The Brandt Era

Philip II of Macedonia dreamed of uniting the ancient Greek city-states and conquering the Persian Empire.  After his untimely assassination, his son, later dubbed Alexander the Great by historians, fulfilled his father’s dream.  Alexander, a lover of all things Greek, spread Greek culture to much of the known world and played no small role in delivering Greek culture to the Modern Age.  This period beginning with Alexander’s death, when Greek culture spread to the non-Greek world, is known as the Hellenistic Era.  

I can’t imagine having done something so awesome in history to be bestowed the moniker “The Great” (However, Kate the Great does have a nice ring to it.) or even have a period dedicated to my legacy. Just a few days ago, I watched an interview being conducted with Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey told the interviewer about a conversation she had had with her late mentor, Maya Angelou. She was telling Angelou about the girl’s leadership school she was building in South Africa. She explained to Angelou that she believed her school would be her legacy. Oprah said that Maya in her “Maya way” told Winfrey that she had no idea what her legacy would be. Her mentor went on to tell her, “Your legacy is not one thing. Your legacy is what you do every day. Your legacy is every life you’ve touched; every person you have moved.”

This blog post has nothing to do with Alexander the Great, Oprah Winfrey, or Maya Angelou, but it is about the legacy one leaves.  In my early morning scroll of Facebook, I came across the obituary of Dr. Dorothy Brandt who died on Christmas Eve at the age of 91.  Dr. Brandt for many years served as a professor of Education at Presbyterian College and was also the head of its department.  I, being an alumnus of Newberry College, try my best to stay away from the wearers of blue hose, but for Dr. Brandt, I will make an exception.  I have had only one encounter with Dr. Brandt.  I was in the fourth grade at Clinton Elementary School.  My teacher Margaret Randall had a student teacher from PC.  Her name was Miss Edwards and she was awesome.  She was as loving and dynamic as Mrs. Randall, which were incredibly large shoes to fill, she was the official scorekeeper for our playground kickball games, and if I were to close my eyes right now, I could still see her 20-something-year-old face.  Dr. Brandt, being an education professor, came to observe our very own Miss Edwards.  I can’t remember if Miss Edwards promised us extra recess for good behavior or if we just wanted to do a great job for her while her teacher watched, but we were excellent.  Dr. Brandt sat at a small table at the back of the classroom–inconspicuous and nonintrusive.  We students were so enthralled with Miss Edwards’ lesson that we didn’t even hear Dr. Brandt leave, but I’ll never forget what she left.  On the chalkboard at the back of the room where she had been sitting, she wrote a note that said, “Dear class, y’all are a teacher’s dream.  Well done, Miss Edwards.”  I remember our class celebrating, and I’m sure, once being a student teacher myself, that Miss Edwards was a bit relieved.

In reading Dr. Brandt’s obituary this morning, I took umbrage to the line that said she was a former educator at Presbyterian College.  Yes, she was indeed a professor of Education at PC, but a former educator she is not.   At this moment, Dr. Brandt may very well be regaling the angels about her days in the classroom, but the fingerprints of her calling are still on all she touched.  My school district, Laurens County School District 56, has benefited greatly from Dr. Brandt, with many of our teachers being products of her classroom as well as other school districts around this country.  Every college and university’s education department could benefit from Dr. Brandt’s style of leadership–one that created prepared and excellent teachers.  The web of her influence has connections all across this planet–each strand representative of a student who went on to teach whether it be in a classroom or in the class called Life.  I come from a long line of educators, many of whom would count Dr. Brandt a Legend in the Art of Teaching.  Wouldn’t it be cool if we started calling this the Brandt Era–The period in which the art of teaching, the call to enlighten, spread to the uneducated world?  Dr. Brandt’s seven-sentence obituary, as inconspicuous and nonintrusive as she, doesn’t even begin to detail her legacy.  

I think Maya Angelou was right.  One’s legacy is not just one thing.  One’s legacy is what one does every day.  One’s legacy is every life one has touched and every person one has moved.  A legacy can be as simple as a note inscribed into a 4th grader’s memory. 

What a teacher’s dream.  Well done, Dr. Brandt. 

Not a Christmas Devotional

I wrote this as a devotional for my church’s adult Christmas dinner.  I thought I would post here.  I’ve changed a few lines to make it more blogpost-friendly.  Maybe some of you, like me, need to hear it every single day.

I’m not sure who all knows this, but I’m in the unpopular camp of people who do not like Christmas.  Contrary to popular belief, Christmas is not the merriest season of all for all.  For me, Christmas is an ever-constant reminder of a trauma that is not so much inside my head or heart anymore but has instead settled in my bone marrow. The ubiquitous Christmas music that seems to begin 30 seconds after Halloween, the decorating, the undecorating, the parties, the gifts, the wrapping.  It’s all so overwhelming–because each plays a role in igniting the pain that still lies in my bones.

I know what you are saying right now.  “Geezzz, what a Grinch! Baaahumbug!”

