An intense thunderstorm rolled through late yesterday afternoon, changing my evening plans. Hillary emerged from her colorful room, wanting to be with me, and I wondered again if we Gulf Coast citizens are a wee bit more sensitive to the weather than folks in other places. Maybe not, but I wonder.

Anyway, after the storm settled down, my change in plans allowed me some time to do a little more reading in The Jesus Way by Eugene Peterson. I finished an interesting chapter on “Isaiah of the Exile,” and at its conclusion the author shared a quote from famed novelist, Saul Bellow.

The quote is a bit heady for me, but after sorting through it I realize that it reflects a theme with Peterson, one that I’ve been buying into for some time now. Here’s the quote from Bellow:

“…the gray net of abstraction covering the world in order to simplify and explain it . . . that must be countered . . . by insisting on the particularity of detail and the immediacy of place, giving us access to life firsthand so that we are not ‘bossed by ideas.’”

Like Gomer Pyle, I had to put a bucket on my head and “have a think” on this for a while, but I think I get what Bellow is proposing: that the tendency to simplify the world into concepts can keep us from participating in life.

I’m afraid this betrays a church scandal. We’re big into concepts at church (the gray net of abstraction): we talk a LOT about things like love and mercy and justice and salvation. And yet, I’m afraid we may end up so “bossed by ideas” that we may miss out on participating in these very ideas – loving the person in line at the grocery store, showing mercy to the waitress at lunch, seeking justice for the lonely nursing home resident, experiencing salvation from our personal addictions.

I think this is, in part, why I created this blog in the first place. Less discussion about ideas and concepts. More talk about life in “the particularity of detail and the immediacy of place.”

At least that’s my hope.

Our pool has an algae problem. Our computer, like Cousin Eddie’s boy on Christmas Vacation, has a problem we haven’t identified just yet.

But enough happy news… Hillary and I went to a funeral last night.

The father of a friend passed away last Friday after a long battle with cancer. I had planned to go to the funeral myself, but I thought it was so sweet when Hillary (who has been friends with one of our friend’s sons practically her whole life) announced that she wanted to go, too: she said she just “felt like she ought to.” My little girl is becoming a little lady.

I rarely have the chance to sit in the audience at a funeral and think anymore; I’m usually the cat up front having to struggle to find the right words. So as I sat there, with time to think, a couple of thoughts bounced back and forth in my brain like a tennis match.

1. Isn’t it just odd that, after an entire life, we signal it’s end by allowing someone to stand up and talk for twenty minutes or so? I find that sad, especially since I’m often that person. I mean, this is the most significant event in the universe – the passing of a life – and we dress up, listen to a little talk, and go home. This is no way does justice to what has happened, but what else could we do?
2. Since this funeral was at the church building of a different Christian denomination, I listened closely to notice the differences in messages I might deliver, but I was somewhat surprised to think that the message was the same. I began to think that the message was not only the same in that room, but it is pretty much the same across all flavors of Christianity – and even I’m sure across other religious faiths. Here’s the message: There’s just got to be something more – and better – than this life. Combined with my other recurring thought, it cannot just end with a shell of a life sitting in front of a man wearing a suit who sums up this life in twenty minutes. There must be something more. This is our collective hope.

Life moves on today. A family still grieves, and from personal experience I know that they always will. Yet time really will help, and life will move on.

But the deeper questions remain…

Well, it’s rearrange my life time again…

I do this periodically, and I’m not sure if it’s healthy or a product of mental illness. Either I need to break out of my self-imposed box and freshen up my life, or I’m simply a discontent and am never satisfied. Whatever the case, every so often in my life I break up my precious routine and try to establish another, soon to be precious, routine.

So here goes…
* This one will (broken record alert!) involve exercise. Again. Starting today. Jogging.
* And blogging is scheduled for morning times now.

Jogging and blogging in the mornings. Sounds like a bad television show.

Happy Father’s Day to everyone in blog-land! I miss having my dad around every day, but it comes to mind more forcefully on Father’s Day. I hope everyone who has a dad around appreciates that blessing.

Yet I am blessed to be honored myself on Father’s Day. I received lots of great wishes and cards from my family and friends, and I even received a couple of cool gifts:

1. I got a super-cool digital picture frame! I’ve already got it up and running at my office with a couple hundred of my favorite pictures (so far), and its slideshow may very well keep me mesmerized instead of working. Very cool stuff.
2. I also received some cooking equipment so I can learn how to become a real Gulf Coast guy and have a shrimp boil (with the picture above for inspiration)! I’m really depending on my good friend, Bruno, an expert in the art of boiling shrimp, to lead me into the land of Shrimp Cuisine. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it…

We had a nice day at the Ocean Springs Church of Christ, including the arrival of a hurricane relief crew from Moulton, Alabama, tonight, one of four relief crews scheduled to come on mission trips this summer. This is Moulton’s first trip, and I anticipate their having a hot, sweaty, yet meaningful week.

