The Journey Continues

Day Eight: Life in Community

2011-12-30T21:17:00.001-06:00

Thirty six cups of coffee, two dozen eggs, three dozen tortillas, pico de gallo, hash browns, and fresh squeezed orange juice from Texas fruit from the valley -- that was breakfast for the pizza group this morning. Hershey, the wiener dog, wandered off into the woods, provoking a search -- Debbie in her pink robe and flip-flops leading the way. We sat around picnic tables under the mesquite trees in perfect seventy degree weather to eat and talk. Matt gave his two year old daughter Evie rides in the wagon behind the John Deere and she laughed out loud the whole time. A game of chicken foot got organized on the front porch. Chris' lost earrings necessitated some plumbing work in the guest bath and a trip to the Wilson County Hardware store for a new P-Trap. David replaced two electrical sockets in the kitchen and bath and put a new chute on the lawn mower. Jenna played her guitar on the front porch. David and Diann took a walk around the pasture with two dogs in tow. Half of us walked over to the big sandstone rock where my cousins and I have been carving our initials for forty years. I led another group on a hike on the perimeter of the property, stopping under the huge oak trees for Matt, Jenna, and Julie to climb. Jared and Sarah arrived to join the group and the Henderson's and Mobley's took a trip to San Antonio to walk the river and eat out, celebrating LeAnn's birthday. The Creeches and Haynes' stayed behind to keep the dogs and played round after round of "What's Yours Like?" Melinda, Jenna, and Chris cleaned up the kitchen and we tuned into the Oklahoma Sooners game, waiting for our Sooner fans to return from the city. The ebb and flow of the day has been simple and rich.

Day Seven: The Pizza Group

2011-12-30T08:01:00.001-06:00

About 20 years ago our church began a worship service on Saturday night with about 300 people to accommodate numerical growth that had exceeded the space we had available. When a new facility was ready a couple of years later, about half that congregation returned to Sunday mornings. But the other half found the Saturday night schedule refreshing and wanted to continue. So we did.

Groups of friends usually swarmed the local restaurants after worship and continued the Saturday night experience. A bunch off us regularly crowded in to Godfather's Pizza and became known as "the pizza group." But things changed. Godfather's closed. We started meeting in one another's homes and ordering pizza. Our kids grew up and started going out together instead of meeting with us. So we started going out to eat again. Our metabolism changed and we started eating salads at Sweet Mesquite. Sweet Mesquite changed owners and names. The Saturday night service moved back to Sunday after 18 years. Some of us moved away. But one thing hasn't changed. We still refer to ourselves as the pizza group and we still get together whenever possible.

We try to camp out a couple of times a year. We eat Mexican food at the same house each Christmas Eve. And we've gathered here at the farm several time. Last night four of those couples, four of their adult children, one grandchild, and five dogs from the pizza group met at the farm for a New Years weekend.

Someone brought a portable satellite dish so we could watch football (we have alums from Baylor, OU, and A and M, all of whom are in bowl games). We ate and laughed and chased dogs. I'm pretty well convinced that the irreplaceable friends in life are those with whom you raised your children.

Day Six: When Things Don't Work (or "How Waffle")

2011-12-28T20:38:00.001-06:00

I understand that deep within us lie longings that, for reasons theologians and philosophers ponder, sometimes are left unfulfilled: truth, beauty, justice, meaningful relationships, for example. And also we want things to work. Mechanical things. Electric things. Computery things. Cell phones. We just want them to work. And when they don't emotions range from anger and frustration to sadness and disappointment. Things are just supposed to work. That's why I got a Mac, but that's another blog entry.

Melinda and I went shopping today to upgrade things around the farm house. For the past four years we've been doing with things my grandmother left, but I have to say it had been a long time since she had seen fit to think about linens and towels. So we drove to San Antonio and gathered the things to refurbish the place. New sheets and pillow cases for all the beds (three beds and three queen size sleeper sofas), new towels for three bathrooms, new comforters for two beds, and a new shower curtain. The shopping crowds were small and we got what we needed.

One item we pondered was in Anna's Linens. It was one of those soft padded toilet seats. Only this one was inscribed with Bible verses related to the Fruit of the Spirit, a list of highly desirable character traits produced by the Holy Spirit, listed by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 5:22-23. Somehow that just didn't seem appropriate. At. All.

Our last stop was the new Super Wal-Mart in Floresville. We needed some twin sheets for a spare bed. As we passed through the household appliance section, however, something else caught our eyes. It was a gadget made by G.E. -- one of those waffle irons like they have at some of the chain hotels, the kind that you flip over after you pour the batter in. We have a crowd of friends visiting this weekend and we thought that waffles for breakfast would be fun one morning. So I grabbed one and added it to our carload of stuff.

We wisely thought we'd try it out tonight, and so, with Melinda not feeling well, I mixed the waffle batter, followed the instructions carefully, plugged it it, waited for the green light, poured in the batter, flipped it over, waited three minutes as instructed, and opened it up expectantly, ready for the first golden brown waffle of many to follow. What I had was a half cooked mess. I do make a lot of mistakes and messes, so my assumption was I had somehow screwed it up. I cleaned the waffle maker, waited for the green light, added another batch of batter, and waited five minutes. I opened it up to find a completely uncooked mess. The power light was on. The green "ready" light was on, but there was no heat in the waffle iron. It just didn't work.

I think that sadness and disappointment described my emotional state. There was no one to be angry at. It just didn't work. I pondered the Fruit of the Spirit again -- "The fruit of the Spirit is . . . patience. . .." I asked, WWICD? (What would the Iron Chefs Do?) I threw out the remainder of the waffle batter, mixed some pancake batter, heated up the griddle, and changed the menu.

