In The Dark:(

I have always heard that if you live long enough you could see just about anything. Well, I have lived in the Midwest for the greatest majority of my life, and although I have seen the remnants of many hurricanes move though, I have never experienced anything like what we have been though with Ike.

It all started on Sunday after Crothersville UMC’s 140th birthday celebration in our new Fellowship Hall. The wind began to blow harder than I have ever experienced in my life, at least for any extended periods of time. I knew that it was bad when I walked out of church to the sound of a plate glass window breaking across the street. Ben, Crystal and the kids had come down to watch the football game, but instead they came over to the church because we didn't have electricity at the house. Of course this greatly disappointed Ben, because he was missing his Colt’s game and it didn’t help when he realized that it would probably be prudent for them to stay with us since they live in a trailer. Despite the desire to watch the game, they decided to come and weather the storm with us.

By the time we went to bed Sunday night power had been restored to approximately half of Crothersville, unfortunately we were in the half that was still in the dark. Monday morning I got up and headed over to Ohio to Seminary. On the way I talked to Terri and found out that Louisville had over 280,000 people without power, including them and Southern IN was out as well, which wasn’t exactly a surprise. Then as I got closer to Cincinnati I heard that 600,000 people in Southern Ohio were without power and that the Columbus area had been hit even harder than they were. Uh oh, this didn’t sound good at all. Then as I got closer to Columbus I found out that the reports were correct and that they were without power as well. I have never seen a storm with such a wide impact.

When I got to school, I discovered that they didn't have power so I spent Monday night in the dark, got up on Tuesday morning and talked with the president of the college and several other students and officials. The bottom line was that no one knew anything and that the word on the street was it may be Wednesday or even next week before power would be restored. So in the middle of Tuesday afternoon, not wanting to drive home in the dark, especially traveling through areas without power, I decided to head for home regardless of the decision about school for Wednesday.

When I got home, I found out that we were still without power here as well so last night was the third night that we spent in the dark. But, there was a glimmer of hope, BJ and Trina from Cana UMC stoped by with a gift from God, A GENERATOR!!!! Whoo hoooooo! We had light again. We only used it for about 30 minutes last night because we didn’t want to disturb the neighbors, but this morning I am able to get back on the computer and get back in contact with the world. I realize that there are those among you that will question my priorities such as, With all of the things that you could plug in, you chose your computer first? Well that isn’t exactly true, I plugged in the fish aquarium first, those poor little guys were looking pretty sickly without air and filtration.

So I am sitting here in a dark house, with my computer plugged into the generator and I am finally able to be back in contact with the world. We have now been without power for almost 72 hours which is probably 3 time longer than I have been without electricity in my life, well except for the times that Ben and I went fishing up in Canada, but that was different, we did that on purpose, (and Karen wasn’t with us). I am sure that I will be able to reflect theologically on all of these experiences soon, but for right now, I just want a cold Pepsi, light to read by, TV to watch, (I can’t believe I missed the first episode of "Biggest Looser Family" last night) and my computer back.

Well, one out of four isn’t bad.

Blessings

Happy 150th Birthday Crothersville!

Last night I had an opportunity to attend the Crothersville Sesquicentennial Historical Program. I was very impressed with the performances of so many of our community’s young, and not so young, people. The program was actually a rewrite of the program used 50 years ago for the Crothersville Centennial Celebration. It was really quite wonderfully done and I congratulate everyone who was involved.

There were several moments that I thought were just really exceptional in the presentation. There were two moments in particular that were especially significant for me. The first was a reading of the Gettysburg Address by a young man dressed as Abraham Lincoln with a Union soldier on his right and a Confederate soldier on his left. I think what made this especially poignant was the Battle Hymn of the Republic playing in the background. As someone who has always been fascinated by the Civil War and the lessons which we should have learned with regard to the way that we treat our fellow man, I must say that I was very moved by the way that this was portrayed.

The other moment which had the greatest impact on me was near the end when the narrator began to talk about the turning point of our community. It was really very remarkable that a town that was founded because of the progress and prosperity brought by the railroad would be ultimately devastated by a different form of transportation, the Interstate Highway. When the last of the heavy equipment left and the workers moved further up the road, the town of Crothersville found that it had been bypassed and cut off by the New Interstate Highway. People could go further and faster on I 65 and the old Highway 31 was no longer the best, and only, way to go. It was at this point that our town began a long painful decline. The car dealer left, the hardware store, the grocery store and shoe factory closed. The future looked very bleak indeed. But then Aisin Manufacturing came to town, and other factories started looking at Crothersville as well. New eating establishments opened, and yes, even Dollar General came to town.

What will our future bring? Will our new industries and businesses be enough for our community to not only stop our decline but to begin to grow and thrive again? What will our Celebration look like when we hold the Bicentennial Celebration in 2058? I won’t be here to see it, but perhaps those young people that I saw in tonight’s performance will be. What stories will they have to tell? What will our community look like in 50 years?

