I drove my family to my hometown of Mineral Wells yesterday. It may have been five years since my last visit. One of my closest friends since junior high, someone who I attended college with, has been pastoring the same church for twenty years. His congregation wanted to honor him and his wife and invited me to be part of the celebration. Despite being a recovering Baptist (Southern Baptist, specifically) with some very strong convictions, I felt it was more important to set all that aside and simply support and love a friend.
My friend’s father was my childhood pastor. He baptized me, officiated my father’s funeral, and married me and WifeGeeding. I haven’t seen or spoken to him or his wife since my wedding sixteen years ago. It was great running into them in the parking lot and having the opportunity to introduce them to my children. He was the “surprise guest pastor”. It took him a moment to recognize who I was, and at first, I thought he may have lost his marbles as he asked how my mother was, she’s been dead for over thirteen years and his son tells me he updates him on my life frequently. His wife seemed a tad embarrassed and apologized for him even though I took absolutely no offense. He then asked if he officiated my mother’s funeral. Again, no offense taken, but I did start to wonder if he was really going to preach in a few minutes. As it turns out, he was just a bit absent-minded because he was totally in his element delivering a sermon directed to his son and his flock. It was great hearing him preach and brought back a lot of childhood memories and being reminded of certain mannerisms, quirks, idiosyncrasies, which I now see in his son. He’s also great with eye contact which as a youth felt rather intimidating. And, he does this think where he says, “Amen” and expects you to say it back. Because I’m a pessimist, I couldn’t help but wonder if this would be the very last time I would ever him preach, so I tried to soak it all in.
It’s been an interesting year for pastors in my life. I was celebrating the 20th anniversary of my friend preaching at his church. Our other close friend who is an SBC pastor couldn’t attend because he just accepted a gig near Austin after spending two years out of the ministry and was being introduced to his new church. He’s lived all his life in Mineral Wells and Abilene, so this will be an adjustment. And, earlier this year, the founding pastor of my church retired after 30 years. All of this made me reflect on what pastor have I heard preach the most. I’m not sure if that’s something which goes through a pastor’s mind, at least in those terms, but when you think about the influence a pastor has, it’s pretty significant. I thought it was the pastor of my youth, but when I did the math, it’s my pastor who recently retired.
During the sermon, the most cliche thing happened and I’m not making this up, the pastor quoted Walker Texas Ranger.
Now that the kids are a bit older, they have a little better understanding of what a special trip this was for me. Not just supporting my friend, but seeing my hometown and the places which held major influences my life. I’ll try to write more about it later in the week.
I also tried an experiment with the kids. I wanted to see the trip through their eyes, so I gave them a digital camera and told them to take pictures whenever and whatever they wanted. I’m looking forward to going through them.
My friend’s celebration was held during the Cowboys game. His congregation, bless their hearts, aren’t good planners. But then again, maybe they are since they were playing the Dolphins.
I love you too, Marissa Tomei. I love you, too.
Posted inPersonal|Comments Off on Bag of Randomness for Monday, September 23, 2019
Within a month, two of my friends have moved to the Austin area for different reasons. I’m a bit envious, a new chapter in life and a change in setting sounds fun and adventurous.
It always throws me off when the drive-thru speaker with a peppy American accent greets me and after I place my order it’s followed by a person with a foreign accent. I don’t understand why those restaurants simply don’t let the person wearing the headset do the greeting. But, I guess the actual human taking the order at the drive-thru will be replaced by some sort of AI within the next ten years.
It’s gonna cost about $12,000,000 to convert the Rangers ballpark, Globe Life Park, into an XFL stadium. Renovations on Globe Life Park will start on October 10th with a completion date of February 14th. The XFL season starts Feb 8th. It appears the renovation will add 4,000 bleacher seats, two new locker rooms, and an upgraded broadcast suite. I have a feeling Randy Cody could do this for half the price and get it done before the start of the season.
September 21, 2019, is Museum Day, which means many museums are free to visit with a Museum Day ticket, more details at Smithsonianmag.com.
A fun question on Twitter – @Rev_Norespect: What’s the craziest committee you’ve seen in church?
I got a kick out of some of the answers, like the ones below, but I was annoyed by the prosaic response of the “Committee on Committees” but they do exist.
Parking lot committee. They wrote “tickets” for cars that were not parked between the lines. This was to make sure there were enough spots for all the cars. It worked because many people didn’t come back.
Fried Chicken committee. Their job was to make sure there was enough chicken at all the church fellowships.
Carpet committee. They were tasked with “updating” the look of the sanctuary by replacing the cardinal red carpet. A few families left because they couldn’t bear to see the red carpet go.
Brisket is king in Texas. Wagyu is the pinnacle of steak. There was a chance to combine the two for the expert meat smoker. Fewer than 50 of these rare delicacies were available for import into the US and cut in half (from over 30 lbs to 15-16 lbs — for easier shipping) with the slice made lengthwise to preserve portions of both the point and flat. The cows were raised in Kagawa on an olive-rich diet (which adds umami flavor to the marbled cuts) and the briskets ranged in grade from A3 to A5. This ultimate piece of beef would only set you back $690.
I like how photographer Claudio Piccoli was able to capture this dog totally stretched out.
Totally uncool, even if they are trying to bring about awareness – A New York clothing company has introduced school shooting hoodies that have bullet holes in them and feature the names of four schools where nearly 100 students were shot to death, including Sandy Hook, Columbine, Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Virginia Tech.
I’m a skeptic and my mind often thinks about possible conspiracy theories (though I usually don’t subscribe to any), so I’m skeptical that Iran sent those drones to damage a Saudi Arabian oil field. Governments, including our own, have done some crazy things to cast blame and start a war. For instance, there’s the 1953 Iranian coup d’état our CIA helped orchestrate.
In a conversation yesterday, the Sesame Street pinball number count video was referenced. I still like to count to 12 in the same fashion as the song. I had no idea the Pointer Sisters did the vocals.
Posted inPersonal|Comments Off on Bag of Randomness for Thursday, September 19, 2019
Journalist Cokie Roberts died yesterday, President Trump offered his thoughts, “I never met her. She never treated me nicely. But I would like to wish her family well. She was a professional and I respect professionals. I respect you guys a lot, you people a lot. She was a real professional. Never treated me well, but I certainly respect her as a professional.” Well, at least he wouldn’t say anything of the like about the death of a senator of his party who was a POW. At least the man is consistent.
Speaking of journalism, it’s been excruciating watching Norah O’Donnell anchor The CBS Evening News. One criticism I have is the number of times she says “Breaking news.” I’m almost certain she says it at least twice a broadcast, and the news isn’t even breaking. Yesterday, at the top of the newscast, she said it was “breaking news” that a hurricane has hit Texas. Dude, a forecasted hurricane is not breaking news. If the hurricane suddenly lifted a great white shark from the Gulf of Mexico and it landed on the roof of the Astrodome a few minutes before the broadcast, that would be breaking news.
I’ve really enjoyed watching HGTV’s four-episode series on renovating the Brady Bunch house with the cast of the children actors on the show. I was a bit surprised at this fact, HGTV filmed over 9,000 hours for the four-hour series.