I know you’ll be shocked to find out this devotional is not a Christmas one. It’s an every-single-day-one.  This devotion is for you as much as it is for me.  It is true, I don’t relish the holiday we call Christmas, but make no mistake I do love Jesus, and I do love a good story.

The heart of this post is throughout the entire Bible.  But, just for kicks, we are going to focus on the story of Jesus’ birth told by Luke in chapter two.  You know the story.  Joseph and Mary are leaving Nazareth.  The whole census thing, the whole Mary extremely pregnant thing, the whole no room in the inn thing, the whole manger thing, the whole angel thing, the whole shepherds thing.  I mean–the whole thing almost puts ME in the Christmas spirit!  What an incredible story!  But, I want us to focus on the whole angel thing, or more or less what that angel said when he saw those lowly shepherds that night.  All versions of the Bible similarly translate that verse, but I’ll use the shortest version.  The angel says, “Fear not!” 

When Kate was in preschool, her preschool helped them to memorize part of Luke two.  Js has a recording of her telling this same story.  Her voice is child-like and due to her still having her adenoids and tonsils– a tad phlegmy.  She’s wearing her footie pajamas and I know she is mine–but it is precious!  But when she gets to the part where Gabriel speaks, she holds up her little hand and says emphatically, “Fear not!”  We knew then that Kate would always have a flair for the dramatic or be a Pentecostal.

I tell my students all the time that there is beauty in simple sentences.  All writing can’t be simple sentences, because that indeed would make it simple, but when you want to say something with POWER–Make it simple!  “Fear not!”  Gabriel said.  It can’t get much simpler than that.

Most who are reading this are adults.  We’ve probably given up our fear of the dark.  We’ve probably moved away from the fear of young adulthood of going broke.  We probably aren’t afraid of losing friendships.  We aren’t afraid of the monsters up under our beds.  But these are a few things we are probably afraid of:

Afraid of paying those college tuitions.

Afraid our cancer may come back.

Afraid we might get cancer.

Afraid of losing all our memories.

Afraid that the mistakes we’ve made may never be reconciled.

Afraid our children or grandchildren aren’t driving carefully.

Afraid of becoming a prisoner to a body that seems to be falling apart each morning.

Afraid of not saving enough for retirement.

Afraid of the time when our parents can’t care for us, but instead we must care for them.

Afraid of someone having to care for us, when we aren’t able to care for ourselves.

Afraid of all those holidays that aren’t so merry and bright anymore.

And the list of adult fears goes on and on . . . 

Gabriel said, “Fear not!”  I’ll summarize the next part of the story.  He says, “I’ve got good news, y’all.  A savior has just been born.”  The next part of the story is best told by Isaac Jacks in one of our many Christmas pageants held in our little sanctuary.  He was about ten.  He was dressed in his bathrobe with a towel on his head, banded with a small rope, his shepherd staff in his hand–he proclaimed, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see what’s happenin’!”

I mean . . . what a story!

A couple of summers ago, I embarked on a journey with 14 others to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain.  The pope calls it a pilgrimage.  And indeed it was.  I wasn’t seeking the Pope’s plenary indulgence–or my year of sin forgiven, but I was seeking some peace.  I walked more than 130 miles over 8 days.  At one of our pre-trip meetings, one of my fellow travelers gave us a piece of advice her husband had given to her.  He, recently retired, had set out to hike every mile of the Appalachian Trail (that trail being over 2,000 miles long).  The advice he gave to us all was simple: don’t pack your fears.  

I didn’t understand this advice until my meager 130-mile journey was done.  You see, I had packed for two weeks in a very small duffle and the smallest of rolling suitcases.  To give you perspective, I would have considered each to be an adequate overnight bag.  Two weeks packed into those two overnight bags.  The bag on the plane with me contained my walking clothes, socks, underwear, and a few toiletries.  The duffle would be checked, and it contained everything else.  

After a brief snafu at the Paris airport, I missed my flight to Porto, Portugal.   No other flights with Air France would get me to Porto by morning.  I quickly purchased another flight with another airline, but where was my duffle?  After traveling every inch of Charles de Gaulle airport, after being assured by the Frenchman at baggage claim, “Your bag will meet you in Porto, Mademoiselle.”, about 8 hours later, I hopped on a  puddle jumper to get to Porto in the middle of the night.  Exhausted from over 24 hours of travel, I hoped my bag would indeed meet me in Porto as the Frenchman had said.  Needless to say, it did not.  Who knew I had packed my fears into that duffle?

*That duffle contained snacks and water hydration amplifiers.  

Those 8 days on the Camino, I ate some of the best food I have ever eaten in my life!  Everything was fresh.  Instead of having a pack of crackers at a rest break from my duffle, I just had to go into a roadside cafe and have a freshly made chocolate-covered croissant and chase it with a Coke Zero.

*That duffle contained makeup and dress clothes. 

Thankfully, I’m just naturally beautiful. 🙂

*That duffle contained hiking poles and ankle braces.  