You know, I bet that these same types of questions were asked 50 years ago, and if this generation is as strong and dedicated as the last one, then I think that our future is in good hands and that we will be just fine!

Blessings

Let's Here It For The Small Towns!!!

Yesterday, for me, was a day of reflection that was marked by two significant events. The first was the remembrance of the attacks of September 11th 2001 and the second was the beginning of Crothersville’s Sesquicentennial Celebration. I must say that the folks who worked on the organization committee have worked so very hard. They have been in countless meetings for 18 months, spent thousands of their own dollars, struggled with vendors and workers and yes, sometimes even with each other which will sometimes happen when people who are passionate about a project work together.

As Karen and I began to get a feel for the festival last night by helping to judge the Senior Queen Pagent, participating in the cake walk in the rain, eating an excellently fried fish sandwich by BJ and the fire Department, enjoying a pork burger and simply sharing life with the people of our community. I realized how blessed I was to be a part of this small town. It seems like small towns have sure been getting hit pretty hard in the press here lately. I think I will leave that particular thought where it is and let you take from it what you will, since I really don’t want to have political conversations on here. But, the truth is that most of the people that I know were born in small towns, most of the people I know still currently live in small towns, and probably as John Melloncamp points out that most of them, including me, will probably die in a small town.

To all of these small town people with small town values across our great nation, I salute you. Especially on this special day for my small community of Crothersville IN, I want to congratulate you on your Birthday of 150 years and it is my prayer that 150 years from now as the cities of Louisville, KY, Indianapolis, IN and Cincinnati, OH all merge together about this point in Jackson County to form the megalopolis of Indi-LouCincy, it will be my wish that the small town values of Crothersville continue to be an example for others to follow.

Blessings

Nearly Perfect….. But Not Quite

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

This notion of perfection is one that we as United Methodists certainly spend a great deal of time studying. This summer in my United Methodist Doctrine class, we spent a couple of days reading about and discussing what perfection means in the Wesleyan tradition. I have to admit that I am far from perfect. I am sure that Karen would be more than happy to echo that thought. But, I don’t believe that there is any place that my lack of perfection is as obvious as in my punctuation, spelling and grammar challenges.

I remember in 9th grade being confronted by my English teacher. “If you don’t improve your English skills young man, how do you ever expect to get ahead in this world?” I still remember those words as clearly today as when they were said to me thirty some years ago. The reason that I remember them so well is not because of her question, because to be quite honest, I knew that English wasn’t my best subject, but because of my uncharacteristic answer. Perhaps I was having a rough day, perhaps she caught me at a bad time, I suppose that it was possible that I really didn’t like this teacher very much (I really didn’t) or perhaps I was just being a smart-alecky teenager, but I looked her square in the eyes and said, “I will just hire someone to do it for me.” Trust me when I tell you, that was a big mistake.

Through the years I have reflected on that answer many times, and I am not sure that I ever really reached the place in life where I had people to correct my English for me, although, when I first started seminary I did have a wonderful person, Brenda, who single handedly got me through my first year, helping to edit and correct my papers until I had the confidence to do it on my own.

There was one gift from God that my 9th grade English teacher wasn’t able to foresee and that was spell checker and grammar checker on the computer. This one thing alone has enabled me to be successful in seminary, had it not been for Bill Gates, I would have been in real trouble.

I really would like to improve my spelling, grammar and punctuation. I still struggle with spelling a great deal. Unfortunately, I misspell “Unfortunately” every time I use it. I always struggle knowing when to use lie or lay or laid, I have a difficult time knowing when to use effect or affect and one of these years I am going to figure out what the line means in one of Karen’s favorite movies, “Two Weeks Notice,” when Sandra Bullock says, “Aside from the split infinitive that was somewhere in the middle, that speech was actually quite perfect, wasn't it?” Actually, not that I know what a split infinitive is, but as I was looking up this exact quote I found out that Hugh Grant didn’t actually use a split infinitive in his speech. No wonder I get so confused about these things.

Anyway, I bring this up today to let you know that yes, I am aware that I have a few, maybe a lot of mistakes in my blog, and considering that often times I write them either very late at night or early in the morning, I am surprised that I don’t have more of them, and yes I do proofread my seminary papers significantly more than I do my blogs.

So for anyone that I have offended by my grammatical and spelling challenges I want to apologize to you from the bottom of my heart… I’ll try to do good from now on so my writing doesn’t have a bad affect on you.

Blessings

OVERWHELMED!!!!

I have one word for this week, OVERWHELMING! I can’t believe that I am only a couple of weeks into this semester and I am already reaching a state of overload. I think my class Monday night put me over the top. After three years of seminary I usually have an idea of what is expected and how much work I can expect to do in each class, even before the first class begins. Monday night everything changed.

I went to my “United Methodist Polity” class for the first time. Now I would imagine that most everyone that I know, who would read this blog, would immediately say, WOW that sounds dull, and you could possibly be correct. But, one thing that I know for sure is that it is going to be the hardest, most involved seminary class that I have ever had, and that is saying an awful lot.

