My Struggle Against Grace

The students at my church, whom I love dearly, whom I would gladly do just about anything for (except for the typical stupid-youth-pastor stuff), have organized multiple benefit events to help my family with medical expenses. No one in my family is deathly ill, as one might think whenever the terms “benefit” and “medical expenses” are used. Rather, we’re just like a lot of American families who are besieged by medical costs in the 21st century: we make it, but just barely.

I’ve not talked about this much at all with anyone other than my wife and couple of close friends, mainly because I am ashamed that the kids believe my family is worthy of such lavish love.

Hello, my name is Jason, and I am a Christian who absolutely struggles with grace.

I am much more comfortable sacrificing. I don’t believe in a salvation that comes from works, but when it comes down to practical things, I’m quicker to work and suffer than I am to bask in unearned favor. Up until a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been able to articulate that truth; but now, thanks to the extravagant and beautiful love of a few teenagers, I’m forced to admit that I have a problem with the essential truth of the Gospel.

I’m not good enough, and yet God saved me anyway. And not just saved me, but fills me, indwells me, uses me, and loves me as His own.

To be honest, I like suffering and sacrifice because it makes a good shield against those people who aren’t gracious at all. That sounds stupid, I suppose, but there are people who constantly remind you that they don’t think you’re special, that they don’t see any reason why you should be treated better than they. In reality, their attitude has more to do with their own inherent selfishness than with my undeservedness, but the subtle slings and barbs sting all the same.

Often, people on the road to hell want nothing more than to take you with them. And so I like being able to point to my life and use my works as a defense against those who would want to remind me of my unworthiness.

But when people come alongside you and overwhelm you with love that simply cannot be justified by your life…well, that strips away those defenses. It lays you bare before God and everyone else, and it exposes you for what you are: unworthy. Imperfect. Flawed.

The human response is to either recoil from such love, or to lamely attempt to justify it. I know that’s certainly been the case for me. Before my students put their plan into motion, one of their parents came to me and asked for my permission, told me that if I didn’t offer my blessing, the kids probably wouldn’t go through with it.

I hesitated. The large part of me, the part that knows my flaws and sins and unworthiness, wanted to put and end to it right then. A simple no, and I could go on living my life comfortably uncomfortable. The justifications were plentiful: it’s a down economy; we’re not that bad off; I don’t want the kids getting hurt if people don’t respond the way they might imagine; I don’t want them to feel like they have to do this.

But at my core, in my soul, I felt a conviction that told me I couldn’t say no. That I was going to have to, as my friend Polly Sage put it, suffer in a different way: receiving a love I could never earn or repay. So I gave my blessing. And thus began one of the most powerful struggles of my soul, a statement I don’t make lightly. The only other time I have felt this conflicted was after my daughter, Ruthanne, was stillborn.

In death, most people retreat from you. There is an instinctive notion within the human heart that a person who is grieving needs space, and so people withdraw, leave you alone; they don’t look at your life or question what you do. You are anonymous in grief, and even though your soul and mind might be melting from the white-hot pain and confusion, you learn to find a desirable peace in the solitude. Your foibles and internal flaws remain yours and yours alone.

Life – love – is the opposite. It doesn’t leave you alone, it drags you onstage, warts and all, and proclaims from the top of its lungs that you are special, beloved, worthy. And it’s there, in the spotlight, that you as the object realize fully just how flawed and ugly and worthless you really are. And you feel acutely that the audience can see – if not all, at least some of – those same flaws. You can feel the eyes of judgment on you, even if those eyes are far fewer than your mind tells you. You know the truth, and yet you’re spoken of with such loving terms that you want to believe and run away all at the same time.

Folks, that’s the Gospel in a nutshell. And I’m struggling with it.

I am so blessed to have students who have listened to my incessant cries for the church to be more compassionate, less judgmental, more others-focused, more willing to help the poor and unfortunate. Not just because they are a beautiful picture of the ability of the youth of our world to shine brightly the Light of Christ, but because they are showing me that God’s love is greater, deeper, truer “than tongue or pen could ever tell; it goes beyond the farthest star and reaches to the lowest hell.” I just never expected that they would then turn that love on me.

But no one does. That’s why the persistent cry from the lips of Christ was that “God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever would believe in Him would not die, but gain everlasting life.”