After I finish writing I will try to find either the Baylor Bears men's basketball game or the Longhorns football game on the radio (if it is working) and I'll clean up the kitchen. I'll repackage the waffle iron and return it to Wal-Mart tomorrow.

Sometimes things don't work. We expect things to go one way and they go another. Pancakes (and a big mess to clean up) instead of waffles. And sometimes its worse than that. Our best response will be the fruit of the Spirit, though I am convince there are probably better locations for meditation on that truth than the toilet seat. Maybe not. Maybe that's the most appropriate place to think about how to respond when stuff happens.

Day Five (or Eight): Boxing Day

2011-12-27T21:53:00.000-06:00

If any readers of this blog have kept count, they would know that technicallythis should be Day Eight. I’m claiming Christmas Eve and Christmas Day asholidays that did not require me to write. Now what about the 26^th?Well, check your calendar. If you have a calendar from the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, NewZealand, and some other Commonwealth nations, you know that was Boxing Day on which occasionyou should have offered gifts to your servants. Apparently they get theleft-overs from Christmas.

If you have a Christian calendar, then you know that the 26^this St. Stephen’s Day,a public holiday in most of those countries that celebrate Boxing Day. It showsup in that curious Christmas carol about Wenceslas I, Duke of Bohemia, “GoodKing Wenceslas,” who, according to the text, “looked out on the feast ofStephen.”

So, on two grounds – one secular and one sacred – I could claiman additional holiday that exempted me from a day of writing. But I shall claim neither. I have anotherplace to stand in defense of my neglect of the blog and my violation of mystated discipline of daily writing – it was my birthday.

That’s right, the day after Christmas. I have long sympathized withthose whose birthdays fall in the proximity of Christmas Day. I was once partof a support group in our church, which included one person born on ChristmasEve and named “Christy Eve.” I have had clerks ask as they look at my driver’slicense before accepting a check: “Oh, your birthday’s the day after Christmas.What’s that like?” I was at Sports Clips a week ago because they sent me acoupon for a free haircut in December as a birthday present. The stylist asked,“So when in December is your birthday?” “The day after Christmas.” “Oh,” shesaid. “That must be kind of strange.”

Kind of strange? Like in people wishing you “Merry Birthday?” Likein your mother presenting you with a mixing bowl turned upside down with acandle on it on your first birthday? (Not so bad, since as a one year old I hadno idea about the traditions of my species on birthdays. But photographing itand thinking I would not grow up to be bright enough to know the difference? Priceless.) Like in getting a pair of shoes from yourgrandmother and being told one is for your birthday and one is for Christmas?Kind of strange like getting a card from your family with a picture of two parrots and a rock onthe front, reading, “Two Birds, One Stone.” Inside it said, “Merry Christmas.Happy Birthday.” Like the monthly office party celebrating birthdays in January through November that turns into a Christmas party in December? Kind of strange likepeople completely forgetting that it is your birthday because they are just tooexhausted from Christmas?

"Yeah," I told her, "sometimes." But I don't really mind since the competition in this matter is Jesus. Christmas is His birthday. I get it. So, no, I'm not going to challenge that.

But people who have been around me for a while know this whole schtick ofbirthday whining and give it back to me in equal parts. Once on the 26^thof June our office staff invited me to a half-birthday party replete with halfa cake. I have had several small plastic mixing bowls adorned with a candlepresented to me. I have received birthday gifts of items picked up at Walgreensthe day after Christmas when they are 75% off, with the Merry Christmas markedout and Happy Birthday penned over them. Yesterday the sky was dark and grayand dripped rain for the fourth day in a row. I received a call from afriend: “I was driving along and feeling a bit down and depressed, wondering why, and then I remembered, it isyour birthday.”

So for the fifty-ninth time, Christmas came and went and so didBoxing Day. But I was so busy celebrating that day I just couldn't find time towrite.

Day Four: 'Nuf Said

2011-12-23T17:30:00.001-06:00

Note the sign to the left of the door ("Beware of Dog"). Note fifty pound bag of "Come and Get It" dog food on pile of curbside trash. Note two arm chairs riddled to pieces. Note large chunk chewed off of door. Anyone want to warn Santa about going down this chimney?

Day Three: Interactions

2011-12-22T22:02:00.001-06:00

Relationships are more interactive than we sometimes think. We tend to see them as one on one -- my relationship with my wife or husband, with my son or daughter, with this particular friend. It is more complex than that. We are more than observers of the interaction between those around us. We are part of it. A good bit of the joy we experience in the people we care about is seeing them with each other. The joy is more than getting to be with one of my sons -- it is seeing my sons see each other or my daughter see her brothers. The joy of relationships is found in watching my two grand-daughters hug in reunion or play together enthusiastically. It is found in listening in on conversations as we walked the neighborhood streets to see the Christmas lights. Or laughing as the girls dressed poor Cole in a tutu and tiara while he patiently obliged.

C. S. Lewis remarked on the death of his friend Charles Williams, that one of the things he would miss would not simply be Williams' jokes, but watching Tolkien respond to Williams' jokes. Christian community is like that. The joy of community is not just in our being with Christ or our being with a believing friend. It is found in seeing our friend relate to Christ in their own life.

I have thoroughly enjoyed a day of interactions. Our children were together. And their spouses. And their children. And some cousins. And the grand-dogs. I got to be with each of them. But I also got to observe the interactions between them. There is joy in that.