I watched Mississippi State make their exit from the College World Series this afternoon on ESPN. They should be proud, however; the last SEC team left standing this season.

Gotta run. I actually plan to post again tomorrow morning, so I’ll see you then…

We hosted the first ever “Forty-Something Party” for our new class from church at our house tonight, and I didn’t take a single picture!!! What’s happening to me?!?!?

There were fifteen of us here to enjoy a Mexican Fiesta dinner, and the conversation afterwards never seemed to stop! I had bought a new game called “Buzz Word” that looked really fun, but there was never a lull long enough to even think about introducing a game. And, my original plan was to snap a few pictures during the game; hence, my lack of photographic evidence.

Jody and I made the same comment when the party, which began at 5:30pm, broke up at 8:30pm. After hanging out with the younger group (20s-early 30s) for a long time now, we sure like the hours of “we” older folks now!!!

Well, I spent my day off watching the first day of the College World Series today, hoping to catch my friends, Cole and Alison, among the crowd (I didn’t). Alison’s brother, Justin Pigott, took the mound tonight for the Mississippi State University Bulldogs on ESPN2, and although they didn’t win, I was extremely proud of Justin.

For one, he outpitched his opposing starting pitcher (who was expected to be dominant). Justin had a great first three innings, ran into some trouble in the fourth but pitched out of it, and had a good fifth. It was the sixth inning when things started to head south, but he left with the game tied at four and his team in position to win. The relief pitcher didn’t come through, however, and the Bulldogs never recovered.

But I was most proud of him for other reasons. It was so neat to hear perennial all-star, Barry Larkin, brag on him, but it was even better to hear broadcaster Sean Macdonough share things like…
* Justin’s 4.0 GPA
* His position on the SEC Good Works team for his service in the community
* The fact that Justin’s the man his teammates want on the mound for big games
* And the fact that he has a “deep religious faith”

Not bad things to be said about you to a worldwide audience, huh?

No matter what the final score…

We’ll keep watching the Dawgs. Big game against Louisville on Sunday now! GO DAWGS!!!

When I teach a class, I always want to give my students some interesting experiences in addition to what I hope to be the challenging, informative discussions we have when we gather as a group, but unfortunately the experiences often get passed over. But when I launched the new “Forty-Something Class” this past May, I wanted to be sure that I didn’t leave out the experiences. So each week, we have a goofy homework assignment.

The problem with this, of course, is that I need to participate in these goofy homework assignments, too. Lead by example, you know?

Well, this week’s assignment flows from the Parable of the Good Samaritan that will be our major text this Sunday, and I asked everyone to go somewhere they would never go and meet people they would never meet. You see the connection, I’m sure, to the Jew-Samaritan relationship – or, better said, lack of relationship.

Pretty cool, huh?

Well, until you have to do it, it’s pretty cool.

I cycled through a lot of ideas before settling on going to a mosque. I thought this would carry with it about as much shock value as the original Jew-Samaritan example, but I wasn’t exactly sure where you’d find a mosque in South Mississippi.

Turns out, Biloxi.

I drove to the Biloxi Islamic Center today with the full intent of getting to know some folks there, but it turned out to be an older house in a poor part of town with a hand-painted sign out front instead of a gold-roofed temple. I drove by once (partly because there wasn’t any parking, and partly because this is the kind of homework assignment when you drive by once. Or twice. Or more…). I circled back around, parked my car, walked through the residential gate, and went to the door and knocked.

Nobody was home late this morning at the Biloxi Islamic Center. (I did not, however – for the record – pass by on the other side.) Oh well. Maybe some other time.

So time was running short on this week’s homework, and I needed a Plan B. Which came to me on the way back to Ocean Springs. I decided to go to the Fort Bayou Saloon, a biker bar in spitting distance from our church’s building.

I pulled into the parking lot, and, since there was just one car in the parking lot at 11am (and no motorcycles), I was brave enough to get out and walk in. When I walked in (add your own sound effects: western music, or maybe the revving of a Harley), I was met by the imposing figure of…

Well, turns out there was a nice lady named Angela there serving as bartender. And she was on her cell phone.