Today, I understand in an entirely different way, not just that God loves me, but that inside of that love are things I cannot comprehend, much less make my peace with. I am stripped naked, shown undone, and yet He still says, “Beloved.” Not because of me, but because that’s just who He is.

The same is true for you.

May you be so blessed as to discover the terror and wonder of that love so deep.

Heroes All Around

Major Walter D. “David” Gray, killed in action on August 8, 2012. A husband, father, and local hero.

Tomorrow afternoon, the family of a hero will pass quietly through the streets of my almost-hometown Loganville, headed towards a memorial service to honor their slain loved one. On the Loganville Patch website, Jeff Allen has written of the community-wide request to line the sidewalks and driveways on Highway 78 with people as a way of saying thank you for Maj. W. David Gray’s service and sacrifice for our country and to support his family in their time of grief.

Next Tuesday, assuming all goes well, another hero will pass quietly through the streets of Latvia, looking to complete a quest that will change the life of a young woman and his own family. If he does so, it will be because our community supported him in his time of need. Kris Parker may be better known for his work as a blogger, fire fighter and youth pastor, but next week he will (God willing) travel to Latvia to assume the role of a superhero and bring his daughter, V, back home.

*****

I have no desire to debate what makes a hero, because I firmly believe that heroism, much like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. What may seem like a small act of kindness to you and me might be an outrageous act of heroism to the beneficiary. You just never know.

So without belaboring the point, I’d like to say thank you to the heroes all around us everyday. Whether you wear a uniform, get written up in the papers, or go about your business minus any fanfare whatsoever, your selflessness on behalf of your fellow men and women is a blessing to us all. You inspire. You heal. You make the often overwhelming miseries of this human life bearable because you give the truest gift of all: the gift of knowing that someone cares.

Kris Parker, with V, is a fire fighter, minister and local hero as well. Let’s help him bring his daughter home from Latvia.

The gift of knowing that, even if only for a second, we matter.

Tomorrow, if you can take the five minutes required to find a parking spot and then walk to the side of 78, you can be a hero to Maj. Gray’s family. You can remind them that the Major wasn’t the only whose sacrifice we will remember and honor. For the few seconds it takes for their caravan to pass by, you can be a hero to a fallen hero’s family.

And if you can spare a couple of minutes to read Kris’ blog, and then spare a couple of dollars via the PayPal link at the bottom, then you can be a hero not only to Kris, but to V as well. She may never know the names of every person who gave her a chance for a family and a life beyond the orphanage walls, but that will not make those anonymous folks any less heroic.

The beauty in both of these opportunities is that we get to turn the traditional hero narrative on its head: instead of the hero saving the community, the community can save the heroes.

Now if only we could all wear capes…

Of Specks, Motes, and the Cacophony of Rage

There’s this verse in the Bible that goes something like, “Don’t look for the speck of dust in someone else’s eye and ignore the tree branch in your own.” To modern ears that’s a bit strange, and it gets even better if you read the King James Version:

“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

Mote. Great word. Too bad it fell out of usage. “Do you mind sweeping up that mote of cake from the floor?” “I seem to have a mote of tuna salad on my pants…”

Mote. That’s almost as good as modicum.

Anyway…while the wording of the verse may be a bit interesting (after all, who wouldn’t notice if a tree branch had punctured your eye?), the concept behind it is fairly simple: don’t be so blinded by what you see as a fault in someone elses life that you miss the fault in your own.

As an individual, this has never be a problem for me. I know my faults pretty well, which is to say I know my faults like a geek knows his Star Wars trivia. (Quick, name the character who’s arm got chopped off by Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Mos Eisley cantina!) I wouldn’t say I obsess over them, but I try to keep my weaknesses under review so I can always look for improvement.

While this can occasionally produce a bout of nuerosis, it does have a great side benefit: it means I have less time to obsess over the faults of others. That doesn’t mean that I don’t; I can rattle off many things about many people that bother me greatly, but in general I try not to base my life around endlessly correcting people who have gone astray in my view.

This comes in handy quite often on the Internet. If I read something that offends or bothers me, I generally tend to say, “Wow. That bothers me. Hmmm. What should I do? Do I comment? Write a response on my blog? Maybe create a new meme from an online meme generator? Or stage a protest rally at my favorite restaurant? Thinking…thinking… Nah, I’ll just go check my email. I’ve got other things to do.”

