Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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My three brothers and I are back down at our maternal grandparents’ old homeplace at Robert Lee, Texas, for a few days. Since all of us are pastors (a couple are supposedly retired, though they don’t look much like it to me), getting as much as possible done early so we can get out of our respective towns and covey up together is always challenging. And since we all seem to be connected with non-prophet organizations (bad pun), much else often surprises us. But for around 40...
We can hardly be too careful when we’re choosing what we’ll worship. Most folks don’t read the Old Testament prophets for comedy, but the prophet Isaiah made brutal fun of down-on-their-luck idol worshipers who couldn’t afford to commission a metalworker to cast a custom-made god and hire a goldsmith to overlay it. A high-quality idol can be pricey. Instead, the poorer folks were forced to go with cheaper gods by searching carefully for wood that wouldn’t rot and hiring a work...
Too much stuff. In our society, that seems to be the exact amount of stuff that most of us have. Not exactly a technical term, two words are nonetheless quite nicely descriptive: too much. Stuff storage. It’s big business and growing all of the time because, well, see Paragraph One. People who have as much stuff as we do, and are continually adding more to their mounds of stuff, eventually run out of places to put it. Perhaps we don’t want to disappoint archaeologists who will...
It’s almost Easter, and here I am thinking about an almost-Christmas ride to the North Pole. I wrote one of these columns about that ride 14 years ago. I just reread what I wrote, and, if you don’t mind, I’ll write some of it again. I started by saying the North Pole was surprisingly warm on that ride, but it was less surprising when you realize that my wife and I and our sweet little 2 1/2-year-old giggling granddaughter were riding from Lubbock to Brownfield, Texas, on th...
As I begin to write, I’m about 10 minutes away from hearing a beautiful sound. In 10 minutes, our chiming wall clock will ring out a quarter past the hour. You won’t notice, but I’m listening, and I’ll be pausing for a moment. You see, our clock has been away, taking time for a bit of a sabbatical for its health. For decades, it has been hanging on our living room wall and, as long as I remember to wind it, it has quite precisely and faithfully fulfilled its sweetly toned c...
One of my three favorite daughters-in-law has written a children’s book called “The Rowly Growly Bear.” Not in print yet, it soon will be, and I’m very proud of what she’s done. Danetta is a great wife, mother, and teacher, and a good while ago, she began writing this sweet book. It’s based on a story her father spun for her when she was just a small child. The main character in the book is a little bear — the “Rowly Growly Bear,” of course. And the little bear is looking f...
“When I was 24 years old, I was pretty sure I had all the answers.” So said one of my dearest and, I think, wisest friends. He’s the kind of guy I always enjoy talking to, not least because in the midst of our “shooting the breeze” laughter, he always gives me something to think about. He’s lived a lot of life and taken both its deepest joys and most difficult sorrows with the kind of faith in God that I aspire to have myself. After making the statement, or confession,...
Months ago, I jotted down a few words about, well, fools. It was probably a foolish thing to do, likely motivated by my foolishly reading too much news. But here’s what I wrote. “We all at times play the fool. “Only a fool will install each of the bars of his own soul-cell by flaunting freedom for license, trading love for lust, parodying self-less patriotism with mindless populism, mocking virtue’s civility with soul-rot’s untamed tongue, confusing strong opinion with eternal...
Flat tires. I don’t know anyone who enjoys them. Does anyone enjoy the raucous rumble of tire rubber flapping against the road and your vehicle’s fender wells? Do you relish the opportunity to make the suddenly crucial decision as to how long to glide your once-smooth-now-loudly-limping ride to a stop? You’re actually faced with more than a few decisions that could well be discussed a bit — but not when you have scant seconds to make them. It’s clear that you’re stopping bu...
Driftwood. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. For my mother, driftwood was treasure. She was a country girl, born and raised in Coke County, Texas, and I remember that, even after she’d been grown and married and had long since left Coke County, she had a love affair with driftwood. At least, that’s what I always called it, and I think she did. It’s quite possible we were using the term inaccurately. I just looked up a definition or a few. One dictionar...
No surprise, I enjoy words. I am amazed that, in the English language equipped with an alphabet of 26 letters, those letters can be combined to create hundreds of thousands of words. And that brings up an interesting topic. If you have some time on your hands and are interested in doing just a very little bit of easy research (as in, internet search research), you’ll probably find the number of words in the English language variously estimated at being anywhere from a bit unde...
Possessions and proliferation. Two “p” words, each beginning with “p” as in “problem.” For the first to be last and the last to be first — a biblical concept for sure — I begin with “proliferation.” I’m not talking about nuclear proliferation. That is its own “capital P” problem. Suffice it to say that I love the prophet Isaiah’s words about the time when nations will “beat their swords into plowshares” (Isaiah 2). But, sadly, in this fallen world, that time is not now. No, th...
