I found a poem that speaks to my heart!

In praise of joe 
By Marge Piercy
From her 2006 volume, The Crooked Inheritance
It came to me through a Knopf Poem-a-Day email.


I love you hot
I love you iced and in a pinch
I will even consume you tepid.
 
Dark brown as wet bark of an apple tree,
dark as the waters flowing out of a spooky swamp
rich with tannin and smelling of thick life -
 
but you have your own scent that even
rising as steam kicks my brain into gear.
I drink you rancid out of vending machines,
 
I drink you at coffee bars for $6 a hit,
I drink you dribbling down my chin from a thermos
in cars, in stadiums, on the moonwashed beach.
 
Mornings you go off in my mouth like an electric
siren, radiating to my fingertips and toes.
You rattle my spine and buzz in my brain.
 
Whether latte, cappuccino, black or Greek
you keep me cooking, you keep me on line.
Without you, I would never get out of bed
 
but spend my life pressing the snooze
button. I would creep through wan days
in the form of a large shiny slug.
 
You waken in me the gift of speech when I
am dumb as a rock buried in damp earth.
It is you who make me human every dawn.
All my books are written with your ink.

My Little Great, Great Nephew, William Nicholas Vestal

I never knew my great, great nephew, William Nicholas Vestal
He only lived a few hours.
Caitlin Culp Vestal, his mother, is one of my great nieces.  Her paternal grandmother is my older sister, Leta Webb Culp.
I’ve never met Caitlin’s husband, Charles Vestal, who married into my extended family. But my dear departed mother, Vandelia Smith Webb, would have claimed Charles (In-law was not in her vocabulary) and would have welcomed William Nicholas as a great, great grandson.
That’s the way Mother thought of family.  I accused her of claiming seventeenth cousins.  She never used this business of such-and-such a cousin, three times removed.  I’m glad she didn’t because she would have expected me to understand it.  To Mother, a cousin is a cousin is a cousin.
Some of Mother’s wide-open arms of kinship rubbed off on me.  So my heart is heavy as I think of and pray for Caitlin and Charles.  They live in Austin, Texas.  Her parents also are in Texas.
In Anderson, South Carolina, I’m a geographically distant uncle for Caitlin and her daddy, James Culp, and for little William Nicholas Vestal. But I’m not the farthest-flung of our far-flung family.
Most of the Webb-Culp-Way clan — with my brothers and sisters and me as the Senior Generation — are in Texas.  Our sons and their families extend this extended family: Russell and Sabina in New York City; Jonathan, Vicky, Ethan, and Addie in Chicago.  Other relatives are in California, Kansas, and perhaps other points distant from our original Texas base.  The most remote, geographically, are Caitlin’s aunt and uncle, Evelyn Culp Sasamoto and Kisaku Sasamoto in Japan. 
So I am part of a worldwide sadness and a chain of prayers for Caitlin and Charles.
I don’t know any of Charles’s family, but doubtlessly they, too, are reaching out to this dear, sorrowing couple.
Pansy and I can share some corner of grief over William Nicholas: Russell, our firstborn, was a premature twin.  His brother Randall lived thirteen days.  
As I think of the loss shared by so many of us, a Bible passage and a hymn come to mind:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God (2 Corinthians 1:2-4). 

From John Fawcett’s “Blest Be the Tie That Binds”:

        Before our Father’s throne,

We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,
Our comforts, and our cares.

We share our mutual woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

Thoughts from Ash Wednesday

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return."

I was startled to hear those words from Genesis 3:19 the first time I attended an Ash Wednesday service.

The words from the Bible were familiar to me, but this time their message hit home in a new way, as a Lutheran pastor marked a cross on my forehead.
Pansy and I “just happened” onto the Lutheran church in downtown Savannah, Georgia, about noontime.  An usher was standing on the church porch, welcoming people in for the service.
I trudged up the stone steps with Pansy, and we went inside for the service that challenged us to reflect on the obvious fact: We are not made to live forever on this earth.  An obvious fact, perhaps, but not one we like to dwell on.  But the pastor was “in your face” with that reminder as he put the ashes on my face.
Oh, the minister wasn’t rude or harsh.  He said the words simply and kindly.  But 
they roared like Rudyard Kipling’s description of the coming of a new day in his poem, “Mandalay”: “the dawn comes up like thunder.”  