To begin with, the professor, who happens to be the retired president of the seminary, gave everyone a name tag. Well that is a first in 3 years of seminary. He then passed out to each person a name card to put on the table in front of them, I guess that’s in case we can’t read the name tag.

He then explained to us the requirements for the course which includes a significant amount of reading which is normal, and here is where the challenge comes, we have 43 pages of writing to do for this class. Yes that is correct 43 pages. Now to put that into perspective, as a procrastinator by nature, I have gotten pretty good about figuring out how long it takes me to write a paper. I have found that it takes me somewhere around 1 ½ hours for every page I write. This includes writing, bibliography and footnotes. So just using basic math I can assume that I will be spending around 65 hours writing for this one class over the next couple of months. If that isn’t enough, I also have 2 ten minute oral presentations to prepare for and give. Of course if that was my only class I would be fine, but I also have major writing to do for three other classes. And then there is the little thing of a sermon to prepare for Sundays and that one little thing that I had mentioned in an earlier blog, the Commissioning paperwork that I would imagine will be at least thirty pages or maybe more.

Ok I know, I am whining. The truth is that I am rather stressed out with seminary, the sesquicentennial celebration, our upcoming charge conference, the commissioning process, my upcoming Cross Cultural Emersion trip to El Salvador, and then in addition, trying to figure out how to pay for all of these things. Are you tired of listening to me whine yet?

Yesterday at lunch one of my fellow students, who is a couple years behind me, said that he wanted to thank me for the words of encouragement that I had given to him last year when he had first started seminary. I asked him what I had said that was so memorable to him, and he reminded me about our conversation where I had told him what a privilege it was to be in seminary, and even though the road was long and arduous and at times there would seem like there was no end in sight, that there was no place on earth that I would rather be, and there was nothing on earth that I would rather be doing than spending my time studying about this great God that we worship…..Goodness, I hate it when someone uses my own words against me.

But he was right, I remember saying those words, and feeling those feelings and I think that God just knew that I needed a little reminder. I will also say that this blog has a way of allowing me to express what I am thinking, the good, the bad and the ugly, and sometimes that is important. Especially, when I can look back and realize how God has seen me through all of those difficult times.

So tonight I am going to bed early and get caught up on some rest, and tomorrow is another day to follow the path that God has set for me.

Blessings

Humble Pie

I am afraid that I started judging my pie baking contest a week early. Unfortunately, it was a very large, bitter piece of humble pie. I knew when I wrote the words last time that, “The only thing that could go wrong now is if the Colts bus broke down on the way to the stadium, other than that, it’s in the bag!” I was making a big mistake. You would think that someone of reasonable intelligence, and who has been on this earth for almost a half a century would know better than to tempt fate with a statement like that.

It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes after I posted those words that the phone rang. It was Terri, apparently she and Josh decided to come up and surprise us for our Colts Party. Unfortunately, they had a problem. Just before they got to the Scottsburg exit, their right front tire blew out causing the car to spin 180 degrees on the Interstate slamming the car up against the guardrail. Ben and I immediately jumped in the car and headed that way, but we had to go past them down to the next exit, so it seemed like it took forever to get to them. Both Josh and Terri were fine, just a little shaken up, unfortunately, their car didn’t fair as well. So, after the wrecker hooked up their car, we brought them back to the house. They were two very lucky kids, it could have been so much worse. The officer just kept saying how glad he was that no one was injured. I got the feeling that even as young as he was he had seen more than his share of death and destruction out on these highways.

Once we were back at the house, it was time to turn our attention to homemade bread, my World Famous Chili and of course the inevitable Colts victory. No matter what else had happened, I knew that the night would end on a good note. I mean, the Colts haven’t lost a game in September or October for two years. They had pretty much all of their main starters healthy, and this was the first game in their new multimillion dollar stadium. Everything was set for a perfect game! Well, “Houston, we have a problem.” Someone forgot to tell the Bears that it was supposed to be the Colts night. They totally dominated the Colts, making for a very long, sad night. I think poor Ben was pretty much beside himself. It was not a banner night around our house.

All in all, I must say how thankful that I am that Terri and Josh are fine. I have a very dear friend that received a call a few months ago that her daughter, the night before her wedding, had been involved in a serious car accident and all they would say over the phone is that she needed to come to the hospital immediately. She made the very long trip to the hospital with no idea of what was waiting for her when she got there. I can’t even begin to imagine how awful it would have been to have received that call. When she arrived at the hospital, she found that her daughter was barely clinging to life, it took several weeks before she would even regain consciousness. Since that time, her recovery has been excruciatingly slow and she will probably suffer from the effects of the accident for the rest of her life.

How quickly life can change, in a flash events can happen that alter our lives forever. You know, I think I can live with the Colts loss, there will always be another game next week. I am already planning to fix another pot of my World Famous Chili and the Bread Machine is ready to go, but next week I will also remember what is most important and I am not going to make the mistake of thinking that nothing can go wrong. God always gives us opportunities to learn from our mistakes, and I have learned a great deal from this one.

Blessings