“In the bleak mid-winter / Frosty wind made moan,” writes the English poet Christina Rossetti in her 1872 poem. The poem, which she called “A Christmas Carol,” is one we usually call by its first line, as we do the song(s) written upon which to hang her sweet lyrics. I love the lyrics and the melodies, particularly Gustav Holst’s tune that was paired with the words a few decades after Rossetti penned them. (It’s fun to check out various versions and recordings on the interne...
Where do you find a good riddle when you need one? On at least two recent occasions as I’ve begun writing this column, I’ve wished I could begin by grabbing a good riddle and deftly tucking it in to the first paragraph. Two problems. The first has to do with “deftly.” I get many opportunities to line up words. Most of the opportunities have nothing to do with riddles — unless I muddle them up so much that they morph into such. But “deftly” often eludes me. The second problem i...
Note: I’m sharing an old column this week. Some of it is a bit “dated,” but that figures in to an additional and important point at the end. Thanks for reading. As I write this week’s column, can I just admit from the outset that I’m not sure I should be writing this week’s column? At least, not on this topic. I could easily come off as grouchy and pessimistic, depressed and depressing. Better to keep my mouth shut. But I’ll give it a shot. Writing, that is. I’m not disci...
Thank the Lord for shepherds and stargazers. While muckety-mucks in Rome were trying to figure out new and improved ways to shake even more shekels from the pockets of the subjugated populace and further filch the meager bread of the common man, the Highest of Kings was pretty much ignoring Rome. The most powerful of all earthly kingdoms was less than nothing compared to his kingdom. The true King was dispatching a troop of angelic hosts, any one of whom would be stronger...
In the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, the wise man wrote many things that will tax most people’s wisdom. Trying to understand is worth the effort. But I most often find myself gravitating to his words in Ecclesiastes 3 where he writes, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens...” He goes on to list a slew of activities with which we all identify. And we all recognize the wisdom of those who know “when the time is right....
I’m thinking right now about my mother, and I’m not sure why. Oh, I think of Mom often, of course, and that’s no surprise. It’s not just that without Mom, I would not be breathing. (You come to this column for deep wisdom and unusual insight, right?) And you’re right if you suspect that my thoughts about my mother are deeper than just ponderings about the mind-boggling realities of genetics and more, and how — we’re talking about a mom here, but I’ll mention a dad later — an...
Long-suffering readers of this column know that I care about and try to focus on the traditional foundational truths of Christianity, but one of my deep beliefs is that truth is truth wherever it is found, and all of it is God’s. When someone begins to talk about “my truth,” as if truth could be changed for any individual like choosing a differently colored shirt, I want to dissent. Gravity is a law that follows laws, and in this world, we all must deal with its truth — and al...
The venerable St. Francis of Assisi tell us: “The world is a great stage, on which God displays his many wonders.” So true. And I’m struck yet again that some of God’s most beautiful wonders are on full display as the seasons change and God gives us a new view of the world we walk through each day. We have it on good authority that no two snowflakes are exactly alike. But the truth both of science and our own eyes, if we really open them, is that we have never stepped out our...
I seem to be having a hard time catching the calendar’s train this year. I caught myself almost writing the wrong year on a check a few days ago. Then I almost wrote the wrong month. All of that is early January stuff, not errors I expect to be making in November. It could be my age, of course. A clue is that I still occasionally write checks. Thanksgiving is upon us, and it has almost caught me by surprise. It’s no surprise, I’m afraid, that as we grow older, the calen...
One of the most unsatisfying (at least, to me) sermons I have ever preached was delivered during one of the highest points of my life. I was preaching at a church in Mbale, Uganda. If it was a weak sermon, it wasn’t because I hadn’t worked hard in its preparation. I knew it would be an opportunity to preach to brothers and sisters I’d probably never get to share the Word with again. It was a blessed and humbling experience. I was a rich, spoiled American, and they did me th...
The picture is a little fuzzy. It was an action shot and so seriously zoomed in that it’s probably amazing that it’s as clear as it is. But it’s plenty clear enough, and I smile every time I look at it. My next-to-the-youngest grandchild, a precocious little 8-year-old—and, of course, an amazing little beauty in every way—is in mortal combat with another little girl as they’re sliding around on the floor of a basketball court. The ref will soon blow his whistle and signal...
I wish I knew more about the scene. The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 12, begins with Jesus teaching a crowd, a very large crowd. He teaches like no one else, warning them about hypocritical religious teachers, assuring them that God loves his children completely and knows them down to the very hairs on their heads. When will the Holy Spirit of God ever leave them? Never! Was it right in the middle of these amazing words that a shriveled little man in the crowd spoke up?...
I spent most of last week in Robert Lee, Texas, with my three brothers at our maternal grandparents’ old home place. It was a good week. Those weeks always are. Granddaddy Key built that little house in 1928, so it’s approaching a 100th anniversary. I hereby propose to the guys (two are not all that far off from their own centennial) that we plan ahead and extend one of that year’s stays to a month or, at least, two weeks. Anything less would be disrespectful. For around 40 ye...