Less than 100 yards into my journey, there was a vendor selling hiking poles for only 15 euros.  A 130-mile journey, and I didn’t so much as stumble.

*That duffle contained bandaids, first aid supplies, and Compeed–if you don’t know what that is, it does miracles for hotspots and sore spots on your feet.  It acts as a second skin when your first skin is gone.  

130 miles!  Not a single blister.

*That duffle contained a poncho.  I know what you’re thinking–that it didn’t rain on the Camino, but it did.  It rained one entire day.  The longest and hardest day–18 miles and the highest elevation climb over the entire trip.

 But, the rain kept me cool and refreshed.

The Frenchman at baggage claim did not lie.  I indeed reunited with that duffle in Porto . . . the day before I flew home.  There was no need to open it.  I hadn’t needed a single thing in it.

“Fear not!”  Gabriel said.  

The command for us to not be afraid, or to simply “fear not!”, is in the bible a whopping 365 times.  I don’t think that’s a coincidence.  A command for us every single day.  This too is not a coincidence, God tells us to “be still”.  The Hebrews called it raphah–and like words in English, it has multiple meanings.  One meaning of raphah or be still is, “let it go” said simply, “drop it”.  

On the Camino, we would often take rest breaks at little stone chapels along the way.  My aunt and uncle, Russ and Amy, and others would often sing–the words of their song– “Do not be afraid.  Peace be still.”–reverberating off the ancient stones of each chapel.  All of these chapels were the same–small, cool, holy.  My aunt and I commented on the overabundant need that Catholics have to show the suffering of Jesus.  The chapel wouldn’t have electricity, the decor sparse, but it would always have Jesus depicted hanging from the cross–bloodied and anguished.  Amy said, “I don’t see Jesus that way.  I know he suffered and I know he died, but MY Jesus is alive.”

Let this devotion be a daily reminder.

Don’t pack your fears. 

Drop them. 

We do not need to go to Bethlehem to see what happened. 

We KNOW what happened. 

A savior was born and–Fear Not!–He still lives!

I told y’all I loved a good story.

Finding Your Match

On days like today, being part of a large family is incredible!  For those out there who may not have had someone close to them graduate from medical school, “Match Day” is when med students find out where they are going to be placed for their residency.  My cousin, Jackson, had our whole family on pins and needles.  We were all trying to watch the live feed from the USC School of Medicine’s Facebook page.  In the words of my father, “USC needs to offer a class called Facebooking 101.”  The live stream was in and out of both picture and sound. I didn’t get to see his face, but I did hear him say, “I am Jackson Dean. I’ve matched with Greenville for Internal Medicine.”  I have to admit.  I cussed.  (Sorry, mama.) You couldn’t see his sweet, handsome face!  But, I also cheered–in my bedroom, folding clothes, alone–and in all honestly, I cried a little, too.  

Jackson.  That little boy who used to spend a week at “Camp Katie”, that boy who I watched pitch many an inning from the mound, that boy . . . is now a Doctor!  Whew.  No wonder I cried.  

All of this excitement got me thinking.  Thinking about all of us finding our matches.  No, I’m not talking about significant others.  I’m talking about our match.   You know, the thing, the thing that gets us up every morning.  That thing that calls us.  I don’t know how long Jackson has dreamed of being a doctor or how many hours he has spent studying.  I listened as student after student announced where they were going, and the people who were there just celebrated in joy.  What a noble profession!  Doctor.  Man, that’s something, y’all.  

Today, I’m so proud of Jackson and all that he has accomplished, but I’m also just as proud of his brother, Bennett.  His match didn’t come in an envelope or an exciting ceremony.  His match won’t fill his coffers nor will it give him any fancy titles.  But, I can rest assured that he has found his match, too.  

B is a middle school teacher.  He teaches Science and he coaches girls’ basketball and boys’ baseball.  He has even enlisted his brother to help him coach.  I told B a couple of weeks ago after his girls’ basketball team lost the middle school championship game that he would battle his whole life explaining to people what it is he does.  That when he told people that he taught middle school they would always reply, “Bless your heart.”  I told him that when his girls were forty they probably wouldn’t remember losing that game, but that they would sure as hell remember their coach.  I told him that underneath the pimples, hormones, axe body spray, and the overabundance of adolescent angst there is really just an impressionable little human trying to figure out who he or she really is.  I told him he had found the thing he was meant to do. 

I hope all of you reading have too.  There really is nothing quite like finding your match.  It makes getting up when that alarm goes off so much easier.   

I’ll end this with a little shout-out to the two that inspired this post.  Jackson and B, I cried the same tears when I spotted each of you find that “thing”–the thing you were called to do.  I know Mom, Pop, and Kevin were all cheering with us.  I’m sure their live stream was a tad bit better than ours though.  🙂  And there’s one more thing I’m sure of, regardless of if you wear a stethoscope or a whistle, you both without a doubt will save lives.  Well done, boys.  I’m so proud you’ve found your match. 

