"The Last Best Word"

...that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:7

These two smiling fellers are happy, the young one because exams are over and he can now spend time in the woods in peace, and the old guy, because exams are over and he can now spend time in the woods in peace.

A week ago, as I was dropping Stephen off on his way to school, he voiced his concern that he just didn’t know if he could do well enough on two exams to make the difference in a B and a C for the semester. Knowing that he had studied long and hard, I told him that his mama and I love the "B" Stephen and the "C" Stephen just the same. "Just do your best, and ask God to give you peace, not a certain grade," I reminded him. He voiced a quiet, "Thanks Dad."

It was my weak attempt at God’s grace. Being human, I can only understand it with superficiality, a concept so filled with such depth, I could study it the rest of my days and still not fathom a tenth of His grace for us.

I have become enthralled with Phillip Yancey’s writings. He seems to write books as he experiences the title, a journey not mapped out, but each chapter is just a new path on his way to discovery. In his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, he grabbed me from chapter one.

He speaks of grace as "the last best word" in our heavenly lexicon. So many other words have been destroyed by the perversity of the world, watered down by the counterfeit, diluted by the disingenuous. But GRACE. It is not a word thrown around in our language like love and peace. Grace stands as that word that puts us in right standing with God through the work of the Cross of Christ. It is as George Herbert says, "And here in the dust and dirt, O here the lilies of His love appear." It is as Yancey states, "There is nothing we can do to make God love us more. There is nothing we can do to make God love us less."

Finally, I was taken with this quote from the book, a Christian counselor noted:

Many years ago I was driven to the conclusions that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live out God’s unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people...We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that’s not the way we live. The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions.

I know I write on grace frequently; I think it is because I am just cracking the surface of its profundity. It is just beginning to penetrate my emotions. I compare it to the living water that I wrote about recently. Refreshing to drink...and to offer to those around you. Help me Lord, to partake of both.

Mark
Prov 17:22

"Lights Please"

And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts...Luke 2:13

Every town has one. And every city has several. I am talking about tacky light displays at Christmas, so overwhelmingly gaudy, the gimcrack array of lights brings Las Vegas to mind. We actually have had radio stations in Mont- gomery to run Tacky Lights Bus Tour contests. Winners load in a large bus, are treated to some holiday cheer, and feast on some of the most garish illuminations in the city. Now if you want to enjoy this time-honored activity with just the fam or friends, our local paper prints the addresses so encounters with these yule tide yard meteors can take place in the privacy of your own car.

A few years back, our office decided to have a decorations contest. I think the bus could actually make a stop and let folks have a walking tour. My assistant, Priscilla, and I add a little bit of tacky chic to our gaudery every year, usually something we have tucked away in the attic or box that we don’t care to put in the house any longer. It has been a wonderfully warm and fun activity that almost all of us join in on and some go all out in bringing a touch of the laughter and love that becomes infectious at Christmas time. My office favorite this year had to be the near life sized Dancing Santa who brought people from afar to cut a rug with Ol’ St. Nick. Our receptionist, Frances, scored muticultural Santas dancing together in harmony for all who entered our festival of lights.








If you can remember "A Charlie Brown Christmas", Charlie became disgusted with Snoopy for flashing up his doghouse. In our fun, and unlike Snoopy, many of us really do know the answer to Charlie’s question, which he shouts loudly at one point of the show: "Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about!?"
Linus answers sweetly and simply "Sure Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about." (wasn’t that original Linus voice wonderful?) "Lights please." (Luke2:8-14) What a marvelous monologue. What I find so striking about this particular piece of scripture is that it rolls off my tongue like my address and phone number. It was the first long scripture I committed to memory as part of a school Christmas pageant at Edgewood Elementary, in 1963, my second grade year.

I was brought back to this time just a few days ago. A nationally known rehabilitation facility that my agency does business with had their own Christmas pageant, complete with solos all sung a capella, original poems, scripture readings, prayers, and an original play written by one of the participants. All of the players had one thing in common. They were people with disabilities, with one common goal, hoping to improve their lives by participating this worthwhile job training program through Goodwill Industries.

My mind drifted to simpler times, and despite the fun of our decorations, like Charlie Brown, I too, still seek the real meaning of Christmas. It came to me this week in that simple pageant as I recalled my own youthful school play during those Ft Benning/Columbus, Ga. years, a place where I started my journey with Christ.