Lately, I’ve noticed that there is a small group of people who do not seem to share this character trait. If they read something on Facebook, Twitter, CNN, FoxNews, Disney Junior, with which they disagree, their response seems to be more in the vein of:

“DEATH! DEATH TO THE TRANSGRESSORS! YAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!”

And why? Because of the mote. The speck. That thing in someone else’s life that really bugs them and makes them lose their junk.

Or, as my great-grandmother used to call it, “Pitch a hissy fit.”

Mote-noting seems to be gaining popularity as people in the digital age seem less and less inclined to just let things go. We are becoming a nation of intruders, on both the left and the right, butting in wherever we see the particular mote that we note and trying to scream people into submission to our view. And if you don’t believe me, just wait until the presidential campaigns kick into high gear.

I wrote some on this yesterday, about how the words that we sling into the atmosphere can crush someone quite easily. I can’t tell you how many people contacted me yesterday and said, “You nailed it. I’m feeling that exact same way.”

It’s fatiguing, and it is also dangerous. Because when everything is a hyper-sensitive issue, or everything is a massive lose-your-junk event, then all of life becomes shrill, and truly important things fall by the wayside.

It’s a cacophony (another great word) of rage. It’s chaos. Lunacy.

And it’s everywhere. So what’s the solution?

It’s painfully simple: concentrate on the tree branches in our own eyes. Back when the Chick-fil-A brouhaha started, I read a great blog post by a young man named Dale Brown. Dale happens to be married to a former student of mine, and he’s also a priest. I thought his view bears repeating (though I recommend reading the entire blog):

This world will become holy only through individual men and women becoming holy, and that has to begin with us.  Therefore, tomorrow I will not be at Chick-Fil-A, but I will say a prayer, read Scripture, attempt patience, forgive those that wrong me, practice silence, ask for forgiveness; and through cooperating with the Grace of God in the Presence of Holy Spirit maybe a small insignificant part of America will be sanctified tomorrow in that with God’s help I myself might be made holier than I am today.

You may not be religious, but Dale is spot on: only by looking to correct our own lives can we expect the world to become a better place.

Motes, beams, specks and branches. Let the sawdust fly.

30 Years of Obedience: A Profile of Rev. Tommy Jordan

“I thank God for the Unseen Hand, sometime urging me onward, sometimes holding me back; sometimes with a caress of approval, sometimes with a stroke of reproof; sometimes correcting, sometimes comforting. My times are in his hand.”
- Vance Havner

In 1981, I was five years old and obsessed with Star Wars. Ronald Reagan was in the White House, cassette tapes were still fairly new, Facebook was still something printed out on college campuses, and the city of Grayson was more of a town.

1981 was also the year that a skinny young preacher came to a little church in Grayson, a church called Chestnut Grove.

The preacher’s name?

Tommy Jordan.

Rev. Tommy Jordan, Senior Pastor - Chestnut Grove Baptist Church

Now, if that name sounds familiar to you, it should; if you were to drive down Rosebud Road today and look at the big blue sign out in front, you would see the name Tommy Jordan under the word Pastor. It’s been that way for 30 years.

Thirty years is a long time (roughly 90% of my life), and its an eternity when you’re talking about one preacher sticking with one church. When the average tenure for most pastors is 3.6 years (according to Thom Rainer), the idea of one man being in one place for three decades becomes staggering.

Think about it: most modern day marriages don’t last that long. And in a marriage, you only have to get along with one person.

Try getting along with 500. Yeah – it’s not easy.

And yet, for thirty consecutive years, Tommy Jordan has been able to navigate that challenge successfully. I sat down with him to discover his secret.

“How do you make it thirty years at one church?” I asked. “What’s your secret?”

“Well,” he says, in his familiar drawl, “if you love the people and minister to their needs, they’ll overlook a lot of your faults. At least, they have with me.”

He laughs. “I mean, when I first came here, there was a man who was just determined to give me fits. Even the pastor before me told me, ‘Tommy, I have to get away from that man, or he’s gonna be the death of me.’ But I decided I would just love on him, no matter what – just love on that man and his family.”