She asked me what she could get me. I fumbled something out that let her know that I was weird and not really interested in a drink. So she excused herself from her cell phone conversation to concentrate on what this strange bald man had to say. I simply told her that I had come in to introduce myself. Told her I was a preacher at the church next door. Told her I had been there eight years and was a pretty bad neighbor since I had never introduced myself.

She smiled. I told her my name was Al. She told me her name was Angela.

That was about the size of it.

Nothing earth-shattering, I guess.

Except seismologists report that the Berlin-esque wall that stands between the people in the Ocean Springs Church of Christ and the people in the Fort Bayou Saloon felt the slightest of tremors.

There is a time for everything under the sun, and this week happens to be the time for everyone at the Ocean Springs Church of Christ to face potential surgery.

* Several of us spent Monday morning at the hospital in Gulfport expecting surgery for Jim, but that was only the beginning of a waiting game that continues to now as to what will happen with the mass found in his throat. So far, surgery has been ruled out, but everything hinges on the results from the biopsy taken yesterday afternoon. Still no word on that.

* Several of us spent this morning at the hospital in Pascagoula with Rebecca while her mother, Pat, underwent surgery for her colon cancer. Everything went well, and there was no “extra” cancer discovered, but the surgery was quite invasive, and recovery will be a challenge. She will begin with a four or five day hospital stay.

* Eileen went to sit with Barbara for Norton’s heart procedure today. She called to tell me all went well, and the doctors successfully shocked his heart back into rhythm. She said it only took them once. Norton’s health has been a concern for several months now.

* Tomorrow, my secretary, Marvel, will undergo sinus surgery. She has been anticipating this for a long time, and it is finally scheduled for tomorrow, appropriately, on Surgery Week for the Ocean Springs Church of Christ. She’ll be out of the office for the rest of the week.

I do own a calendar. But I’m scared to look at next week.

To misquote Jesus, “this week has enough surgeries of its own.”

Went to visit my buddy Hezekiah this afternoon on this stormy day in south Mississippi. The picture above is from his birthday party back in March, but for today’s picture you’ll have to add a befeathered cowboy hat to his head, stick him in front of the large screen television with three other residents of the nursing home, and turn on TV Land for an episode of Bonanza.

I sat and watched with him until he got bored enough to ask me how I was doing. I spared him the gory details and just said “fine,” and then returned the question. Hezekiah said he was doing “mighty well,” which sounds to me a lot better than just fine. I’m typically convinced that even though he is physically and mentally challenged and living in a nursing home (and often needing someone to change his diaper), he is most often doing much better than me.

Bonanza was pretty good today. I just caught part of the episode, but it broached the issue of Civil Rights, which I found particularly interesting. Mostly because three of the four lonely people in the room with me were black. There was a slave loose in this particular script of Bonanza, and his owner was intent on getting him back. Hoss was angry enough to spit nails, especially when Adam took the time to explain the Supreme Court’s position to his brother. That’s about as far as I got in the show before Hezekiah decided to carry on a conversation instead of seeing what kind of trouble Little Joe was going to end up in. I did see that the fugitive “slave” was a highly-educated black man with a British accent. I think there was a point to that if I would have kept watching.

I’m pretty sure there was some irony tucked away somewhere in my visit today, but I cannot place it exactly. I might have been some skinny version of Hoss Cartwright. And Hezekiah may have been some special-needs equivalent of the fugitive. And together, we still might be a bit astounded that second-class citizens get stuck in a system.

At least Hezekiah doesn’t know the difference.

And he’s doing mighty well…

Had a really busy day today…

Up early doing some work to get ahead, then on to Gulfport Memorial Hospital with one of my elders for what I thought would be surgery on one of our members. It turned out that things went much slower than everyone anticipated, and later this afternoon we received word that (a) there would not be surgery, and (b) there would be a biopsy tomorrow now to determine where to go from here.

Spent the afternoon hustling to squeeze quite a bit of work into three or four hours…

Then tonight, went to a birthday party for our friend, Shanna. While there, my friend Tom and I were taught the finer points of professional wrestling by our friends, Herman, Marion, and Tracy. I do know now that the freakishly large individual pictured above is Bobby Lashley, and he was the WWE champion until tonight, but for some reason he was drafted into another league and Vince McMahon made him give up his title belt. This angered the large Mr. Lashley, and his angry look is quite synonymous with the picture above.

I’m pretty sure Tom and I aren’t converts, but I now can carry on a very surface level conversation with a professional wrestling fan.