Day Two: Attacking the To-Do List

2011-12-21T20:32:00.000-06:00

My list of things I plan to get done before classes resumein January is long, but manageable. It’s funny how much we overestimate what wecan do in a short time, but miss by a mile how much we can accomplish over adecade. But I don’t have a decade, I have three weeks.

Today I revised the syllabuses (syllabi?) for two courses. Iteach the same ones every semester: Lifeand Work of a Pastor (PAST 7336) and Leadershipin Christian Ministry (LEAD 7301). The Spring semester will be the sixthand seventh time I have taught those courses, respectively. I don’t do wellstuck in a rut, so I change the courses each time I teach them. In the firstthree semesters the changes were radical – course organization, assignments,schedules. I have settled into an approach in each that feels comfortable andeffective. So now I change a text book or two in each course each time. Thisredirects class discussion, provides different papers to read, and keeps mefrom getting bored. The good news is that there are plenty of books out there.I’m even working on writing one of my own. At least that’s on my To-Do List.

Making these changes to the syllabus and rearranging myBlackboard sites to match took up most of the day. I have another course to getto – Introduction to Mentoring (MENT7300). I have only taught it once, so I’m still in the radical change modethere. It will be quite different this semester. But I didn’t get to that onetoday. The To-Do List is on hold for a week or so.

Tomorrow I will pack up things and drive toHouston to join my family for Christmas weekend. Tomorrow all of my kids andtheir spouses and kids will be in one place at one time. This is the first timewe have all been assembled since Christmas 2006. We’ll have a day at Alan &Kat’s house of just us. After that, it gets crazy. I don’t want to think aboutit. Let’s just say that there will be fourteen people and three dogs spendingthe night in the same house on Christmas Eve.

Early next week Melinda and I will return to the farm towork on those things that need to get taken care of during the in-between timeof Christmas break. My list includes that last syllabus, finalizing fourpresentations for a gig at the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center in Chicago at theend of January, editing some work for a friend who has a book in process, preparingto preach at UBC for the first time in two years, preparing to preach at Truettin February, and getting ready for friends to arrive for the New Year’s weekend.I’ll get to all those things eventually, though probably not next week.

The To-Do List is not really a thing to be attacked orconquered, despite the title above. Those lists are what our lives are comprisedof. The lists are to be loved, lived,nurtured, cared for, not attacked. The To-Do List signals that I have a life tolive, that I am free. Prisoners do not have To-Do lists. The lonely in nursinghomes do not have To-Do lists. Patients in an ICU do not have To-Do lists. Somy list sits before me reminding me that I have a life, responsibilities,relationships, gifts, abilities, opportunities, and a few obligations.

Day One: Of Vermicelli and Vermiculture

2011-12-20T18:27:00.000-06:00

This is not a New Year’s resolution of any sort. It is moreof an experiment. A practice. An attempt at a discipline. I’m going to endeavor to write this blogevery day for three weeks – from now until Spring classes begin on January 9.A friendtook on this challenge earlier this year and I admired her for doing so. Then I’ll see what happens next. Perhaps it will be a habit by then (although research has demonstrated that 21 days to a habit ideas is not exactly correct -- 18-66 days seems to be more accurate).

One thing this surely means is that my entries are going tobe even more mundane than usual. That’s really ok with me. I’m pretty wellconvinced that the ordinary is where everything that matters happens anyway.I’m not too pressured to pursue profundity. If it ever shows up, so be it. So today is mostly about garbage and worms.

I have made another semi-solitary visit to the farm,preparing for a gathering of friends here later in the month. It issemi-solitary because Cole has accompanied me, and one is not truly alone if adog is involved. He mostly keeps to himself, doesn’t say much, and onlyoccasionally becomes needy for attention.

I went to bed really early last night, and so I woke upbefore the sun, made coffee, and settled down to read. Early morning reading is another practiceI’m attempting to regain during the winter break. This year I want to readthrough the Year B Daily Lectionary Readings and I have been neglecting thepractice of daily Bible reading since just before Thanksgiving. So I sat downand read through all the Advent readings up to today. That was both a pleasant and powerfulexperience. The passages were familiar and well-marked in my Bible (except one in Habakkuk I hadn’t readin a while). The Old Testament readings majored on the prophets and their wordsabout God’s plan and promises for his people – Isaiah, Zephaniah, Ezekiel,Jeremiah, Micah, and Malachi all had something to add. The New Testamentreadings focused on Christ’s promised return, and today, the narrative ofGabriel’s announcement to Mary. When I had caught up, I wanted to keep going.Listening to this other narrative about another King rather than the crazy narrative I hear dailyduring the political insanity of an election year was a welcome change ofatmosphere and hope. I feel more ready to celebrate Christmas.

I took a break and made myself some pancakes – something Ihave never done as far as I can remember. Wait, now that I think about it, I doremember cooking pancakes a couple of times as a teenager. But it has been awhile. I shared one with Cole, and then he and I walked a half mile down theroad cleaning up litter along our property’s frontage on County Road 401. I tooka 30 gallon plastic garbage bag with me and had it filled before we’d made itthree quarters of the way. I left it on the roadside and continued to gathertrash into piles every few yards. Then, since we had to walk back anyway, wedecided to do the same on the other side of the road. I felt like Forrest Gump on his run. I couldn't stop When we got back to thehouse, I dug out three more bags from under the kitchen counter and drove back upthe road gathering the trash. Soft drinkcans and plastic bottles, packaging from fast food, and beer cans and bottlesmade up 90% of the debris. I don’t get it – the sense that it is somehow ok toroll down your window and throw your trash wherever you please, that the worldis your trash can, that you can Mess with Texas. I’m not so much outraged as disgusted.