What now? My Thoughts on Grief and Living

”Kevin”

Whether it’s my watch’s silent buzz or the sun coming through my bedroom windows, I always wake up with the same routine.  I say their names.  Kevin’s name is always first.  Shortly after his death, I was reading something that said a person never dies until the day their name is not spoken.  So every morning, without fail, I say his name.  The older I get the longer my list of names has gotten. 

This morning I say his name on what would have been his 40th birthday.  

You, my reader, might not have known Kevin, but I’m sure everyone reading knows a little or a lot about grief.

Kevin died when he was 16.  I was 17 and a senior in high school.  He was my cousin that grew up just a short golf cart ride from my house.  He was my best friend.  He was my brother–not in the biological sense–but in my heart.  We loved each other like siblings.  We fought.  There was hardly a game we played either basketball or video game that didn’t end up with us rolling around punching each other.  We loved.  I’ll never forget him getting out of class in high school to come to see me in my independent study yearbook class.  My dog had come home out of the woods sick that morning.  I knew he wouldn’t make it until I got home.  He came to hug me and tell me he would bury him when he got home.  He risked getting into trouble (he was supposed to be in the bathroom) to comfort me.  Knowing me, being the ultimate rule follower, I doubt I would have done the same.

I, too, am 40.  At 40, I realize at the age of 17 I left my heart wide open and vulnerable.  If you don’t know already, a wide-open and vulnerable heart hurts when the ills of earthly life get ahold of it.  The word “heartache” doesn’t really even begin to describe it.  But, I write this today to provide a glimmer of hope.  

The last place I laid my eyes on Kevin before his accident was in the upstairs hallway of our high school.  He was coming down the hall headed to his next class.  At the bottom of those four stairs–just two doors down from where I now teach the future of America–the exact place where we exchanged a few words about his upcoming home tennis match and my away softball game–is right outside the office of the 6th-grade guidance counselor and my best friend.  My best friend from college celebrates her birthday today as well, March 19th.  Coincidence?  I think not.  

I see Kevin in so many people–my best friends, my family, my students.  I see him everywhere, even in my dreams.  Yes, I see him in my dreams. We talk and laugh in some of the most random of places.  His hair is still coarse and parted the same way, the timbre of his voice is the same, his lopsided; kind of cocky smile is the same.  The only thing that’s different is he has a beard.  I know, right?  Weird!  I know how dreams work.  Dreams are just our brain’s file cabinet that when we sleep those files shift in an attempt to get organized.  Maybe these dreams are just manifestations of all the what-ifs I’ve said over the years.  Maybe they are just coincidences.  Again, I think not.

Ok.  I know.  I promised hope.  

Grief is such a thief, but it is also such a great teacher.  If I’ve learned anything over the years that he has been gone it’s that grief is simply a measure of how much we love.  Grief, for years, made me ask, “What if?”  What if he had not died:  Would we live side by side on A.B. Jacks Road?  Would he be married or have children?  Would our children have fought and loved each other as much as we did?  Grief makes us ask such silly things.  I think I’ve discovered the question that we grieving souls should ask–it’s not what if, but what now?

Kevin wasn’t a boy of few words.  He quite often let his opinions and voice be heard–loudly and clearly.  If I were to ask him today, “Kevin, what now?”  I know what he would say.  It wouldn’t take a lot of words.  It would only take one.  He would say, “Live.”  

Live.

Live.

Live for you, not me.

Live and plant dreams where wounds have left all of those jagged scars.

Live, learn new things, and see new things. 

Live–and when life knocks you down–get back up and live some more.

Live and love even if you lose. 

Live and laugh a lot!!

I swear I can hear Kevin right now, “Live, Kate, just live.”

We who grieve need to choose to live while we grieve–not just grieve for grieving’s sake.  We need a shift in perspective.  I need to think not of the 24 years I’ve lost, but the 16 I gained.  In the mornings, my recitation of names need not be a litany of the people I’ve lost but the memories of those people I still have.  

Happy 40th birthday, Kevin.  I know you will celebrate, as you probably do every day in heaven, with some of the same names I call after yours every morning.  I can’t wait until I get to celebrate with you, but until then, I’m going to live.

Bringing Home an Empty Dish

Several years ago I decided to start this blog because I noticed that I had a lot of stories, lessons, and spiritual awakenings that over my short life were rattling around inside my head and probably needed to be put down on paper.  Not as much for others to read, but really just for me–so that I would always remember.   I came up with the title, Chronicles of a Mini Pearl, because who else lives in a family with its own women’s social group–I mean legit social group–the “Sugarflat Pearls” have bylaws and even officers to carry them out.  I think I just elected myself as the Sugarflat Pearls Chronicler to do just what that title suggests–I wanted to be the person who wrote the accounts of the most important historical, Sugarflat events.

A historical event happened this week.

