Running on Empty

The other night as I was filling up my sixteen-gallon gas-guzzler of an automobile, I began to think about all the many ways we re-fuel in life.  I began to think about what we are putting into our minds to recharge us, bolster us, and give us energy to get us up and get us going every day. 

What if we viewed each morning-- each entire day-- as though we woke up with an empty tank yet a completely clean slate?  What types of fuel would you use to ramp up your wisdom?  Your knowledge? 

Have you ever considered how important it is to fill your mind with the high octane, penetrating truth of the Bible?  When is the last time that you pulled your vehicle up to this pump? 

It really is profound how our lives are suddenly transformed when we allow the truth of God to fill our tanks.  Life runs rather smoothly.  We don't have to worry about running out of gas, or gas prices going through the roof.  Jesus said, "I am the same yesterday, today, and forever."  All it takes is a little humility and openness each day to let God fill us with his overarching wisdom and understanding. 

Have you refueled today?

Something Worth Reading

What would you do if a madman wanted you to leave town?  Would you pack up your family and head out?  Worse, what if this madman went to church with you? 

The Devil in Pew Number Seven is a true story about a preacher who moved Sellerstown, North Carolina in 1969 to become pastor at Free Welcome Holiness Church.  He brought his wife and young daughter to the community to lead a small congregation of believers.  But he would soon learn that a man who attended services at the church would stop at virtually nothing to try to force them out of town. 

It began with late night phone calls and terrifying letters.  As the progressivity of the harassment unfolds, we cannot but plead with the pastor…why don’t you just leave town? 

The story is about the will of one man led by God versus the will of another led by hatred.  It is the story of courage and an unshakable resolve to do God’s will in the face of danger.  The Devil in Pew Number Seven was released on August 1. 

Still Making an Impact on Me

Basketball.  I have often wondered why I chose this particular medium to live out a great portion of my life.  Paradoxically, basketball for me has been the source of tremendous heartache and consummate happiness, as well as an outlet for the converging challenges of life and a battlefield of the mind.   This perpetual high-speed game has been the origin of a hundred rising suns and ten thousand desperate nights in my life. 

As a player, basketball was my chance to run and jump and enjoy the beautiful freedoms that life has to offer.  It was the playground that provided a group of men the opportunity to grind together, live together, share together, and suffer together in a communal environment with one goal in mind—victory.  Through basketball, I was able to feel the assuaging comfort of success and the callous reality of defeat.  It has furnished unending anguish and unrest, and extreme joy.  It defeated me more times than I choose to count, but yet I still made it my special game—the one that was closest to my heart. 

Most of my pleasant memories of the sport draw upon my days as a young boy at “Glen Clem’s Basketball Camp.”  Coach Clem was the head coach at Walker College, a privately-funded junior college in Jasper.  Clem stood about 6’5” and weighed over 250 lbs.  His skin was olive, and he had a thick black mat of course hair.  He wore plaid sportjackets and designer shoes and his nickname was Big Daddy.  Sure, there was a towering presence about him.  His most distinctive features were indisputably his large, bug eyes and echoing voice, like a thunderclap.  If Fred Flintstone could have been exemplified in a human being, Clem was it.

As my friend Matthew says, basketball coaches (unlike those of any other sport) have the most dominating and gregarious of all personalities.  Clem was no exception.  At Glen Clem’s camp, I witnessed firsthand the utter hilarity of this unique character.  He made basketball fun by utilizing wild and colorful terminology that I had never heard before.   He warned us not to wear “costume jewelry” while we were in camp, and swore that if we got out of line we’d be subjected to the lashings of his “black snake whip.”  He would often pick on longtime campers such as Kellen, who apparently was twelve years old but had been attending Clem’s camp for fourteen years.  He used downtime in camp to provide for our amusement his proverbial vaudeville act…shooting (and making) shots while he sat Indian-style at midcourt, hook-shots from thirty feet that drained the net, and many other offerings that split our sides and made us revere the Glen Clem circus. 

Still, he took the time to share with us little lessons of life, takeaways if you will, that stick with me to this day.  I call into question anything that gave me fonder memories of my boyhood than my time with Coach Clem.  He was the kind of coach that I wanted to be.  I could write an entire book about Clem, but for now we don’t have enough time.  What I will share with you is my proudest appreciation with the fact that I was able to share time with him and the further denotation of “coach” in the same exact office that he worked for thirty-seven years.  