Tommy, who is still so thin he doesn’t cast a shadow, leans back in his chair.

“And you know what, in time I became his best friend. When he got sick and couldn’t come to church anymore, or when he was having a really bad day at the house, he’d tell his wife, ‘Call Tommy. Tell him, I need him to come pray for me.’ And I would go and just pray for him and love him. He completely changed his mind about me. That’s the power of love.”

Unintentional Huey Lewis quotes aside, the power of love is probably the best way to sum up the ministry of Tommy Jordan. It comes to the forefront in almost every story, every anecdote that he  shares with me, and it colors his philosophy of ministry more than any other theological distinctive. For Tommy, love is the beginning and end of pastoral ministry.

And while most pastors wouldn’t disagree with Tommy’s statement on its face, they might tell that the practical aspects of that philosophy are hard to live by. Not everyone can be loved into submission. It’s part of the challenge of being a pastor.

Of course, Tommy would never say anything like that. He’d rather be strung up by his toes than talk bad about a person. He sees the potential for good in everyone and goes out of his way to give them the chance to live up to that potential. And for thirty years, people have come to Chestnut Grove for the chance to have a pastor like him.

In fact, the church has grown tremendously under his guidance; when he came in 1981, the worship services were being held in the old white building, averaging around 100 people every Sunday. Now, the worship services are held in a much larger building, built in 2001, and the average Sunday attendance is around 375. And perhaps even better, the “new” sanctuary, which cost over $1 million, was paid off completely in 2009.

Seems like love, when freely given, can do a lot of things.

*****

I ask Tommy what his favorite memory is in thirty years.

“I’d have to say…” He pauses to look at the ceiling. “I’d have to say Homecoming.”

“Which one?”

“All of them,” he says. “I just love seeing all the people each year.”

I point out that, technically, that’s not really a memory. He thinks a minute.

“Well, then I guess I’d have to say the amazing number of people in this church who have musical talent. I mean, not just singers, but great piano players, musicians. I would say we probably have more musical talent for a church our size than any other church out there.”

Again – not a memory. At least, not a specific one. I urge him to try again.

“I know – I’ve always had good deacons.” He stops and looks at me. “Well, not always, but for the most part, I’ve been privileged to serve with really good men who supported me and worked hard with me. And I’ve been blessed to have some great staff over the years.”

It takes a minute for me to realize that, for a man who’s whole life revolves around people – not things, not goals, but individual lives – his answers are pretty good. If you hang around Tommy long enough, you learn that he might forget some things, but he rarely forgets people. Now that’s not to say he won’t forget the occasional name, but for the most part, once he’s met you and spent time with you, you are entrenched in his mind.

He proves this over the course of our conversation; he recalls at least two or three names of people I’ve never heard of, people twenty to thirty years my senior, but to him, their faces and names and lives are as fresh as yesterday’s muffins. It’s remarkable, really; if you do the math (and I stink at math, so I’m just gonna guess) you have to figure he’s pastored over 600-700 people in his career at Chestnut Grove alone (he pastored two other churches before coming to the Grove in ’81). That’s a lot of faces, a lot of lives to keep track of – and yet, somehow, he does it.

And this focus on people, on loving people, is continually set before me. I ask him what his biggest challenge has been in his thirty years. He thinks for minute.

“Staying fresh, keeping myself enthusiastic for the ministry to the people. Too many pastors just get complacent, feel like they’ve done all they can do, and they kind of give up. I want to make sure that I’m giving my best to the people every day I’m here, because I want to leave the church better than I found it.”

In thirty years, his biggest challenge has been himself? That’s hard to believe. Especially in a Baptist church. Surely there was one deacon, one member, one situation that pushed him to his very limits as a man of God?

“Not really,” he says.

Either the man is a saint, or he has the most godly congregation in the known universe. I have a suspicion I know what he’d say.

*****

Who brings Nair to a shaving cream fight with the pastor?

The photo attached to the left also happens to be the funniest moment in his tenure. I’ve heard the story numerous times, and it still blows my mind.

“Well, Tim Payne was our youth director at the time, and we had the kids down for retreat on the beach. It was Thursday night, and we were going to go home the next day, so we decided to let the kids have some fun.