Shortly after leaving home for college, I quickly found out that not all families were like mine.  In fact, none were like mine.  Not to toot our own horn—but more families should be.  Television shows depict families torn apart or family gatherings as a place where you bicker and dredge up old grudges.  Not in mine.  Our family gatherings are for laughing at the retelling of old mishaps or the many escapades that have occurred over the years on A.B. Jacks Road.  Our family gatherings are spontaneous—as soon as the first flakes of snow fall–word travels that the soup is on and the sledding hill is open for business. Our family gatherings are for eating.  Our family gatherings are for games like Family Feud, and Scattergories, and MadGab. Games played together with both young and old participating.  Games that always, always end in a tie.  I think I started this blog because I wanted to give just a glimpse, to those less fortunate than I, of what it is like to be a part of such a family that extends so much farther than the land on the outskirts of Clinton and Laurens known to all of us as Sugarflat.  

On Wednesday of this week, around four o’clock in the afternoon, Almeda Jacks Rogers, most affectionately known to most of my family as MeMa, died.  Remember, my job is to write about important events.  Most reading this, probably didn’t know her or maybe only knew her through relatives of relatives.  But even if you didn’t know her, please don’t stop reading.

MeMa was the matriarch of the Sugarflat Pearls, the matriarch of the Jacks family, the oldest daughter to Ma Polly and Daddy B.  She was 99 when she took her last breath and when mama let me know she was gone–I cried.  I cried for me, not for her.  I cried because when I said all of those things about family gatherings, and games, and fun, and laughter, and spontaneity, and food, MeMa was at the heart and most often the mastermind of them all.  

MeMa graduated from college when most women never attended.  She married and when her husband was away at war, storming the beaches of Normandy, she was keeping the home fires burning.  She went back to school again to become a teacher while raising a large family.  She could cook like none other–Chess Pie, Peanut Brittle, German Chocolate Cake, casseroles, vegetables, and anything else that is fried in a pan or is baked in an oven.  She wasn’t my grandmama–but yet she let me and all my other cousins think she was.   She loved us just like she loved her own.  She made me a plate full of individual heart shaped cakes on Valentine’s Day even though I was the only one living in my house.  She would make me a jar of peach preserve juice–yes that’s right–just the sugary syrup that the fruit and sugary mixture leave behind because that’s the way I liked it.  She did that–just for me.  

I wouldn’t be a good chronicler if I didn’t write something to leave on this world about my MeMa– not for her or my family–because she leaves behind a beautiful group of children and grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and so on and so on that will carry her legacy of love of family .  . . forever.

I write this for you.

I write this for you, the person reading this who is alone or in a dispute with your own family.  I write this for you, the person who didn’t have the chance to know your grandparents or maybe your grandparents just weren’t good.  I write this for you, to tell you in MeMa’s honor, to either fix what is broken with your own family, or to break the cycle of the broken family from whence you came. Start fresh if you have to.  Create a family like MeMa did, be a parent and grandparent to your own children and grandchildren and even children not yours like MeMa was.  Decide today that you are going to create a family like mine–we aren’t perfect, we have dysfunction too, we have arguments–but we still love each other.  That’s the legacy MeMa left–love–despite it all.   

MeMa loved every member of her family.  She loved us so much she often would cry just thinking about the ones of us who were gone or the ones that left us too soon.  Now, MeMa, we cry because you’re gone.  But, Mema, you leviathan Pearl, you left your mark, and the ones of us who had the pleasure of knowing you will carry your love for family, and for fun, and for laughter, and for food until we see you again.  Due to Covid-19, we won’t celebrate your life like normal.  There will be food, and laughter, and stories, and fun, but we probably won’t hug and kiss.  We will be masked up and socially distanced.  But this I know, love can travel way farther than the 6 feet or heavenly distance between us.

After a church fellowship supper, as I was throwing the remains of what I had brought into the woods behind my church, I told my mama that my goal was to figure out how to make a dish as good as Mema.  Mama asked what I meant by that, and I told her that MeMa always takes an empty dish home.

Family gatherings look differently these days, but as MeMa would tell you, these days will pass.  

What dish are you making for your next family gathering? 

Try to make something so good you bring an empty dish home–for your family, for yourself, and, of course, for MeMa.

Have you seen Him?

Several weeks ago a friend of mine on Facebook posted this distorted image with the caption, “Look at the four dots at the center of the image for 30 seconds.  Then look at the ceiling and blink a few times. What do you see?” 

Pause.  Look at this for yourselves.  What else do you have to do today?

Matt, my Facebook friend, is also a tremendous Kiss fan, so I thought I might see a hologram of Gene Simmons sticking his tongue out. 

Instead, I saw Jesus. You know the version of Jesus that a lot of us have depicted in our minds–man with long flowing locks and bearded face. There used to be a picture hanging in our church’s nursery of Jesus, a little lamb following behind, and as I blinked up at my ceiling, this man looked just like Him!  I was in awe of this little optical illusion and commented on the post, “That was unreal!”  