Coach Clem passed away, suddenly, in 1996 in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  To this day, he is still making a profound impact on my life.  I miss you greatly, coach, and I long to see you again one day if I'm fortunate enought to make it to heaven. 

Life Game

        I have watched and participated in many games in my life.  But today I wanted to talk to you about a game that cannot be seen.  This is a game of high stakes, swift consequences, and eternal results.  "Who are the participants?" you might ask.  Naturally, there are two teams competing in this game. 

        The first is the Black  Devils.  This team is coached by Satan himself.  The “players” on the team are his demons and the ungodly…murderers, slanderers, rapists, and idolators, cheaters, liars, and thieves. 

        The opposing team is the Crimson Crusaders.  This is God’s team.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit make up the entire coaching staff.  The players are Christians and the angels. 

        The conditions of the game are very rough, the terrain very difficult.  This game is played on a neutral battlefield, the earth.  There are no referees.  The weather conditions are often uncertain.  Sometimes, it will rain and the field gets sloppy.  Other times, the game takes place on a beautiful day.  But there is one thing for sure…the game never stops for inclement weather…it continues in perpetuity. 

        There are no halftimes, intermissions, timeouts, or breaks.  The spectators in the stands are all on the side of the Black Devils, for if you are a member of the Crimson Crusaders, you don’t sit in the stands…you play.  

        Both the Crimson Crusaders and the Black Devils have exquisite uniforms. The armor of the Crimson Crusaders includes:

                      Belt of Truth

                      Breastplate of righteousness

                      Shield of faith

                      Helmet of Salvation

                      Sword of the Spirit

                      Feet fitted with peace

They wear red to symbolize the blood of Jesus Christ, their savior.  They are heavily equipped by God, but sometimes it takes them a while to figure out how to properly use their uniform. 

The Black Devils’ armor includes the

                                     

Belt of Lies

                      Breastplate of evil  

                      Shield of doubt

                      Helmet of destruction

                      Sword of the Flesh

                      Feet fitted with fire

The Ball is the souls of the spectators.  When the Crimson Crusaders score, God always gets a celebration penalty.   When the Black Devils score, the pyrotechnics in Hell light up the underworld. 

Both teams are strategic in their gameplans. 

The Black Devils use any means necessary to confuse, frustrate, anger, disrupt, or thwart the Crimson Crusaders' players or the coach’s plan.  Satan runs trick plays, takes cheap shots, and uses any means necessary to win.  He doesn’t value sportsmanship or class.  He watches game film, and tries to recruit more players. 

He tries to exploit weaknesses by sending in his best demons to attack us at our most vulnerable points.  He uses VICE, FLESH, and PRIDE to his advantage. 

On the other hand, the Crimson Crusaders have a much different strategy.  This is God’s strategy.  The first thing that He does is give people a choice to be on the team or not to be. 

Secondly, He sacrifices his best player.  He retires Jesus Christ to the Hall of Fame just when the battle is getting started.  But he sends in as a replacement the Holy Spirit, which has won numerous 6^th man awards as the best substitute there ever was.

He equips us with a good pep talk—The Bible, which is powered by LOVE, HOPE, and TRUTH.  He also allows his team the freedom to come up with their own strategies to fight the Black Devils.  He builds our practice facilities and calls them “church.”  He builds our understanding of the nature of the game through prayer, and he uses our faults, adversity, and difficulties to strengthen us for the fight. 

          But the Crimson Crusaders must realize that the numbers are stacked against them in this game of life.  They must realize that the enemy is strong, and not one to be taken for granted.  Their enemy is working everyday to change the world.  To gain a victory, it’s going to take work.  It’s going to take sacrifice.  But it starts with your decision…will you play for the Crimson Crusaders or the Black Devils?  Whom will you serve?

Magic Man

There stands a man, who,

Waves his illusions at us,

He tilts his cap and bows,

As we are mystified,

Enthralled at the sight. 

The props, they confuse

And hide their gentle dares,

But it is us they lead,

Our eyes turn and burn,

Enraptured at the sight.

But it is he who stands alone,

His secret safe within,

And by the lies he justifies,

Seeming right, yet losing all the while,

His illusions false as he dies.