“They got into a shaving cream war, just spraying it everywhere and rubbing it all over each other, and they got me involved. I had on shorts, and they just covered me good.

“After it was all over, I noticed that my legs was burning, so I went inside to take a shower, and the hair just come right off. It wasn’t too long after that that Tim showed up at my door and told me that two of the girls had used Nair on my legs instead of shaving cream.”

He laughs.

“In fact, there’s still places on my legs now that don’t have any hair.”

This story is pretty funny in and of itself, especially since Tommy didn’t hold a grudge against the two girls. He laughed it off then just as did sitting across from me. The man is just incapable of being mean.

Almost.

“I did get one of the girls back though,” he says, his eyes twinkling. “I was doing her wedding, and when it came time to the vows, I got her almost all the way through before I said, ‘And I will not put Nair on the pastor’s legs.’

“She said, ‘I will not pu…now preacher!’”

He slaps his hairless legs and laughs. “She ended up laughing, and I told her, ‘I have the last word!’”

Of course, that’s not the only funny thing that’s happened to the man. In a world where so many people tend to think of the pastor as someone who can’t have a sense of humor, who must be sober as a judge and as humorless as a 401(k) statement, Tommy is a different breed. Granted, most of his comedic exploits came much earlier in his time at Chestnut Grove, but evidence remains.

There is the video footage of he and his brother-in-law, Don Barrett, doing their “Dumb & Dumber” routine. Tommy, dressed in a plaid button-up, driver’s cap, suspenders, short-shorts and knee high socks, sits on Don’s lap and pretends to be a ventriloquist’s dummy. The preacher is no slouch either; he completely sells the routine with stilted head turns, as well as hilarious near-pratfalls where he keeps his body as stiff as a board and trusts his brother-in-law to catch him. The routine lasts a good five to ten minutes, and has been reprised several times. It always gets a laugh.

There’s also the footage of Tommy, dressed in blue jeans and a black leather motorcycle jacket, riding a tricycle around while three teenagers lip sync the song, “The Leader of the Pack.” There is no finer physical comedy than seeing a man who is almost entirely arms and legs furiously pedal a toddler’s tricycle around on stage. It’s like watching a scarecrow do yoga.

There are other funny moments I could divulge, but they lose a little something, being translated to the page. You just have to see them to believe them.

*****

It’s natural that a man like Tommy, one so loving, so un-self-conscious, will be a rather hard act to follow. He announced recently that he plans to retire at 67, which is less than three years away. Of course, his idea of retirement is a little different from most.

“I want to keep preaching,” he says. “I don’t think that being a pastor is something you can really retire from.”

I ask him if there’s a difference, for him, between vocation and calling.

“Definitely,” he says, “most definitely. Preaching, pastoring, is not a job like other jobs. I don’t understand how some preachers can retire from a church and just never do anything again. It would drive me crazy. I mean, I plan to, if nothing else, teach a Bible study or do some interim work at smaller churches once I’m retired.”

He leans back and crosses his legs.

“I mean, in all the years I’ve been pastoring, forty something years, I’ve only been without a church for two weeks.”

My eyes bug out of my head. “Do what?”

“Yeah, only two weeks in forty years have I not had a church. And I’ve never left a church either.”

He raises his hand, as if to stop me.

“Wait, that’s not right. What I mean is that I’ve never been asked to leave a church. Every time I’ve moved on, I had felt like God wanted me to. So there was that one time, He wanted me to move on from a church, even though I didn’t have another place to go, so I just stepped out on faith.

“I even went for a regular job interview, for a job that wasn’t with a church. I got in the car and just started crying, ‘God, I don’t want to do this. I want to be in a church!’ The next week, I got a phone call from a church to come and preach for them, and they hired me soon after that. So I was only ever without a church for two weeks.”

Tommy smiles. “So I can’t imagine not being in a church somewhere, even if I’m just teaching a Sunday school class and ministering to the older folks around here.”

Here he sort of looks to the side, as if a thought just came to him. He looks up and smiles again. “Of course, we’ll see what the Lord has in store.”

What the Lord has in store for Tommy is just as much a mystery as what He has in store for Chestnut Grove. One of the fundamental axioms of leadership, in any type of organization – Christian or not – is that you never want to be the guy that follows the guy. After thirty years of relationships, thirty years of being the center for hundreds of people, Tommy’s departure from the pastor’s role won’t exactly be a small thing.