When we were done I drank a limeade (I’m nearly addicted toSimply Limeade), and read a chapter of Dallas Willard’s Knowing Christ Today. I enjoyed his argument for the existence ofGod based on first cause. I think that’s the first time that argument seemedpersuasive to me rather than question-begging. Cole found the argument dense.

After a lunch of leftovers from last night’s whole wheat vermicelli, I put some pinto beans on to cook, and thendecided to drive to the Lighthouse Quik Shop, a bait house in Elmendorf, TXnear Lake Calaveras, to buy some worms. I wasn’t planning a fishing trip. I’mworking on another experiment – vermiculture. Vermis is the Latin word for “worm.”(Hence, vermicelli are “little worms.”) A friend of ours at a church dinner clubtwo weeks ago inspired me. All of us around the table were discussing homegardens and organic practices and she said she’d begun to raise her ownearthworms in a plastic box and it was easy. The earthworms serve as a kind offast compost pile. You put the organic materials in the box with them and theyturn it into castings (earthworm poop) in no time, and plants love the stuff. Imade a visit to YouTube and found plenty of videos providing the necessaryinstruction. I had an old plastic box at the farm, so why not?

I bought about a hundred worms (red wigglers are preferredto night crawlers) and today’s edition of the San Antonio paper, drilled holesin the bottom of the box, shredded the paper and dampened it, added the wormsand some food scraps (they don’t like citrus peals or onion skins, I'm told), put the lidback on and left them in the garage. They need a little moisture added occasionally. They willmultiply, eat our leftovers, produce castings, and provide for our springgarden. I’ll take them back to Waco with me when we head that direction.

I finished the beans, read a chapter on our inherent longing for justice from N. T. Wright’s Simply Christian, and then lay on thecouch and thought about what I’d been reading (that’s code at our house for anap).

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I received an emailfrom my son with his design drawings for a new patio and outdoor kitchen at thefarm, which may become reality this spring. I called and made an appointmentwith a recommended landscape company to come out tomorrow and make a bid. And Ireceived an anticipated call from my doctor with good news from some recenttest results.

What I didn’t do today was a single thing on my to do list,which included revising the syllabus for three of my courses and organizing myfinancial record in anticipation of tax preparation. Somehow, there were moreinteresting things to do, like vermiculture.

Tomorrow.

Red-Neck Theme Parks, Hikes, and Whoopie Pies

2011-11-25T20:13:00.001-06:00

I showed up at the farm a week ago with Cole and we setabout mowing, cleaning, and repairing things in anticipation of the family’sarrival on Wednesday. By Wednesday at 1:30, Kat’s Mini Cooper was driving upthe long caliche drive and Cole was at attention. We unpacked the car and beganpreparing lunch. I looked out the kitchen window and saw Austin, 2, sitting inthe swing hanging from one of the huge branches of the big oak tree. Kat drewup a quick vegetarian Thanksgiving menu and drove to town to enjoy theday-before-Thanksgiving crowd at the H.E.B. In a couple of hours, Melinda andJenna drove up. And a few hours later,Alan and the dogs arrived, completing the full house.

I don’t even remember what happened that night, butThanksgiving day was full. After breakfast burritos, I went outside with thekids. Willie, the Silverado, was converted in several stages, into what welabeled a red-neck theme park (he'd once served as a red-neck hot tub up here before). I drove him around back, next to the old trampoline.We connected a salvaged sliding board (that will one day descend from atree house) to his bed. Madison decorated the black bedliner with sidewalkchalk and jumped from the side of the truck onto the trampoline.

Austin took upwith a large spoon, and ample supply of soft dirt and water and mixed mud in abucket. The John Deere X-300 was connected to a large wagon and provided ridesabout the yard. The dogs stretched out in the sun.

Meanwhile, Kat began to transform her vision for WhoopiePies (she brought a Whoopie Pie cookbook with her) into reality. ThanksgivingDay Whoopie Pies would be pumpkin with cream filling. Other varieties werescheduled for each day to follow.

We received a text from Taylor that he and his family, had travelled to Charlotte, NC from theirhome in Aberdeen, NC to see the 2011 Carolina Carrousel Thanksgiving DayParade, the 4^th largest in the country. In a few minutes we receivedanother text from him that his family had been selected to serve as GrandMarshalls and ride in the parade. Later that day, when the parade was broadcaston WBTV in Charlotte, they used their cell phone to make a video of theirappearance.

After our Whoopie Pie lunch(?) the dinner preparations began. I can’t even describe all that we had, but it was beautiful and delicious. You can see the photos and get the recipes on Kat's blog. We ate outside under the mesquite trees, as we have for three years now.

Today the bunch of us loaded into the Santa Fe and travelledto the Government Canyon State Natural Area for a mid-day hike to anobservation point, and then back again. It takes a while to make such a hikewhen one of the hikers is only two years old. It’s not that his steps are soshort. It is that the journey is more important to him than the destination. Itinvolves a lot of stops for sticks and rocks and boo-boos.

Lunch was at The Cove in San Antonio, and then back to thefarm for S’Mores Whoopie Pies, more “tractor rides,” and a beautiful SouthTexas sunset with just enough clouds to enhance the texture.

I thought about how many Thanksgivings I spent here as akid, how much fun it was to be with grandparents, cousins, uncles, and aunts.Our activities were not quite the same, but the fun was pretty much identicalto that I’ve enjoyed the past couple of days.

Reunions

2011-10-25T21:32:00.000-05:00

On September 18, Melinda and I went to the Westin Galleria for the 40^th Reunion of the S. P. Waltrip Class of 1971. I’m guessing that about two hundred people showed up, including spouses who may not have been part of the class. This was the fifth reunion for Melinda and me – we returned at 5, 10, 20, and 30 years. (At each of the first three, we were expecting a baby, so we were careful around the 30^th and 40^th. ) At each one we saw people who’d been important in our lives and we missed others who could not make it.