Those words on the first day of Lent are calculated to make us think seriously, soberly, about the direction our lives are taking.  In the Roman Catholic tradition, such reflection often is accompanied by “giving up something for Lent.”

At the deepest level, giving up is much, much more than staying away from chocolate for six weeks or skipping a meal now and then to take off some weight.  For our health, we may need to trim some pounds off those thunder thighs and bulging bellies.  But whatever we give up -- if we give up anything at all -- our goal in giving should be to draw nearer to Christ who made the ultimate sacrifice in His death on the cross.
I’m a Baptist minister, and our history as Baptists in the South has not included Ash Wednesday.  It’s a new thing for most congregations.
It was brand new today at my church: First Baptist in Anderson, South Carolina.  Our two younger, associate ministers -- Josh Hunt and Amy Brown -- led austere services at noon and night:  
No musical prelude.  No hymns.  Mainly Bible readings and silence.  We’re accustomed to hearing the Bible read, but we don’t manage silence very well.  We ended with a litany of confession.  We don’t do public confession of sin very well either.  But we endured, and I think we were the better for it.
About forty-five gathered for the evening session, including some seventeen teenagers.  As we went forward, I noticed some of the youth had to push their bangs or curls back from their foreheads for the “imposition of ashes.”  Afterward, their hair fell back in place and hid the ashes.  Some of us adults may have wished we could hide the crosses on our faces as well.
I heard some hundred fifty adults showed up for the noon service and all but one or two went forward for the “imposition.”
“Imposition.” That’s a term worth considering.  For some, it probably is an imposition in the sense of someone imposing on us, putting us through something we’d just as soon skip.
Lent isn’t a lot of fun. As someone said, “If you’re doing that in parts, you can leave my part out.”  
Don’t tell me that I need to change my life.  
And, whatever you do, don’t remind me, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return." 
I remember the first funeral I assisted with as the associate minister in my first church after seminary.  Vergie Sharpton was a dear elderly lady (not as old as I am now, but awfully old to me at the time) who had been a Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, women’s circle regular.  I got to know her on a close, personal basis when she attended a weekday Bible study with other homemakers.
Our senior pastor did most of the service.  I read Scripture, said a few words, and led a prayer.  But the mere fact of helping bury a faithful Christian whom I had known and taught and visited in the hospital in her final days -- all that made an impression.
A day or so after the funeral, I was talking with one of the teenage boys in our church.  With thoughts of Mrs. Sharpton still weighing heavily on me, I started thinking out loud about the uncertainty of life, the inevitability of death.  Then I asked a question, mostly to myself, that I probably shouldn’t have asked in the hearing of a hardy, handsome lad: “Have you ever thought that every day you live brings you one day closer to the end of your life?”
Donny’s answer was a two-letter negative. But that “No!” exploded with the message: “I haven’t thought about it.  I don’t want to think about it.  And I don’t appreciate your bringing it up.”
We may be like Donny.  We may make his response ours as Lent begins.  But, in this season, if we trust Christ to help us make necessary changes, come Easter, we may say with St. Paul in Second Corinthians 5:17--
Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he [or she] is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. 

Do I really need Facebook?

If you've read this before, please smile tolerantly at those of us who feel the following describes us:

I’ve enjoyed a pretty good life without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos, pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grand kids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife and everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. I had to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-U-lating." You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then if I made a right turn instead... well, it was not a good relationship.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have to run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them in with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look. 

We senior citizens don't need any more gadgets. The TV remote and the garage door remote are about all we can handle.

       [P. S. from LW: Even these last two are a bit much for some of us.]

While you watch The Game . . .

Pastor Jacky Newton in Kentucky is an avid sports fan.  He played varsity ball.

