Christmas Eve--Between Services

The noon Christmas Eve Service is finished, and the next service is at 7pm. I am always surprised by how many people come to the service at noon. During my planning time in November, I wonder if we should have it. This year we had 55 there, including our oldest member and families with evening plans. The Handbell Choir played and we enjoyed our time together. I expect everything will be wonderful tonight. We have one of our young children leading us in "Silent Night" plus we will have other folks singing solos from the congregation.

We are trying to enjoy some quite moments around the house until the next service. Making sausage balls and last minute gift wrapping seems to be the order of the day.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

A Step Toward Independence

This morning I took my oldest son, the Staff Sgt. (he got a JROTC promotion recently), to get his driver's permit. I had all of the documentation with me and watched as he took the multiple choice test. He got 27 out of 30 right; he passed! Mamma Deacon and I will be taking the passenger seat next to him for a while.

A driver's license is an important thing in American culture. Yesterday, I sat with a 93 year old church member who recently gave up her driver's license because of diminished ability behind the wheel. She grieved the loss of getting around, of seeing friends, of going places on her own rather than depending on others. For my son on the other end of life, it is a step toward independence. It is a step away from depending on parents to get you around (a step away from asking your parents to drop you off two blocks from the party so your friends don't see the "parental drop off").

Now, if only he would get a job to pay for the car insurance that would be a huge step toward independence!

A New Christmas Tradition

Human beings are creatures of habit. The holiday season experience reveals this. We have certain things we do with certain people at certain times. Getting together with family has always been an important and memorable tradition for me. I remember going to my grandparent's home and seeing all of my cousins. Married life brought a whole new set of traditions as we visit the in-laws as well as my family of origin. Squeezing everyone and everything in over the holidays is never easy, especially when "complications" arise.

This Christmas season will have its share of complications as the traditional Christmas with certain people will not happen. This will be the first Christmas after the death of my brother, Eric, in May. I know this is an adjustment for all who loved him. I guess I could get stuck in that loss of not only of Eric, but the disappointment at not having my Christmas in my traditional way with him.

Yet, Christmas is more than our habits and traditions. Christmas is a celebration of the way God became flesh and dwelt among us. It is an old, old story (of Jesus and his love), for a new day. Maybe its time for a new tradition---not just of a celebration of what was done a certain way, in a certain place, at a certain time--- but of a new tradition of open eyes claiming and searching for the Incarnation here and now, with whom we are with, even in less than ideal circumstances. For Christ comes to us each day in new ways. We are like those Israelites of old, Simeon and Anna, in the Temple. We celebrate the traditions of our past and look to new ways in which God reveals God's self.

Eric will not be at the table this Christmas. I grieve that. But this Christmas I hope to search for new traditions, new connections, new ways of claiming and being family as all of us who grieve live through the gift of God's love anew. May God bless all who grieve and hurt this holiday season.

Beyond the doors

Each Sunday, I challenge the church in the dismissal with benediction "to go into the world, living lives worthy of the Gospel, so that others might see the love of God." We leave the comfort of the sanctuary for work, school, home, and life. Sometimes, we leave behind the challenge on a pew in the church; other times, it hits us in the world beyond the doors when we least expect.

I am accustomed to that challenge in the "real" world of sight and sound, flesh and blood. Increasingly, I am finding the challenge in the "virtual" world of the internet. As a football fan, I frequent several football message boards--- which are an anonymous world unto themselves. Occasionally, the topics wander to other things than football. My identity as a pastor is not a secret on these boards (it is not something I revealed from the start, but came out as the discussions revolved around faith issues). I have gotten in many discussions with all kinds of people about the bible, creation, the church, just to name a few. These discussions have been with atheists, fundamentalists, and even self-described pagans as well as "regular" Christian folk. People ask all kinds of questions about faith, sin, and God. I find that many have had a bad experience with the institution of the church, even though they are still searching like the rest of us. Because of their experience, they have abandoned the church; even with that, some want only to find someone in the church who will not judge or cajole them. My hope in these conversations is to always be civil, even if we disagree...to be caring, even if there is no common ground. On some occasions, relationship and respect grow as conversation continues.

I read recently that a United Methodist pastor had been commissioned to start a virtual church first, build a a local community there, then work on the bricks and mortar. When John Wesley said that the world was his parish, I am sure he did not dream of the internet. Perhaps living beyond the doors as Christians has taken on a whole new meaning in the 21st century. Just as Wesley went where people were to spread the Gospel in 18th century England, so too must we be willing to be witnesses for Christ in the infinity of cyberspace. In the easy answers of the internet, the love of God must be shown, especially to people who are searching, doubting, and even hurting.

Name That Tune

Music adds so much to life. A church member came to me one Sunday and asked me how many times music was used in the worship service. Think about it, can you imagine worship without music? I think life is the same way. There has always been a song playing in the back of my mind. A couple of years ago, after complaining for the 402nd time about how all of my favorite radio stations start playing Christmas music before Halloween, my wonderful wife gave me XM satellite radio for Christmas. This means that I can drive down the road cranking out whatever kind of music I want. Usually I can find music anything from classical to country to 80s rock to suit my mood. I still call her out of the blue as I drive down the road, thanking her for the gift of the XM satellite radio connection.

I can remember where I was when I first heard a song or a time when the song had a special meaning. Recently, I have gotten to the point where I can listen to Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying" without being sad thinking about my brother's struggle with cancer. Now I just remember him fondly when I hear it play. When I hear Journey, I think of my friend Daniel's Z-28; the "Footloose" soundtrack brings back memories of my college friends and time at the beach.