I was struck by the simplicity of the man who opened the Goodwill pageant with prayer. He sincerely thanked God for our food, even the water we drink, and how we could hold fast to Him during difficult times. It reminded me of the prayers of my youth, and now the prayers of my adulthood, as I am returning to the simplicity of the gospel of grace through Christ Jesus. My sincere wish is that each of you would seek and find that meaning, it is a simple click on "Lights please."

That’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.
Merry Christmas from the Hatter home....to yours.

Mark
Prov 17:22
And no...that is NOT my home at the top of the blog. ;-)

I Need a Drink

But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst...John 4:14A

Post Hole Digger. Just the sound of that particular farm tool makes me start sweating and causes the upper trapezius muscles to tighten. Here in the south, the only PhD that impresses us has two handles and digs a deep hole. If some smarty-pants individual starts signing his name with a "PhD" after it, somebody is apt to call him a post hole digger, just to keep him humble.

I have mentioned the oppressive heat of the deep south before; nothing compares to an August day with upper 90's and humidity thick enough to see. Some call it the heat index, I call it the misery index. When you read of people dropping like flies in some of our northern cities because of a ‘heat wave’, this is just another day in paradise down here in Alabama.

Now, constructing a new fence line in this kind of heat is a different matter altogether. I remember a particular stretch of fence very well, and you will soon see why. My dad, along with my brother and I (both teenagers at the time) had loaded the pickup with creosote fence posts, a new roll of barbed wire, (called 'bobwar' in the Wiregrass) our trusty PHD and dirt tamper, fence stretcher, staples, etc and we were off for another glorious afternoon of fun in the Alabama sun.

Digging post holes is a tedious task. Summer will make the Alabama red clay hard as Elly May’s biscuits, and it usually requires a tag team effort. The muscles in your neck and shoulders feel like they are on fire. After a turn of progressing a full half a foot, I moseyed over to the truck to get a drink. We had everything on the truck to build a fence, but had forgotten the Igloo water cooler. Now my thirst jumped from moderate to full fledged dehydration. A few more turns at the PHD and I couldn’t stand it.

"Pop, I am going down to the creek bottom, I am 'bout to die!" I complained. So off I took, and finding that cool water so inviting, I got down on all fours and literally sucked in a gallon. Oh the heavenly taste of that water; if you can remember a time that you were the thirstiest in your life, and how water tasted when you were able to satisfy that desire, this was that time for me!

As I walked back up the hill through the woods, I couldn’t wait to tell my brother that relief was just down the hill. Funny thing happened on the return hike though. My lips felt like they were on fire. I mean Tabasco Sauce fire. Now I had the Hades heat of an Alabama August to deal with and what felt like a coating of nuclear- flavored Chap Stick.

"What happened to your lips, boy?" inquired my dad.
"Dunno, why?"
"Looks like someone stuck a red hot plunger on your face." my brother laughed.
"I just got a drink..."
"Where were the cows, Mark?" again my dad asked.
"Ummm...they were standing in the water a little ways.....ummm...upstream."

OK, now can you imagine how quickly the conclusion to this escapade came together? Head shaking, eye rolling, laughing...you name it. The burning just got worse as the afternoon slowly rolled by. After we returned home, I looked in the mirror ...so picture a red bullseye imbedded concentrically around your lips, you have a pretty good idea of what I looked like. I must have emptied a jar of Vasoline over the next few days; it is a wonder that I didn’t contract E coli and keel over.

It was the thirst that drove me to this. I am reminded of one of my favorite encounters of a thirsty Jesus as told in John 4, with much better results, mind you. Stopping by a well to rest, Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for water and then tells her that He can give her living water. A curious statement to pique her interest, no doubt. She eventually "gets it" and this woman who had five husbands becomes one of the first evangelists of the Gospel. There are a number of things that have struck me about this exchange.

The Jews and the Samaritans hated one another. Jesus rose above it. The hatred was so intense, that for Jesus to ask a Samaritan, and a woman to boot, to give him a drink was anathema. Yet He looked beyond the bitter divisiveness of these two groups and the obvious cultural taboos in order to share the loving truth with her.

Jesus tells her that everyone who drinks form this well will thirst again, but He could give her living water and she would never thirsts again. Still clueless, she makes a totally selfish response, "Tell me how to get this stuff so I won’t have to keep coming here to draw water." She sounds no different than me at times, actually. Christ doesn’t give up. Finally He reveals a slight personal problem of hers: A 5 time loser and now living with another man. She starts to put it together, "Sir I perceive you are a prophet." It is a testimony for us not to give up on others.