“How do you plan on preparing the church for that transition?” I ask.

Tommy’s face gets solemn. “Well,” he says, “I would like to have someone on staff who can just take over when it’s my time. Whether it’s someone already on staff or someone we might bring in new, I’d like to have a person who can get to know the people and the church get to know him, and it just seem like a natural thing.”

“Do you think that will be enough?” I ask.

“No.” He leans forward and puts his hands on his knees. “When I’m gone, or not being the pastor anymore, I’m not gonna stay in the middle of things. If people were to call me asking me about the new pastor, or what they should do about something the new pastor wants to do, I’m just gonna tell them – you need to take that up with your pastor. I won’t be mean, but you know what I’m saying – when I’m gone, I want to be gone. I don’t want to make things hard by meddling where I don’t belong.”

Here he rattles off two churches he can remember that faced a similar transition – one that did remarkably well, and one that crashed and burned.

“The difference between them is that one pastor didn’t try to continue to run things and the other one did. The first one, the one that didn’t meddle, stayed on as pastor emeritus, and worked mostly with the older folks in the church. Whenever someone called him up to complain, he’d just say, ‘Go to talk to our pastor.’ That’s how I want to be.”

The question is just begging to be asked, so I toss it out there.

“Will you stay around Chestnut Grove once you’ve retired?”

“If that’s what God wants me to do, yes. I wouldn’t mind being Pastor Emeritus and working with the senior adults. I love our people.”

*****

So we come full circle: love the people. The same principle that has guided his ministry from the beginning is the same principle that will guide his ending. Only for Tommy, there really won’t be an ending. He’ll continue to work within the church, whether Chestnut Grove or somewhere else, because that’s what God made him to do. It’s part of his DNA, as much as the color of his eyes or the leanness of his body.

It is this seriousness with which he takes his calling that makes him such a wonderful pastor. As I mentioned earlier, in a culture where pastors come and go like fashion trends, a man with the commitment and integrity to stay in one place and work according to his call is a spring of hope for weary parishioners. His longevity at Chestnut Grove is an indictment on that quick-change culture, but also an inspiration for those who want to see the culture changed. To look at Tommy Jordan and Chestnut Grove is to see that maybe the way forward is, in some ways, to go backward.

Here is where I give you full disclosure, because I can’t write what I want to write next without telling you that Tommy Jordan is not only my pastor, but also my boss. I work at Chestnut Grove as the youth pastor.

This is actually my second tour of duty as the youth guy; I was first called to the church in 2001, and loved it. I loved working with Tommy and for Tommy, and he did his best to encourage and stretch me as a person. It was only an unforeseen personal tragedy that caused me to leave in 2005, and even then, Tommy was a great mentor and counsellor as I tried to figure out what was next. I ended up pastoring a small church for three years, and Tommy was my unofficial sounding board and sponsor, as well as my model. He would cringe to hear that, but it’s true.

In 2008, I stepped away from the pastorate and went to work for an international Christian ministry as a writer and researcher. My wife and I came back to Chestnut Grove as members, and just basked in the love that Tommy and the church poured out on us. Twice Tommy asked me to step in as interim youth pastor, and I happily agreed. The second time, Tommy came to me in private.

“Would you consider coming back full-time?” he asked.

“Do you want me to?” I asked.

“Well, that’s between you and the Lord,” he said. “But we’d be happy to have your resume.”

I thought long and hard about those words. I’d been out of pastoral ministry for almost three years, and had told many people that I wouldn’t go back. But Tommy’s words resonated with me, and the more I thought about them and prayed about them – and the more God moved in other areas of my life – I realized that, much like Tommy, being a pastor is what I’m called to do.

And, perhaps more specifically, I’m called to minister to the people of Chestnut Grove.

When I interviewed, I told the search committee that the one thing that set me apart from the other candidates was the fact that I didn’t want the job.

“What I mean by that,” I said, “is that this isn’t just some next step for me. It’s not a launching platform or the opportunity for me to come in and show my philosophy of ministry off. I want to come back to Chestnut Grove, not for the job, but to help the church. I wouldn’t just come in and do what’s in the best interests of the youth, but what’s in the best interests of the church.”