At the 40^th we were all just glad to be there. A wall of memory solemnly reminded us of a couple of dozen of our friends who were already on the other side, including our most famous classmate, Patrick Swayze.

Waltrip High School in 1971 was a good place for me. I’d tried to play football at Hamilton Junior High for three years and thought I’d like to do that in high school as well. The only problem was that I was 6’1” and weighed 145 lbs. soaking wet. I couldn’t gain an ounce no matter what I did. During spring training drills I was pitted against linemen that were close to twice my weight. So I played center on punts in the spring training game and then joined the debate squad in the fall. Both the football team and the debate squad benefited from that decision, not to mention my body. (My freshman year in college I solved the weight gain problem and have not suffered from that issue again.)

My high school memories are easily evoked by music of the 60s and 70s. When I walk with my iPod in the mornings tuned to my Oldies playlist, I’m back in the halls of Waltrip -- Mrs. Kahla’s inspiring debate class, Mrs. Fisher and Mrs. Week’s demanding English classes, the lovely Mrs. Andrews’ geometry class, the crazy Mr. Mulholland’s chemistry class, Coach Gene Agleton saying, “Creech put the soap back in the shower,” and listening to Gary Puckett and the Union Gap’s “Woman, Woman,” playing on the jukebox in the cafeteria. I recall the classy Waltrip drill team, the Imperial Guard, marching with drums and bugles and doing their signature “ripple” at the football games, a 0-10 record for our team my senior year, and travelling with friends to the forensic tournaments that defined my life for three years. I remember standing outside the gym each morning waiting for the first bell, listening to Ken Scott practicing his standup comedy routine, making up stories about what he’d found in the glove compartment of his 1969 Impala that morning.

Melinda and I met in high school and we began dating in the latter half of our senior year. So going to high school reunions means we walk into some shared memories and friendships. It is just a little unbelievable that forty years have passed since I awkwardly walked into that high school as a sophomore and that I was walking into the reunion as a grandfather.

Floresville Peanut Festival

2011-10-09T10:57:00.007-05:00

Our friend Diann lives in Houston but works in Pleasanton, near Floresville, during the week. We usually let her and her husband David know when we plan to be at the farm, because sometimes they are there on weekends as well. As it turned out, Diann would be in Pleasanton working this weekend, so we planned to get together. She mentioned to Melinda that the Floresville Peanut Festival was being held this weekend and we might like to check that out.

I last attended the Floresville Peanut Festival when I was ten or eleven, I suppose. I remember little about it – the downtown parade where people on the floats tossed small plastic bags of Planter’s Peanuts to the people lining the streets, the “Sock Hop” in the high school gym, and the fiddler’s contest my dad wanted to hear. Farmers around Floresville used to grow a lot of peanuts and there’s a giant peanut statue on the courthouse square commemorating that fact. I read recently that fewer and fewer were doing so these days. Nevertheless, the 67^th Annual Floresville Peanut Festival goes on.

By the time we learned that the festival was this weekend, we had already missed out on much of it. We were not present for the Coronation of the Court of the Mystical, Magical Universe (Queen Tunaep and King Reboog and their court – that’s Peanut and Goober spelled backwards). We had missed the parade that was held Saturday morning along with several children’s events. We’d missed the gun fighters, snake handlers, and petting zoo as well.

Diann came over from Pleasanton about dinner time and the three of us drove into town to check out the event. We had to pause on the way into town to allow a flock of wild turkeys to cross the road and enter the southern end of our property. We parked in front of the Church of Christ’s building and walked two blocks to the courthouse square. The streets around the courthouse were cordoned off and perhaps a thousand people mingled in the streets. To the side of the courthouse, the Bud Light Stage hosted live local country bands. In the street in front of the courthouse food vendors offered smoked turkey legs, kettle corn, gorditas, enchiladas, tacos, fajitas, bbq sandwiches, funnel cake, Italian ices, roasted corn cups, and fruit cups. We purchased some food tickets and each settled on our choice of street food entrees, and wandered around the square.

Behind the courthouse craft vendors offered their handiwork – a good selection of cedar lawn furniture, clothing and bags of various sorts, jewelry, yard art, and wind-chimes. On the south side of the courthouse was the arcade with a fun house, games, lots of carnival rides, and more healthy food.

We exchanged a few more food tickets for Italian ice and then pooled our remaining tickets to get a funnel cake. Sitting on the curb, down the street from the live music, Melinda held the funnel cake in her lap while the three of us picked at it until it was gone and Melinda was covered in powdered sugar.

The festival continues today, but it moves from its traditional downtown location to the events center out on the Pleasanton Highway (U.S. 97), near the San Antonio River. There’s an admission fee to the grounds today, but it includes samples from the chili and menudo cook-offs. The concerts tonight are bigger bands, so there’s actually a $10 admission fee.

We have made our plans for next year already, October 11-13. We’ll be bringing grandchildren to that one.

Rain, Rain, Don't Go Away

2011-10-09T10:10:00.000-05:00

Melinda, Cole, and I arrived at the farm Friday night after dark. As soon as we turned into the driveway, our headlights exposed a skunk prowling in the grass. With Cole’s previous skunk-encounter still fresh in our minds, we were careful not to let him loose in the dark. We’ve not been to the farm since Labor Day, and in the six weeks we’ve been away rain has graced the land several times. So Saturday morning we were greeted by a lovely green across the property and some tall grass round the house that meant I’d be able to ride the new John Deere. (First I’d have to repair a flat rear tire. I’m getting good at this.)