Even so, Jacky recently tried to put things in perspective in one of his daily e-mail devotions.  I quote the following excerpt with Jacky's permission:

Our nation has become obsessed with sports.  Who will win the Super Bowl?  Will the Big Blue of Kentucky win another NCAA basketball title?  Will this recruit or that recruit choose our school?  How is my NFL fantasy team doing?  I’m a huge sports fan, just ask anyone who knows me, but may I remind you of a few things:

While you’re consumed with a game, someone will lose a child;

Another murder will take place;

Some people will learn that they have cancer;

 A wife with children will stand by a flag-draped casket and tell their soldier goodbye;

 A young person will be molested;

Babies will be aborted;

A person will die of starvation or freeze to death; and

Another lost person will die without Christ and spend eternity apart from Christ.

Sports have their place in our society, but many things are far more important.  If you and I spent as much time building a relationship with our family or God, this world may change.  We are consumed by our own desires, never thinking of others or heavenly things.

Many of us are way too concerned with things that don’t matter and not concerned about the things that DO matter.  “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:2).

Thank you, Jacky.  You've given us food for thought.

What is the worst word in the English language?

“The one word more detestable than any other in the English language is the word ‘exclusive.’” 

So said Carl Sandburg, who spent the final twenty-two years of his life at Flat Rock, North Carolina, a suburb of Hendersonville.  This was his answer to a question from the noted CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow.

The poet went on to say, “When you’re exclusive you shut out a more or less large range of humanity, from your mind and heart, from your understanding of them.

Sandburg was born to immigrants from Sweden.  His parents spoke broken English as his father worked long, long hours as a railroad hand. So there’s personal experience in that assessment of “exclusive.”

I saw an example of exclusion or selfishness among some birds in our backyard:

I threw out some scraps, figuring some of God’s critters would come along and eat them.  The leftovers were mostly some stale tortillas. You know how thin tortillas are.  I crumbled the tortillas into little bits and threw them out.  

As I sat at our kitchen table working with my laptop, I glanced up and saw several birds flying around the area where I had tossed the scraps.  I walked to the window to get a better view and was amazed at what I saw:  

       This black bird got one tortilla scrap in his beak, and I thought he would eat it on the spot or maybe fly off to eat it in privacy.  But, no.  He pecked at another scrap and got it in his beak.  I thought surely he would eat them on the spot or maybe fly off to share with his mate.  But no.  This pattern continued until that bird had six or seven pieces balanced in his beak, the ends sticking out either side of his mouth.   

       A bigger bird was right behind him, and this bird wanted to get all the scraps and not leave any for the other.   So the bird with all the stuff in his beak flew off and left the other one to stuff his beak as well.  This second bird flew just a short distance and put his treasure down to eat.  But then a third bird came along and tried his best to get some of the second bird’s feast. There was no willingness to share.  Each bird was out to have exclusive access to the tortilla scraps.

We’re like those birds.  

It’s easy to slide into excluding people who don’t look or talk or act like us:

If we’re white, it’s us against people whose skin is darker.

If we speak English, it’s us on one side and all those others who should learn English.

If we’re Christians, it’s us on one side and Muslims on the other.

If we have enough money to feel comfortable, it’s us on one side and those other folks who ought to go to work.

If we don’t have much money, it’s us on one side and the folks with money on the other.

And the beat goes on.

In the view of the ancient Jews, the world contained only two races of people, Jews on one hand and then everyone else.

St. Paul, a first-century Jew, said,  For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him.  For, "every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved"  (Romans 10:12-13).

Jesus had concern, even for the birds:  He said God is mindful of every little sparrow, none excluded.  

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows (Matthew 10:29-31).

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas . . .

When someone mentions the Twelve Days of Christmas, most of us think of the song that has nothing to do with Jesus. But here on the Eleventh Day of Christmas, I offer a paragraph from Brett Younger, who tries to teach student preachers (at Mercer University's divinity school) how to preach:

"We cannot make Christmas meaningful, because we are not in charge. The best we can do is take the spotlight off the distractions and look for the star. We stay open to the possibility that God is present. Waiting for a surprise sounds contradictory, but that is how Christmas happens. We give up the lesser expectations of the kind of Christmas we can create and open our hearts to God’s joy.
. . . We join the chorus singing the carols not because everyone expects us to, but because something stirs within us. We give and receive gifts not because it is required, but for the joy of it. We look carefully at the manger and feel what the shepherds felt as earth rose to heaven and heaven stooped to earth."

This is from Dr. Younger's blog at http://peculiarpreacher.com/?p=329