Isaiah 14:12-20

¹² How you have fallen from heaven,
   morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
   you who once laid low the nations!
¹³ You said in your heart,
   “I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
   above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
   on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.
¹⁴ I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
   I will make myself like the Most High.”
¹⁵ But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,
   to the depths of the pit.

¹⁶ Those who see you stare at you,
   they ponder your fate:
“Is this the man who shook the earth
   and made kingdoms tremble,
¹⁷ the man who made the world a wilderness,
   who overthrew its cities
   and would not let his captives go home?”
 ¹⁸ All the kings of the nations lie in state,
   each in his own tomb.
¹⁹ But you are cast out of your tomb
   like a rejected branch;
you are covered with the slain,
   with those pierced by the sword,
   those who descend to the stones of the pit.
Like a corpse trampled underfoot,
 ²⁰ you will not join them in burial,
for you have destroyed your land
   and killed your people.

The Waning Night

The bitter, waning night

Staring in the face of those I shamed,

Even myself, as my dull eyes lift,

Turning toward heaven’s ever-burning light. 

And though I know the rich hues,

Burning down in blinding light,

The night, corrupt with thorns,

Arrows shooting at my eyes, my sight. 

The sordid light has cast away,

For now, the burning light,

Darkening my sight, amber is the pale moonlight,

And beams of fright affix the sadness of my plight. 

But it is tonight

That I will scrape and pull the thorn

Out of my side, and turn my eyes

Toward heaven’s holy light.

For God is with me, as I take flight,

Yes, He is here tonight,

As I turn the light, the word, my cherished light,

And curse the bitter, waning night. 

The Last Vestige of the South

I never understood why my father felt the way he did about the Blackbelt until today.  This is when my emancipation began and the part of me that I had lost touch with, the place that I once was, had at once come running back to me.  Up until now, I was mostly a city boy who identified with the ramblings and frantic hurriedness of Big City U.S.A.   But that was before I was fully indoctrinated into the gospel of Alabama’s most authentic place, and the last vestige of the South. 

I got my first taste of the Blackbelt when my parents were fortunate enough to purchase an antebellum home in Canton Bend, far into the piney woods and thicket of “L.A.”—lower Alabama.  I was but nineteen and green as a turnip when they moved into the Bethea-Strother house, built circa 1844 and just a few miles west of the Alabama River.  It was a charming homestead on a quiet stretch of farmlands on Highway 28, a two-lane road that you’ve probably never been on. 

To accentuate the home, my dad quite naturally began to decorate it with period antique furniture, distinctly representative of his own personal eccentricity, yet resolutely loyal to Blackbelt life.  He vowed to buy nothing but American-made furnishings—the work of John Henry Belter of New York was his usual preference.  He dove headlong into the history of the region, reading coffee table books and listening to old sages tell stories of their unique way of life.  And he was fascinated. 

The doors of my curiosity remained shut, however, and I failed to appreciate with as much fervor as my father how meaningful this way of life truly was.  What I did realize was that there was something different about the Blackbelt than any other place I had been to in my life.  There was a drumbeat that was all its own—a slower, more purposeful cadence—and the people there were unique.  They left their doors open, sat out on porches, and hummed old Southern songs. 

They talked different, acted different, and appreciated more.  They noticed the small things— the hawks flying at night, the calming sounds of the cicadas echoing in the blackness of evening.  They told stories of haunted houses and the ghosts that occupied them.  Their houses creaked and brought back memories of antebellum life and the Civil War. Many of the houses had majestic names: Gaineswood, Sturdivant Hall, Rosewood, and Thornhill, to name but a few.  There was a certain history and identity there that was present in the here and now.  There was always a story to tell about the house, about someone who lived and died there, who grew their crops there and raised children who, too, toiled on the land.  There was a certain openness, a freedom and a calmness to the land that was unexplainable.  Tragically I failed to appreciate it, because I was just a city boy. 

My parents lived in the Bethea-Strother house for four years, until they decided to buy Kirkwood, another antebellum home in Eutaw, Alabama.  I believe it was there, at Kirkwood, that my father found his soul and the one place he could truly call home.   As I continued to enjoy city life, I shared neither his enthusiasm nor passion for the Blackbelt.  It was a place that was boring, mundane.  All of the action, I believed, resonated in the city and thus I remained a stranger to this place, allowing myself only superficial glimpses into its true integrity. 