I spent the morning mowing while Melinda worked on a term paper. Just as I finished up, a cool breeze blew in and rain began to fall. For fifteen minutes or so, we sat in the front porch swing and took in the sight of water falling from the sky. How sad that it takes drought for one to appreciate just how marvelous a rain shower really is – its sounds, sights, smells, and the miraculous effect it has on the land.

After lunch we made a visit to Cooper’s Nursery. I was looking for some seeds to revive the Ex-Garden a bit for the Fall. Melinda found a Fire Bush (aka, Hummingbird Plant) and I picked up some onion seeds and some Sweet Pea seeds.

When we returned to the farmhouse, I went to work in the garden and Melinda resumed her research. I planted the Sweet Peas along the row with a trellis that had supported tomatoes and zinnias during the summer. The onions and some herbs I sowed in the bed that had held our watermelons. I turned the watering system on and set the timer. While I was planting, another brief rain shower blew over and I worked in the rain, enjoying the soaking I received.

Before we went to bed we checked the weather radar and saw a huge line of storms stretching across Texas. It looked like we would have a stormy night. Around 2:30 A.M. the storms blew through with high winds, thunder, lightning, and drenching rain. We sat in the porch swing and ate our breakfast this morning, taking in the results of the night’s weather. Cole ran free across the field, stopping at the smell of a gopher and digging furiously, head down out of sight and rear end up in the air, like an ostrich. He came up with one of those dog-smiles on his face and ran some more in the cool, damp air.

The thunder continues to rumble this morning as I write. Heavy gray clouds linger and intermittently rain mixes with the soft breeze that has the pecan and mesquite trees swaying. It looks like we’ll see an entire day of this grace.

Despite this good news, we are a long way of being out of the drought that has withered Texas and Oklahoma with its oppressive summer heat and convection-oven-like winds. Long-range forecasts have the La Nina pattern in the Pacific strengthening this winter, portending a continuing period of drought for us in Texas.

The Ex-X-Garden

2011-08-03T21:54:00.000-05:00

This morning while the temperature was in the tolerable high 80s, Cole and I got our work clothes on and went out back to shut down the X Garden for the summer. Monday afternoon when we arrived, two small watermelons were still hanging on to the vine and I planned to cut them and take them home when I returned.

Then next morning I saw something white in the backyard, twenty yards from the garden and walked out to check it out. It was a small piece of watermelon rind, with only the bright white inside showing. Something had come in the night and devoured the melon that was growing outside fence. That one remaining melon was all that was left of the garden, other than some bright zinnias and wild sunflowers. The gourd vine Melinda planted had three small dry gourds on it as well.

This morning Cole patrolled the area for rabbits while I cut the melon and the gourds (which will be a grandkids' craft project at some point), mowed the grass around the garden, shut off the water supply, and spread another layer of straw mulch on what had been the melon patch. If this hot, dry weather system ever changes we will do the X-Garden, Fall Edition. The big oak out back provided welcome shade all morning and soon the garden was retired.

I spent the day indoors developing a new syllabus for the Life & Work of the Pastor class, totally reworking the format. I teach this class every semester, so the changes are necessary to keep me sharp. I read another chapter of Karl Barth's commentary on Romans. I listen to music, cooked a pot of beans, and baked some frozen cookies.

This evening, around 8:30, when the temperature had finally dropped below 100 degrees, Cole and I went for a long sunset walk around the field southwest of the house. The ground is dust. The grasses are crisp and brown. Birds and other wildlife are hardly to be seen. The drought of 2008-09 was bad, but at least it was not so hot. This state is in desperate need of relief.

From the Book of Common Prayer (p. 828):

O God, heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ hast promised to all who seek thy Kingdom and its righteousness all things necessary to sustain their life: Send us we entreat Thee, in this time of need, such moderate rain and showers that we may receive the fruits of the earth to our comfort and to thy honor, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Tomorrow we'll clean up the house and drive from the heat and drought of South Texas back to the heat and drought of Waco.

Family Ties

2011-08-02T23:21:00.001-05:00

I have been interested in family history for quite a few years. Unfortunately my interest did not develop until many of those who could have provided first hand information were already on the other side. But one does what one can. Since the easiest information to gather was on my dad's side of the family, I gravitated there and learned a good bit about the Creech family. My dad's mother was a Culpepper. She died in 1931 when my dad was only twelve, so obviously, I never knew her. My grandfather remarried ten years later and Lillie, his wife, was the grandmother I knew. Oddly, I did not grow up knowing any Culpeppers. So that family, too, is one I have worked to learn about.

My mother's parents, Alonzo and Kate Cryer, died within three weeks of each other back in July 1950, two and a half years before I was born, so I didn't know them either. One of my goals for my trip to Floresville this week was to learn a few more details about this side of my family.

I had some information on Alonzo and Kate. They married in 1906. I actually have the letter Alonzo wrote to Kate proposing marriage. At the time he was working and living in Childress. They later moved back to Floresville and he ran a barbershop.

I have a copy of Alonzo's obit from the Floresville Chronicle-Journal,but I didn't have Kate's. So I visited the office of the Wilson County News, which purchased the Floresville paper a few years ago. The folks there were really helpful. I scanned two years of microfilm and found not only Kate's obituary, but that of her father (my great-grandfather), Benjamin Franklin Rosser, as well. B. F. Rosser came to Texas in 1859, fought in the Civil War, lost an arm, returned to Texas, married Texana Martin of Tennessee, and started buying land and raising cattle. According to his obituary from 1925, he was a pioneer in the area and one of the "leading cowmen" in this part of Texas. His son, Lee, Kate's brother, was a Special Texas Ranger in the late 1800s. B. F., Texana, Lee, and Kate are all buried here in Floresville.