Jesus reveals that He is the Messiah, and the disciples show up, amazed the scripture says, (rather annoyed, inwardly grumbling, I think) about this whole situation. Never mind that the woman simply drops the water pot and goes into the city proclaiming that Jesus told her everything about herself and asks, "Is this not the Christ?" Like I have already stated, one of the first evangelists is a woman of bad reputation. Many Samaritans become believers because of the testimony of this woman. The disciples seem more concerned about this breach in their religious belief system, yet God chose to use a woman with a questionable background to spread the love of Christ.

Oh...it all goes back to the water, an analogy so simple, for we all know that it is the sustenance to maintain life on this planet. So Christ offers living water, the kind that will sustain us in this life and in eternity. May our spirits thirst for Him as much as our bodies crave water to maintain physical life!

I constantly check my heart to see if I am missing opportunities to share that living water with others , because they may not fit my cultural mores. Time and again, Christ gave us the roadmap to resist the rote traditions and thirst for the real living water, and unlike the stagnent pool of religion, this refreshment will never leave a sting or burn on your body or soul...or lips!

Mark
Prov 17:22

We Saw His Star: Vietnam Christmas, 1965

"Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.
Matt 2:2

Pop and I were watching Stephen at the Troy University baseball camp last summer on a muggy June evening. I had been reading Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Hal Moore’s book, "We Were Soldiers Once...and Young", and knowing my dad was in the 1st Calvary Division with (then) Col. Moore at the same time, I was itching to hear a story.

"Did you know General Kinnard?" It was a set up question.

General Harry Kinnard was the division commanding general. West point class of 1939, he quickly rose through the ranks during WWII and became Gen. Tony McAuliffe’s operations officer during the Battle of Bastogne (the Bulge). When the Germans demanded a surrender response, Gen. McAuliffe uttered the famous one word response: "NUTS!" It was (then) Lt.Col. Kinnard who suggested the one liner. (The Germans, not well versed in American idioms, responded by asking if that meant yes or no. It was further explained by another assistant, Col. Harper: "If you don’t know what ‘Nuts" means, in plain English it is the same as ‘Go to Hell’.")

Of course my dad knew the commanding general, and began to tell me a story about riding a motorcycle down a runway, and seeing the General, he turned his collar inside out so his Capt. Bars were hidden and zoomed by. Nothing ever came of it, but I am sure the General had a clue who he was.

His favorite Kinnard story, as best as I can recall it, happened in Vietnam, during Pop’s first tour of duty in 1965. I have mentioned the huge transport helicopter he flew, simply called the CH-54 Flying Crane. The General ordered the construction of a huge wooden star, complete with lights that would be placed on top of the mountain that was already embla- zoned with the very recogniz- able 1st Calvary Division patch. I suppose he wanted to give the grunts something to remind them of home and probably to let the mountain town of An Khe know that the American forces had all intentions of celebrating Christmas in Vietnam.

The order to transport the star by helicopter came down through regular channels and the mission was assigned to my dad and another pilot. As they lowered the hook, he noticed something unusual.
"I looked down and noticed that a maintenance tent was bounding end over end across the base camp. Maintenance records were flying everywhere in the wake of the heavy rotor wash," he said laughing as he remembered this incident.
Laughing indeed, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the crew had the perfect military CYA, "they were on an assigned mission".
The short trip to the top of the mountain resulted in more chuckles for the crew. As they were lowering the star in place, my dad said he looked down again. This time he saw a dilapidated outhouse turning cartwheels down the side of the mountain. A local mountain family was, well, out of luck.

With the star safely in place, a generator kept those lights burning throughout the Christmas season. Even though the maintenance engineers and a few local mountain folks endured a bad day, I can only imagine now how many GI’s were blessed by that wooden star, placed on that mountain by a commanding general who obviously had a heart for his men.

It has been over the course of centuries now that American soldiers have been separated from their families during our holiday seasons. In my readings of military history, I am always intrigued at the ingenuity of soldiers in bringing some amount of home with them wherever they are, along with the acts of kindness that are displayed in the midst of a hellish war.

I recently saw a documentary about Thanksgiving. A WWII vet was interviewed, recalling his GI Joe days in Europe after the D-Day invasion. He reminisced about the Thanksgiving meal, and how those young dog faces were giddy, knowing that they would be served a hot meal of real turkey and dressing.
"Our C. O. sent word that he was encouraging us to bring all the homeless kids in our sector in for the meal, and feed them, in lieu of having the meal ourselves," he stated.
The scene changed, flashing a grainy black and white film, young GI’s in a mess tent, sitting side by side with a bunch of kids, beaming as the youngsters devoured the soldier’s Thanksgiving meals.