Unreal and unprecedented are just two of the words that have been used to describe this time.  Stay home. Essential workers. No school. No church. Social distance. I had made up my mind the first couple of days of the first week of quarantine that I was just about sick of all of this.  On one of my many treks to see what I had in the refrigerator, I caught a glimpse of a board I have hanging up in my home. Painted blue and as simplistic as it can get it reads, “Be still & know.” It dawned on me that all this I just mentioned above could last a while.  And you know what? I needed to be still and know.  From that point on there was a change in my attitude.  I saw Him. Not the hologram/optical illusion from Facebook. Him.

I saw Him in the faces of my school children on Google Meets.  I saw Him in the perfect weather outside. I saw Him in the faces of healthcare workers with bruised faces from their N95 masks.  I saw Him as I Zoomed with my extended family.  I saw Him when we had Sunday School last week for an hour and a half. I saw Him in the thousands upon thousands of crosses that have taken over people’s yards across hundreds of different neighborhoods. 

Through all of this, I have also found that the beauty of Jesus can’t be contained in just sight.  

I tasted Him when I took the Holy Sacrament alone at my kitchen counter with the voice of Doc, my preacher, saying, “Take eat, this is my body . . . Drink this in remembrance of Me.”  

I smelled Him in the blossoms of my azaleas in my front yard.  I’ve smelled him in sanitizer and hand soap.  I smelled Him in the rain this Easter morning.  

I heard Him in my Sasa’s laughter, I heard Him as my cousin, B, played “Were you there?” on the trumpet, I heard Him in the singing of the birds outside, I heard Him in my friends’ voices, some of whom I haven’t seen in months, and in my aunt’s voice this morning as she delivered the sermon at her church in Charlotte–again right at my kitchen counter!   

I’ve felt Him.  In these times of social distancing, I have to admit I’ve missed human touch most of all.  But, I’ve felt Him. I’ve felt Him possibly more so than I’ve ever felt Him before. I’ve felt Him in the gentle breeze that keeps my hammock swinging.  I’ve felt Him as I’ve shed tears for those whom have already lost someone to this virus. I felt Him when my attitude shifted on my way to the refrigerator.

Earlier this week I went to my backyard and found a 2X4.  I cut it, drilled holes in it, and screwed in the cross piece.  I got an extension cord and a small LED light. I waited for darkness, thinking my light might not be bright enough to illuminate even my little six foot cross.  When I took this picture, I was amazed that the little light not only illuminated the cross, but even the woods behind it.  

Isn’t it just like Him to shine the brightest in the dark?

Be still and know.  

Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed.  

Alleluia!

Happy Easter!

Apple’s Algorithm

Technology has become very pervasive in society. I saw a recent study that when cell phones are taken from teenagers their anxiety levels increase exponentially. I find even myself blanching at my weekly report that shows how many hours I’ve spent on my phone. However, technology can be such a beautiful thing.

When I bought my truck several months ago, I discovered this new feature. I don’t know what makes it work but somehow my truck, phone, and Apple watch are all synced. Depending on the day and time, as soon as I crank my truck, my watch alerts me, based on traffic, the time it is going to take me to get to my destination. For example, tomorrow morning at 6:30 my watch is going to buzz and say that it’s going to take me 9 minutes to get to 800 North Adair Street. Around 4:30, when my truck cranks again, it will buzz, and again, tell me how many minutes it will take me to get to 1850 A.B. Jacks Road. Lately, around 6 o’clock, it alerts to tell me that 2800 A.B. Jacks Road will take me exactly 1 minute to reach. At 7ish, it will tell me it is 15 minutes to 100 Navigator Lane.

Until today, this feature has kind of gone unnoticed by me. When my watch vibrated to say it was 12 minutes to 2252 Leesville Church Road this morning, I said out loud, “How do you know where I am going?” I thought all the way to my destination how this technology must work. How did my watch know, before I even backed out of the driveway, my destination? Am I just that predictable?

It only took me a few miles into my journey to realize what makes this so beautiful. I AM predictable.

See, 800 North Adair Street is Clinton Middle School–where I work.

1850 A.B. Jacks Road is my home.

I’ve been in a walking boot for about a week now, with several weeks to go, and my mama feels sorry for me. She has texted just about everyday to give me her nightly menu and to see if I want to come to supper. 2800 A.B. Jacks Road is where my parents live.

I spent the summer walking this neighborhood with its massive hills and well manicure lawns–more to clear my head than for exercise. I spent five miles laughing and sometimes crying with my best friend who just so happens to live at 100 Navigator Lane.

And then, this Sunday morning, it just knew where I was going. It knew I was going to church.

So, I don’t know what algorithm Apple uses to figure all of this out. I guess Apple just tracks me everywhere I go. I guess I am just a predictable girl. I’m sure it was developed just to make Apple even more money, but isn’t it amazing the algorithm just knows where my heart lies–with my job, with my home, with my parents, with my best friend, and with my church.

Does your watch know where you are headed? I hope so.

A Writer of Good Stories

Please pardon my brief foray into TV as I give a quick plug for a fairly new show. If you aren’t watching This is Us, you are missing TV at its best. This show speaks directly to the heart and quite often makes me ugly cry with its tenderness. As I texted my sister and a friend this morning to tell them to watch this week’s episode as soon as possible, I left them with this tiny morsel of a description–sheer, unadulterated, writing perfection.

