the toughest questions on God, Jesus Christ, and the plausibility of Christianity. The Chronicles actually made up a small portion of his writing, the other being books on faith, pain, and the defense of Christianity.

And although he had been dead since 1963, the former atheist turned Christian thinker became a major influence in saving my faith from failure—a kind of patron saint I’ve been able to lean on when the way of Christ was cloudy.

Lewis had a way of bringing things down to what was most important. He had no time for petty theological arguments or church debates, for Lewis it all came down to one issue… the person of Jesus Christ.

And during those dark nights of the soul, during those times when I hear yet another instance of church or pastoral corruption or I’m forced to face those “scary” Biblical passages which preachers have either skipped or divvied out silly, penny-ante solutions, I revisit some of Jack Lewis’ most powerful words on our Lord:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to…We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said, or else a lunatic, or something worse. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God. God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form.
Those words are my ground zero, pointing me back to what is most important, what and who is most real.

This is the second part of my blog where I have come clean, I took a chance and revealed my struggles in faith. So many responded to my musings on Twain and, honestly, I meant every word. There are times when I want to say that faith and church and spirituality are all bunk, especially when I see another hurt soul, devastated by misguided or even false Christianity.

But, in those dark moments I revisit those words of Lewis; I come back to Jesus. I realize that all of the other stuff: the debates (Creation or Evolution, Predestination or Free Will, and on and on and on) the fighting, the comparison we make with one another, and oh, the judging, is all noise—static, television snow. The real picture is the One who was called Christ, the One who was called, “The friend of sinners,” which is comforting, because I could always use a friend.