The scene returned to the old veteran. His lip began to quiver, his voice cracked, and softly voiced a simple, "it is my greatest Thanks- giving memory."

Soldiers are not politicians. Many opinions exist about America’s past and present wars, however, the men and women of our Armed Forces are told to "go" and they simply answer "Yes Sir". I have specific active duty friends who come to mind frequently, especially at this time of the year. For all who are reading, I am sure that you can think of military families in your own lives. Please take some time to pray for them over our Christmas season. If they are nearby, thank them personally and bless them with your love and support.

There may be some soldier in a far off land staring at a star, thinking of home. Take a moment this evening, stare at a few yourself and think of them...


Mark
Prov 17:22
My dad,
Ah Khe,
Vietnam
Christmas
1965
Camp
Chapel




(all pictures were sent to us as slides back in 1965, with the exception Gen Kinnard's photo)

If you would like to send send a message to the troops, the DOD has set up a message board for them to log on and read. Browsing the messages will be a be a blessing in itself! Thanks to my sister LeeAnn for sending this address to me:

America Supports You

Gifts

Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow.
James 1:17

Over the years, there have been gifts in my life from family members that have stuck with me. Some big, some small, some just acts of love. With the holiday season in full bloom, I thought I would share a few of these memories.

I am the proud owner of a vintage 1966 Philco "Eight Transistor" radio. My dad gave my brother and me matching radios upon his return from his first tour of duty in Vietnam. (My first blog, "A Defining Moment"--July Archives, describes this time, and the gift my mom gave to me.) Wow, what a plethora of goodies, topped off with those famous ceramic elephants that were big enough to use as end tables. It seemed that just about all of my Army brat’s parents had at least a few of these in their homes!

One wonders how I kept an AM radio all these years, in perfect working condition.. I can remember wearing out so many 9 volt batteries because I was fascinated with "night radio" and listened to it constantly under my pillow. Stations from all over America, fading in, fading out... I was as full of wonder as old Marconi himself. That little radio was the spark that developed a major hobby in my life, Amateur Radio. I currently hold an Extra Class license, the highest class offered by the FCC. My only "ham radio" activity now is in my truck, but at one time, I had a nice station and made contacts all over the world, both by voice and Morse Code. Here are a few of my QSL cards, a kind of a post card to confirm a contact. It all started with a little eight transistor radio! A small gift that brought me a great deal of joy; it is never too far from my side, and I turn it on occasionally to listen to the local sports talk show.

*****
Around 1986, I got a wild hare to rebuild the motorcycle of my youth. I got this little Honda when I was 14, paid for it by working a paper route, and even had it at Auburn while AllieCat and I were in school together. It had been sitting in a barn at my folks for years but I had a problem: We lived in an apartment in Montgomery at the time and I had no place to work on it.

My brother and his wife and young toddler ( A freshman at Auburn now) happened to live around the corner from us and offered to let me use their backyard for my project. Now, you must understand, I am no mechanic, and this "project" went on for much longer than I (and they, I am sure) anticipated. Never a "suggestion" for me to get this junk out of their backyard. I was going through a rough time then, and their gift of acceptance of my constant presence in their lives, along with my junky but eventually beautiful motorcycle, is one I will never forget.

****
Fast forward, Feb. 2001. Both SteveO and my birthday falls in this month. We get this cool card from my sister, letting us know that she and her husband, John are going to take us to Wrigley Field during baseball season, plane tickets, hotel, the works! We were stunned and giddy; as baseball fans, a desire for years had been to see the Cubs in this beautiful old park. We met my sister LeeAnn and her husband later that year in early September and enjoyed a great weekend in Chicago, topped off with a game between the Cubs and the Braves. Chicago Pizza....Chicago Hot Dogs...What a nice time...memories that the AllieCat, Steveo, and the Hatter will never forget!

My sister is a generous soul. Recently, Annie had a business trip to Austin, Lee's home. She and John treated Annie like a Queen, and she is still talking about how wonderfully hospitable they were.

One final note. Sadley, this pic of an eleven year old SteveO was one of the last of this type taken in America. We returned home from Chicago only to witness the horrific events of 9/11/2001. Folks just like us, getting up, going to work, never to come home. Traditional shots of kids in cockpits, a thing of the past. So many things have changed since then...It is with a sober heart that I ask readers to embrace the gifts in you lives, not necessarily the material ones, but the good and perfect ones, your family, your friends, your God. His Gift is the greatest of all.

Mark
Prov. 17:22