A scene from this week’s show instantly resonated with me. The scene contains two people–a judge and a man he is about to sentence for drug possession. The judge explains that he is a judge but how strange it is that he doesn’t make the rules. He talks about criminals that he has sentenced in the past, and explains how he knows the ending of all of those criminals’ stories even though they are yet to be written. The next part is too good to paraphrase so just listen to his words. The judge says, “I am here to tell you that you said something yesterday that has stuck with me. You said you were the most disappointed man in the world. And I’m here to tell you, I fear, I am a close second, because I’m the man who writes terrible stories day after day and I can’t change the endings. And that, sir, is a horrible disappointment.”

I have to admit I was running on a treadmill while watching this part. Tears streaming. The judge had me at, “I’m the man who writes terrible stories.” This one line sent me back to the computer, the keyboard, this blog.

***

I recently stopped watching the news. I can’t take it. Call it burying your head in the sand, call it creating my own fantasy land, call it whatever you wish–I can’t do it.

I can’t do it.

Anymore.

Watching the news creates fear these days, and God clearly said through Gabriel, “Fear not!” So, I don’t tune in. Unfortunately though, I’m still all too aware of the evil.

We aren’t safe anywhere anymore.

Churches, schools, concerts, daycares . . . You name it.

Nowhere is safe.

Assault rifles loaded with magazines, transfer trucks used as mowers of people, pressure cookers that steam explosive shrapnel.

Nothing is safe.

And as soon as the terror happens we start pointing fingers–at guns, at mental health, at race, at politics, at the news media, at criminals, at laws, at religion. My mama always taught me it was wrong to point fingers.

So why do we do it? Because it makes us feel better. Because it means it’s not our fault. Because it’s not us . . . it’s them.

Let’s stop pointing.

For those of you reading, I want you think about what you do.

Are you a homemaker, salesman, secretary, farmer, doctor, lawyer, dancer, artist, mechanic, police officer, nurse, fire fighter, preacher, retiree, . . .?

Who are you coming into contact with each day?

For whose stories are you writing a prologue, a sentence, a paragraph, a page, a chapter, an epilogue?

I’m a teacher. Right now, I’m helping to write a minimum of 57 stories.

I am a teacher because of two teachers.

One teacher wrote sentences of self-assuredness, paragraphs of perseverance, and chapters of compassion into my book.

And one teacher wrote, it seemed, a whole book of unworthiness and humiliation. That story that this teacher wrote was not mine, but the poor, overweight kid I sat next to. The only thing that teacher wrote in my book was a long chapter on guilt.

Whose story are you helping to write? Is what you are writing good? Are you writing words of possibility, sentences of kindness, paragraphs of hope, chapters of love?

Evil is everywhere.

Be a writer of good stories.

It doesn’t matter what you do, where you live, who you know, how much money you have, how old you are.

Evil is everywhere.

But if evil is everywhere, so is its opposite–good.

Stop pointing.

Get writing . . .

and make it good.

Celebrating 150 Years, and Why it Matters

Tomorrow my church will celebrate its 150th anniversary. Fact is—we’ve been celebrating it for two Sundays now—tomorrow is just the grand finale. Guests, singing, and excitement have filled our sanctuary these past few Sundays. In a world where nothing much lasts, what a celebration this has been and will be.

As a person who grew up going to church all my 34 years, I’ve never understood how people deny its gravitational pull. Sure as a child, I dreaded getting into a dress and much more than that, I hated fixing my hair and putting on uncomfortable shoes. To be completely honest, I kind of still do. Many times, I’m sure I was just straight up forced to go by my parents. Don’t misunderstand me, I’ve missed Sundays while in college and on vacation, but as soon as I’ve turned myself back towards Clinton—I’ve found myself on the second to last pew at Leesville Southern Methodist Church on Sunday.

Looking back, now as an adult, I’m glad I did, because in that little, white, country church I found God. I found God running around in the churchyard playing games of softball or tag. I found God in each Sunday school room where l learned the books of the Bible, memorized scripture, and studied how to apply the Word of God to my everyday life. I found God in the covered dish suppers—and I found a few pounds, too.

I found God in Bible School in the glue, styrofoam, and glitter I used to make the Chrismons that still adorn our church’s Christmas tree. I found God every time I sat by my little niece, and I heard her recite the Lord’s Prayer in her infinitesimal, speech impeded way. I found God when my boyfriend, now husband, sat beside me and we shared a hymnal for the first time. I found God in the hand bells and songs I sang in choir. I found God by pulling the rope to ring the church bell, and in the skits we performed as youth. I found God watching the members of my small congregation work, and when we would hold hands in a circle and sing, “Bless be the tie that binds.”