As my dad puts it, the Blackbelt is a stretch of plain that swoops down like a sickle from just beyond the Mississippi line to the edges of Montgomery.  It is named such for its black, fertile soil that dominates the landscape.  But as it is unpacked, it is much more defined by the people and places than it is by its geographical limitations.  It is a place for artists and writers teeming with talent, of storytellers and fisherman and hunters.  It is an open range set in the middle of a wilderness.  It is a place where you will see deer, or even a raccoon or opossum.  It is a place where people still make things with their hands and grow things and start businesses.  Quilt-makers from Gee’s Bend and catfish farmers are the most famous of them all. 

It is a place that welcomes and invites.  People write letters to one another, spend time together, and swing in hammocks.  “Town” is scattered with small businesses—a hardware store, a soda shop, or an ice cream parlor.  It is the home of the small town lawyer, the town doctor, and the apothecary.  Yearly events might involve a pilgrimage of old homes or a gathering at the river.  It is a place where Christmas still means something and where one can hear the echoes of children singing Silent Night in the halls of an old church.   It is a place where faith is important and where the preacher might miss you if you are gone. 

After selling Kirkwood in the fall of 2009, my parents bought a turn-of-the-century farmhouse in Marion.  It was the third home of its kind that my parents owned, but it was not an antebellum.  Being antebellum requires that it was built before the Civil War, which commenced in 1861.  Yet there was a certain feel about the place that felt more right than ever before.  Maybe it was because I was older, I told myself, but there was something drawing me there—a force that I could not seem to stop nor that I cared to. 

A couple of weeks ago, they invited me attend a shrimp boil that was held at the Perry County Historical Society Building in downtown Marion.  I drove down from my home in Birmingham that Saturday afternoon, and as I began my journey I could not help but notice how differently I suddenly felt about the Blackbelt—how its story was becoming alive and palpable.

I pulled into my parents’ house just off of Highway 45, and as I circled to the back of the house, the sun was illuminating through the pecan trees as if it were speaking to me.  I parked my truck and sat and thought about how perfect a day it was.  I strolled around and peeked into the dilapidated barn in the backyard that looked like it might fall if a strong wind picked up.  I walked past the well that provided drinking water for almost one hundred years.  I opened the screen door and knocked as my mama yelled my name in a way that told me she hoped it was me. 

Slowly, our friends gathered together at the house and we sat and visited for a little while before it was time to go.  We loaded up the cars and caravanned to the shrimp boil around four-thirty. 

When we arrived, nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen.  We were early, and thankfully I had the opportunity to drink in the surroundings as they came at me like a charging wind.  Just off the foyer, to my right, was the main dining area, where tables and chairs had been set up for at least one hundred people.  As I entered the room, the smell and feel of the South took me over, and for the first time in my life, I felt I was home again.  I saw the American flag hanging on the wall, and I paused to reflect on how much the South helps to define our country as the greatest place in the world. 

It was as much about the place itself as it was the feelings it evoked in me.  The ceilings were at least twenty feet high, and the walls were made of plaster.  Old pictures in antique frames were hanging proudly on the wall.  I thought for a moment about all of the memories I missed at the Bethea-Strother Home, and at Kirkwood, and how I longed to see those houses once again. 

I noticed that a small Bluegrass band was readying itself to entertain us and my heart began to leap in anticipation.  The smell of the place was a mix of shrimp and potatoes and corn on the cob and the oaky aroma of old houses. 

When we finally sat down to eat, the band started playing as people began to shuffle in and take their seats.  As I listened to the music, I slipped off into somewhat of a trance, nodding but not really listening to what anyone else was saying. While the music hummed and I set myself into its rhythm, I could not understand what I was feeling, but I knew that it felt good and that this truly was the South.  It was like mama was calling me in from the fields for supper.  It was as if the whole aura of the Blackbelt had grabbed hold of me and swore to never let me go. 

As I drove home that night, I sat in calmness as I barreled up Highway 5 between the pine trees that lined the roads like Confederate troops on the road to Appomattox.  I thought about the South, and what it means, and how much I am thankful to be a Southerner.  I hoped that it wasn’t lost, that these last vestiges of the people we once were would somehow continue to live and survive for a while before the city takes over.   

And tonight, as I sit in front of my computer and write these words, I cannot help but think of the Blackbelt and what it is to me now, and how much I want to be there for the rest of my life.