Kate Rosser Cryer

Then I went around the corner and across the street to the Wilson County Courthouse to do a bit more research. I have never done research in a courthouse before, but there was in that place, I would say, a plethora of information. Giant books held information on wills that had been probated here, births, deaths, marriage, cattle brands, and land that had been bought and sold. I traced the land purchases of B. F. Rosser in the 1870s and 1880s. He bought nearly ten thousand acres of land. By the 1890s he had sold it all. I was also able to read the will of my great-grandfather, Richard Robert Creech, who died in 1909 leaving an estate that included four acres of land in Floresville ($1000), undivided half interest in one acre of land in Lodi ($5), one horse ($10), two cows and a heifer yearling ($27.50), household furnishings ($15), and a set of Encyclopedia Britannica ($5). Reading this in the beautiful cursive script of a county clerk a hundred years later, priceless.

The purpose of learning the family history is not to find cattle barons, Texas Rangers, or one-armed Confederate soldiers. I'm interested in how these people lived, what they endured, how they managed their lives through challenging times. Margaret Mead once said that the span of human memory is five generations -- it is found in what I can tell my grandchildren about what my grandfather's life was like. I really wish I'd known I was going to want to know these things. I would have asked my grandfather many more questions. I'm not going to wait for my grandchildren to ask. I'm just going to tell them.

A Gratitude List

2011-07-18T23:51:00.001-05:00

About a week and a half ago I opened Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts, and began to read. I have been a fan of Ann's blog, A Holy Experience, for a while. I ordered her book several months ago, intending to read it this summer. I sat down to begin it at 7:30 AM and read it straight through before noon. It is a powerfully moving testimony about the role that gratitude (and ingratitude) plays in our lives, in shaping us into a particular kind of person.

She encourages the reader to get a notebook of some sort (she's a big fan of the nifty little Moleskine notebooks) and to begin a gratitude list, observing the daily experiences of life for which you are grateful. Some of these are small and ordinary, but they are all grace. She challenges us to keep working on the list until we have identified a thousand gifts that are ours. The purpose is not to come up with a thousand items to check off a list. The practice is intended to help us learn to see the world differently, to be more and more aware of the grace of God in our lives in a myriad of ways.

Gratitude lists are not new. Psalm 103 is an ancient one. I grew up singing "Count Your Many Blessings," as a part of Baptist piety. People working the Twelve Steps in recovery are often encouraged to start a gratitude list. Before reading Ann's book I finished James Bryan Smith's The Good and Beautiful God. He also advocated the use of a gratitude list.

I have taken her challenge and am up to about a hundred and fifteen so far. At first I just reflected over the course of my life and listed people and experiences that I see as God's grace in my life. But then I decided I would not be so systematic. I would benefit more from the exercise if I would work on the present. So I've try to find several each day. Here are some of my favorites so far.

69. The smell of coffee freshly ground.

71. Comical squirrels stealing from the bird feeder.

83. Cold water with lime after working in the heat.

92. Long drive through the Texas countryside listening to Willie and Nanci.

97. A big dog's grateful look after removing skunk odor.

98. Coloring with a five year old.

102. Laughing babies.

103. Spider eyes glowing like emeralds in the grass.

105. Tickling a toddler until he laughs uncontrollably.

106. A shade tree to change a flat under.

113. Making little girls roll their eyes.

114. Feeling really proud of your kids because of who they have become.

I'll post others occasionally.

The Quiet House

2011-07-18T23:19:00.000-05:00

I am a fan of solitude. I am energized by having an hour or a day or a week alone occasionally. That's especially true after being with a lot of people for a long time. Don't get me wrong. I like people. It's just that long exposure to lots of them, although fun and enjoyable, is also draining. Solitude is the place where I can think and pray and read and work and write and recharge. I'm a fan of solitude. However, when it arrived today, it felt more like loneliness.

I arrived at the farm last Monday evening and spent Tuesday working and preparing for the arrival of nearly our entire family. Taylor and his crew pulled in on Wednesday. Melinda arrived on Friday night, just ten minutes after Alan and his kids arrived. Jenna drove in early Saturday afternoon. For most of the weekend nine or ten of us crowded into the house, cooked, ate, laughed, and played. We went to the City Pool in Floresville and swam. We hunted spiders at night, played dolly house, read books, built with wooden blocks, cooked pancakes, colored in coloring books, sat in the porch swing, shot a BB gun, fed the hummingbirds and cardinals, played guitars and sang, read Shel Silverstein poems, ate watermelon and ice cream, and watched the full moon rise. When I woke up each morning, there were bodies in every room. Toys were strewn about the house. Dirty dishes piled up in the kitchen again and again. Greasy, sweaty little boy handprints decorated the sliding glass doors. All three of my children and all of my grandchildren were under the same roof with Melinda and me. That does not often happen. It was somewhat chaotic and wonderful.

You would think that after three days of that, I would relish the return to quietness and order today. But when the last group drove off this morning, leaving just me and the dog, the house felt so empty. I washed clothes, vacuumed floors, cleaned off the little boy handprints, and wished for them all to be back. I was freshly aware of how precious these times are and how dear these people are to me.

The Kid's Table

2011-07-16T22:25:00.000-05:00

Our family has finally grown to the place where we need a kids' table. I recall well eating at the kids' table as a, well, kid. We generally got served first while listening to our parents tell us how, in their day, the kids ate what the grownups left. I prefer feeding kids first so they quiet down and let us enjoy our meal.