I found Him while riding through the cemetery with my Pop as he pointed out all the loved ones that he had lain to rest there. I found Him, on my knees, at the altar, when I vowed that I believed that Jesus was my Savior, that He died to save a wretch like me, and that I would always strive to walk in His light. I found God in so many other countless ways, and for as long as I live, I’m sure I will continue to find Him in that little, alabaster church in the vale.

My church celebrates 150 years. No, our sanctuary is not 150 years old, close but not quite. One hundred and fifty years ago, some people came to gather, under the shade of a tree, on that Holy Ground that sits just in between the towns of Laurens and Clinton and began to worship. The same ground where 150 years later people still do. We celebrate tomorrow, not a building, but the people who were lead to that beautiful patch of grass that Sunday many generations ago. A church is not just about the steeple or the open doors as you learned as a small child—the church is . . . all the people.

Today, many ask themselves, “Why does church matter? In this world where evil is too prevalent, where pain abounds, and where judgment is down right pervasive– why does it matter?” I’ll tell you why it matters. It matters, because it is a dose of medicine. It matters, because that’s where you get the water that makes you not thirsty anymore. It matters, because it’s where there is Good News. It matters because that’s where people are that know that there is more to this life—where people are that know that there is hope—where people are that know about a supernatural kind of grace. It matters not because the songs that are sung, or the preacher that preaches, or the people that attend there, or the many programs it has to offer—It matters, because in a world where God seems absent, you will most assuredly find Him there.

A few years ago, while reading, Anne Lamont’s book, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, I came across a story that resonated deeply with me. Anne tells a story that her preacher had told to her congregation. When her preacher was very young, she had wandered away from home. A policeman that was on patrol found her, and eventually, picked her up. When the policeman asked her for her address, she being so little couldn’t recall it. The policeman just continued to ride around hoping the lost little girl in his passenger seat recognized a familiar landmark that may trigger her memory. After miles of riding around, the girl finally asked the officer to stop. She told the officer that what she saw from his police car window was her church. She asked to be let out. She told the officer that she could find her way home from there.

If you find yourself lost, we will be celebrating tomorrow with more guests, with more singing and bell playing, and I’m sure quite a few tears of joy as well. We’ll be eating after the service like we used to, on the church grounds.

Why?

Because it matters.

I promise, He’ll be there.

And, I promise you’ll be able to find your way home.

The Confederate Flag, The Supreme Court, and The Motorcycle Wave.

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”

Kenny and I are spending one of our vacations on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I have to say I’ve never been a real News watcher, and I’m definitely not one on vacation—especially when all it seems to cover are shark attacks in our area. But even though I’ve missed a good bit of the news on the Charleston Emmanuel AME Church shooting and the controversy of the Confederate Flag, I feel like I have gotten my fill of news from Facebook. Then, in the midst of an already full news cycle, the Supreme Court rules on making same sex marriages legal in all 50 states. I saw an ECard on Facebook that recently summed up the news. It said, “My Facebook feed looks like a battle has broken out between the confederates and a Skittles factory.”

I want you to know before you read any further that this is not a blog post where I’m going to share my personal thoughts or opinions on any of the topics from the news lately. Personally, I have heard enough of people’s opinions both for and against—and frankly—I’ve heard way too much ignorance. I have to admit though, that I did choose this as my title to get people to open and read this post. Sorry, it might be false advertising on my part.

But like I said, Kenny and I are in the Outer Banks. We chose this as our vacation destination because we thought it would be a great place to ride our motorcycles. I don’t know if any of ya’ll out there have ever ridden a motorcycle. All I can say is it’s freeing and empowering. Honestly riding a motorcycle is, I think, when I’m most at peace with the world.

Today, as Kenny and I drove about thirty miles up the coast of the Outer Banks into the town of Corolla, where wild horses roam, and a lighthouse shines its beam into the night’s sky, we passed numerous other motorcycles. Each rider giving us the classic wave—the two fingers (pointer and middle) extended towards the ground using your left hand. Kenny and I haven’t passed a motorcycle yet that didn’t know, what seems to be, this universal language. We even got a wave from a moped as it meeeeeeeeeeeeeped by us.

Not only is riding freeing, and empowering, and peaceful, but you can learn so much riding a motorcycle. I don’t know if it was the scents of local BBQ and seafood restaurants or the ubiquitous fresh salty air blowing through my hair that made me delve so deep into profound thought. I don’t know what it was that made me see so clearly, but I’m glad I did. See, over the course of approximately 60 miles every motorcycle we passed gave us the wave. I haven’t done any research to determine what the wave means, I hope its nothing ugly. I don’t know if the two fingers stand for two words, “Be safe!” or “Cool Bike!” or “Ride on!” I don’t know if it is an upside down peace sign. But, what I would like to think it means—what that wave symbolizes for me is, “Howdy, neighbor!”

As I’m approaching a motorcycle I hardly ever have time to see much—Was it a male or female? Was it a Harley, or a Crouch Rocket? Were they black or white? Were they wearing leather or not.

The only thing I noticed today was that regardless of the brand, regardless of the color, regardless of the power—the wave was always the same.

Did I mention you could learn a lot on a motorcycle?