I obviously got the job. And, as Yogi Berra said, “It’s deja vu all over again.” I am where God has called me to be, doing what God has called me to do. Just like my mentor, Tommy.

With that being said, this verse from Jeremiah seems most fitting as an end. The prophet, in the opening lines of the Old Testament book bearing his name, recounts the call of God on his life. In simple but direct prose, Jeremiah sums up a call that, like for Tommy, is undeniable.

“The word of the Lord came to me:
‘I chose you before I formed you in the womb;
I set you apart before you were born.
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’
“But I protested, ‘Oh no, Lord, GOD! Look, I don’t know how to speak since I am only a youth.”
“Then the Lord said to me:
‘Do not say, “I am only a youth,”
for you will go to everyone I send you to
and speak whatever I tell you.
Do not be afraid of anyone,
for I will be with you to deliver you.’
“This is the Lord’s declaration.”

Jeremiah 1:4-8

A Heart So Big

I had a curriculum meeting at Ella’s school tonight, so I stopped in at MawMaw and Pop’s in the middle of the afternoon. Pop was lying in bed, sleeping, and MawMaw was visiting with my cousin Chasity. Pop looked better, but only because he had his glasses on and his teeth in; apparently, he woke up this morning determined to feel normal, and MawMaw was happy to oblige.

The feeling didn’t last, however, and he quickly returned to his now-normal status of near-constant sleep. His breathing is constant, interrupted by the occasional snore or hand gesture, and every once in a while you can see his mouth move, as if he’s having conversations with people we can’t see.

MawMaw sat back in her recliner to rest for a bit, and I began to tell her about the pictures I’ve been scanning onto my hard drive. She had given me complete access to all of her pictures, and I’ve been trying to comb through the massive albums to find pictures that best represent Pop, or that reflect memories that are important to our entire family. Some have been funny; others, revelatory; and still others have been the bitterest pill – seeing my grandfather so full of life, so opposite of his current condition, swells the eyes with tears of all kinds: happiness, regret, sadness, joy, and on and on.

There was one picture in particular that caught my attention, because it was of my grandfather and the preacher who was his best friend for many, many years, Mr. Sonny Drummond. Here it is:

I knew there was a story here...I just didn't expect it to be so good.

I told MawMaw about the picture because I thought it was a perfect representation of Pop: his innate goofiness, his love of friends, and his long-time eschewance of sunscreen.

She knew exactly the picture I was talking about, and she smiled. “I remember that picture because I took it. Have you ever heard the story behind it?”

“No,” I said. “Didn’t really know there was one.”

“Well,” she began, “one night Preacher Sonny called Pop and said, ‘Harold, I can’t see.’”

Apparently something was wrong with Preacher Sonny’s eyes; he was having trouble focusing and none of the remedies he’d tried worked. Desperate, he called my grandfather and explained his plan: he wanted to drive down to Florida and get in the ocean.

“I just know if I can get in the water in Florida, everything will be fine.”

I stopped my grandmother here. “Was this something he felt that God had told him or something?”

I was thinking about the Bible story of Naaman the leper (see 2 Kings 5:1-15) who was told to dip in the river Jordan seven times, and when he obeyed, Naaman was cleansed of his leprosy. I’ve heard some cool stories, but this seemed like it had the potential to take the cake.

“No,” she said, “nothing like that. He just knew that if we went down to Pensacola and he got in the water, his eyes would clear up. So we went.”

My grandparents went to bed early after getting that call, and set the alarm for 2:00 AM. By three in the morning, they had their Ford Crown Victoria loaded up with Preacher Sonny and his wife, Miss Tessie, and they were on their way through the Georgia darkness towards the salt water shores of Florida. My grandfather drove, Preacher Sonny rode shotgun, and MawMaw and Miss Tessie sat in the back, worrying and praying non-stop.

They rocketed through the quiet Southern plains, barely speaking, the early morning stillness only upset by the hum of the Crown Vic’s tires. MawMaw didn’t say this, of course, but I know that she and Pop had to be worried sick about their friend; I knew Preacher Sonny, and he was a good man, a good preacher, and certainly one of the closest friends Pop ever had. They were buddies from the start, and Pop loved him as dearly as any man ever loved a friend.