Music is not only a connection to my past but also to my present. I have decided that satellite radio is an excellent tool in my quest to help my oldest son develop his dismissive eye-rolling ability. When I drove him to school this morning, I started singing along with the Talking Heads song "Once in A Lifetime"and doing the arm chop move the guy does in the video. Result: instant offspring eye-roll.

What song is playing in your mind right now?

A Game to Remember for Many Reasons

In a very cold and loud Montana stadium this past Saturday, the University of Montana Grizzlies and the Wofford College Terriers played a football game. It was played among some of the most hospitable people in this country; they are loyal, fierce Montana Griz fans who love their team but who don't let their intensity in the stadium turn to animosity before or after the game.

The game was one of the best played on Saturday with several lead changes and a heart breaking finish as a young man missed a field goal that would have won the game for his team. But in spite of the hard-fought game, and in spite of what we hear about athletes and college football, there was a lesson at the end of the game. Perhaps it is a lesson for all of us in our world today, as we make our own hurtful if not deadly rivalries out of words and blood. We deride others across the political aisle or on the other side of the world, but perhaps in this Holy Season for so many of us, we can learn a thing or two from two rivals that found time to kneel together at midfield after the game. The picture above was taken following an euphoric victory for one team and a sudden season ending play for the other; Griz and Terrier team members form a circle and offer prayer together. This was a good game for many reasons.



PS- Wofford won 23-22.

Go West

Wofford was selected to go to Montana for the first round of the playoffs (might as well be the fourth ring of hell for lots of reasons). Anyway, as my holiday and church activities have kept me busy, I thought I would submit something I found on the terrier fans message board a couple of days ago. It is part of a speech by Wofford President Bernie Dunlap after Wofford's defeat in the semifinals in 2003. I think it speaks not just of football but of Wofford as well.

Enjoy. I thank bestofbreed for posting this on terrierfans.com

Included below are the remarks from Wofford president Dr. Benjamin Dunlap at today's campus convocation honoring the Terrier football team for its 2003 Southern Conference championship and trip to the Division I-AA semifinals.


"We all know what Vince Lombardi said: “Winning isn’t the most important thing. It’s the only thing.” And you know what? That’s true in a lot of college athletic programs—mostly in ones with low graduation percentages and high incarceration rates for their athletes. If they don’t win, somebody gets fired. And if they do win, somebody gets investigated. At Wofford, winning is not the only thing. It’s just one of a lot things our student-athletes learn from Mike Ayers and his coaching staff.

The first thing they learn is that they’re students first and athletes second. The next thing they learn is that the secrets to success on the playing field are the same ones that will make them successful in life long after they’ve graduated. The third thing they learn is that they’re too small and too slow, with too few scholarships and too tough a schedule to be competitive in the Southern Conference. Oh, yeah, and then they learn that no mountain is too tall to climb, no opponent too big or too quick or too highly touted to be beaten by a team that’s smart, disciplined, and determined to win by playing together as team, not as a collection of prima donnas.

Don’t get me wrong. Wofford has its stars—what it lacks is prima donnas. When you play for the best coach in the United States, you play to learn as well as to win and you play together. When you lose, you know there’s something to be learned in that experience too—about your performance and about yourself. Vince Lombardi, who truly was a great coach, also said, “It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you’ve got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not yet a winner.”

I’ve had the privilege of joining our team in the dressing room after almost every game over the past four years, and some of those games were bitter losses. I’ve heard Mike Ayers in victory and defeat, and some of his most inspiring lessons have been taught when we lost. Coach Lombardi had a comment about that as well: “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.” That sounds like the heart of a terrier to me. It doesn’t matter how many times a bigger dog knocks a terrier to the ground. As long as it has a breath in its body, that little dog will get back to its feet and go on fighting, just as Wofford did in the closing seconds of our national semi-final play-off game against the University of Delaware. It was not our best game of the season, but those closing moments were among the most gallant in a season studded with victories.

We all know the tagline that has turned up everywhere, from the New York Times to ABC Television: “Wofford is the only football-playing Division I school whose average SAT score is higher than its total enrollment.” Look at our football success and you see what is true of every aspect of our college: we do more with less than anybody. And it’s especially gratifying to read in a nationally syndicated report that you can expect next year’s pre-season I-AA poll to list among its top five teams the “usual national powers”—Delaware, Wofford, and teams like that.

But even in that august company, there’s an important difference. Our players are not hired gladiators or Division I-A transfers. They don’t live in special dorms and major in specially designed pseudo-academic disciplines. They’re students like everyone else in this auditorium today, and they embody all the traits we would like to lay claim to ourselves—they are quick, intelligent, fiercely loyal competitors. They played their hearts out in every game, and, sometimes, they had the ball bounce off the ground right into their hands at a crucial point in the game. The difference between a great season and an unforgettable one is often a matter of a little luck here and there, and we had that too this season. Now we have the glory. We’re champions—all of us, not just the players. We’re all champions because that’s what they’ve given to us. They’ve brought these trophies home and they’ve made us all winners in the minds of people who couldn’t even pronounce our name at the beginning of the season.

Our purpose today is to bask in their achievement—to thank them for everything it cost them from the first day of practice to the last seconds of that game in Delaware. These are our guys, our coaches, our terriers.

Even beyond the gates on Church Street, even among those who graduated from institutions in distant places beset by ice and snow, there is pride in our team’s 2003 season. "