And so, as they sped through the dawn, MawMaw and Miss Tessie fell asleep, and probably Preacher Sonny did too, leaving Pop alone behind the wheel, driving for his friend’s life.

They reached the beaches of Pensacola by 10:00 AM. As soon as they arrived, Pop found his way to a public beach access, parked the car, and while Miss Tessie and MawMaw watched, he and his best friend went racing into the ocean. After an hour in the salt water (an hour that cleared up Sonny’s vision), they joined their wives on a nearby bench and waited beneath the sun until their three o’clock check-in at a nearby hotel.

*****

There’s another picture from that trip, taken by MawMaw shortly after they checked into the hotel. Pop is sitting on the edge of the hotel bed in his boxer shorts with dark dress socks pulled halfway up his calves. His thighs, knees, and lower legs are beet red from sunburn, and he’s grinning like a kid who just skipped school to spend the day at the beach with his best girl. There’s a matching shot of Sonny, too. Both are smiling, showing off the kind of war wounds you collect only for best friends. MawMaw laughed at the memory.

“We stayed three days,” MawMaw said, “just to make sure Sonny was okay. Then, he wanted to drive over to Daytona Beach for a little while, so we drove clear across to there and stayed.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, “you mean you guys just took an impromptu Florida vacation with no more than a few hours notice?”

“Yes,” she said, looking at Pop. “But that was back when we were strong. Pop was in good health; Sonny, with his bad knees, used to watch Harold climb ladders and do other things with ease and Sonny’d just say, ‘Boy! Look at ‘im go. I sure do wish I could do that.’”

She paused and looked away. “Those were good days.”

Pop’s breathing got loud, so the story ended there, but it’s stayed in my mind all night. It’s a simple story, really – nothing too grand about it, until you start to imagine what must have been going through their minds as they drove towards a beach, hoping for a miracle. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’m left staggered by the incredible selflessness of that kind of love; I mean, we’re not talking about making this drive for a family member or a grandchild. We’re talking about a friend.

What kind of person has that much love? Whose heart is really that big? It’s not just the fact that they packed up and left with little notice – it’s that they did it completely on faith. No one called the doctor to ask if the gamble would work. No one double-checked with WebMD.

My grandparents never even asked the most natural of questions: Are you sure about this?

They just said “Yes.”

They packed their clothes, got in their own car, and put their lives at risk for the life of a friend. Amazing. Mind-blowing. Inconceivable.

And yet, that’s who my grandparents are. As long as they have breath and strength and time and money, if you are in need, they are going to help you. I mean, why else would two retirees plant God-knows-how-many acres of corn, tomatoes, beans, peppers, squash, collards, turnips, peas, and other assorted vegetables? It might have been part of their Depression-era ethic, but the quantities that they gave away to friends and family and neighbors tells me otherwise. They were relentless on the dinner-for-the-bereaved circuit, the dinner-for-the-sick circuit, and the dinner-for-the-recently-pregnant circuit. They visited shut ins, hospice, hospital and all others who needed a smiling face.

They essentially gave away their lives to people who needed hope.

*****

MawMaw and I talked about a lot more after that story. I asked her questions about her and Pop, about family history I’ve never been clear on, and we spent a good bit of time talking about the death of my uncle Terry. At one point, MawMaw teared up and said, “So many memories.”

She took a breath and continued, “We’ve been together 61 years, and have never really been apart. We’ve done everything together, and even these last years, when he couldn’t do like he used to, at least he was still able to talk to me.”

Pop shifted in his bed and we both turned to look at him. He took a moment, but finally got settled, and when I looked back at MawMaw, her eyes were still fixed on him.

“I just don’t know what I’ll do when he’s gone,” she said, as much to herself as to me.

The time passed quickly, so much so that my phone buzzed with a text from Rachel wondering if everything was OK. By that time my aunt Pat had walked in and I knew that MawMaw wouldn’t be alone. I gave her a kiss and promised to check in on her and Pop in the morning, since I wouldn’t be able to come back for an evening visit due to a work obligation.

“That’s alright hon,” she said, kissing me on the lips. “You come back when you can.”

I said I would, and as I walked through the door towards my car, I heard her call out, like always, “You come see MawMaw, now!”

Right now, every visit counts. One day soon, they’ll count all the more.