We set up a card table next to the kitchen table and served Madison, Ava, and Austin there. Melinda decided eating at the kids' table would be more fun as well. The rest of us dined on cheese enchiladas after a long, tiring, but fun day.

Early this morning Melinda just about had a coronary when she observed a Painted Bunting getting a drink from the birdbath outside the front door. We'd never seen one of these at all, much less at the farm. I didn't take this photo, but it will do.

We decided that when Jenna arrived in the early afternoon, we'd cool off by trying out the City Pool in Floresville. That turned out to be a really good idea. As you can see from the pool rules, skinny dipping is strictly forbidden. We found the pool to be clean, uncrowded, and cheap. We seniors got in for a mere buck and a half.

I didn't bring a swimsuit to the farm, and, not wanting to violate the rules, sat back in my chair and watched the grandkids enjoy the pool.

After dinner tonight, the table was cleared, the kitchen cleaned, and the exhausted children were bathed and readied for bed by even more exhausted parents and grandparents. I read Austin five books and he passed out on the fold-out couch in the back room. We sat around the living room for a while as Taylor played and sang Shane & Shane and Nanci Griffith. I went out to watch the orange moon rise faithfully, full and beautiful. Then off to bed. We'll worship tomorrow at FBC, Floresville where I will have the privilege of preaching. But I worshipped often today as well.

Spider Eyes

2011-07-15T22:56:00.001-05:00

Children and rituals go together. You do something once with a four or five-year old and you just have to understand that now thats what you always do. Bedtime rituals. Holiday rituals. You must be orthodox and perform them correctly each time.

We have some rituals with Ava and Madison at the farm. Melinda taught them a really cool Girl Scout trick of hunting spiders at night. You take a flashlight and hold it to the top of your head and walk out in the grass. Soon you'll see bright green jewels sparkling everywhere. Those are spider eyes. Really. If you follow your light and walk up to them you will find a striped-brown wolf spider waiting for you. Taylor had his army headlamp with him and that works really great. Its very bright and the field sparkles with those shiny green eyes. I tried to capture this with a camera and a flash, but only one little sparkle shows up near the center of the photo. At any rate, now we have to go spider hunting every night. So we do.

Melinda arrived around 6:30 tonight. Alan had pulled into the driveway with Madison and Austin only ten minutes earlier -- no Kat, no dogs. We ate dinner and soon Taylor, Amber, Ava, and Jonas returned from an afternoon excursion to San Antonio. From that time on, the house rocked. Jenna will show up tomorrow.

Ava and Madison ran to greet each other and hugged. Ava picked up Madison and carried her from the yard to the front porch. It's nearly 11:00 and the girls are still chattering and giggling in the bed.

Rituals are important to grown-ups, too. Taylor inquired about whether there would be fireworks stands open around Floresville, because when he was a boy we bought them and fired them off at Grammy's farm. He bought a BB gun to teach Ava to shoot here, like I'd done with him.

And tonight I sat on the front porch watching the full moon rise, because that's what I do when I'm here and there's a full moon. It launched from the horizon and slowly climbed in the sky, shining bright against the darkness like a giant spider's eye.

Farm Dog

2011-07-14T18:38:00.000-05:00

I was introduced to Hank the Cowdog by a friend at church ten years ago or so. He loaned us some cassette tapes of Hank stories to listen to on a trip to Glorieta, New Mexico. We were going to stop in Abilene overnight to stay with friends there, but we were so engrossed in listening to the Hank story as we cruised west on I-20 that we missed Abilene entirely and were passing the Sweetwater exit before we knew what had happened.

Hank the Cowdog is the creation of John Ericson, a working Texas cowboy. He tells of the adventures of Hank, Head of Ranch Security, and his not so bright sidekick, Drover. He's written almost sixty of these books for kids. Hank's personality is pretty close to that of Deputy Barney Fife. The stories are narrated by Hank himself, so you are able to get inside the canine mind, if you think you can take it.

Cole has always reminded me somewhat of Hank. This morning I went to the back room where we'd allowed him to sleep last night following his very Hankish experience with a skunk earlier that day. Despite the fact that he passed the sniff test the night before, the back room held an unusual fragrance. After lighting a vanilla candle, I invited Cole to the front porch where I drank coffee and watched the sun come up and he ate breakfast and stretched out on the concrete.

Suddenly he jumped up, "all systems on full alert," as Hank would say, zeroed in on a rabbit that had emerged from the edge of the woods thirty yards away, and bolted at full speed. He couldn't help himself. Had it been a skunk, he'd have done it anyway and we'd have had a repeat of the previous morning's experience. When he returned to the porch and lay down, he kept his head up, his ears perked, and scanned the edge of the woods. In a few minutes the rabbit emerged again, and Cole was off.

We walked out to the garden to see if there were rabbits there, but there were not. Butterflies were visiting the sunflowers for their breakfast. The rest of Cole's day was pretty uneventful. He was grateful to have been allowed back in the house and did his best to remain unnoticed.

His family went to Tractor Supply and came back with a nifty looking John Deere collar to replace the brand new black one that the skunk had soaked and that would not yield to any odor eradicators. Later, when Taylor and his crew drove to San Antonio for dinner on the river, Cole rode with me into town in the pickup to get an enchilada dinner to go from Angelica's. He likes being at the farm. I think he's ready to take on the role of Head of Farm Security.

Watermelon Harvest

2011-07-13T23:21:00.002-05:00

I left the farm three weeks ago with nine good-sized melons growing in my garden patch. When I arrived Monday evening, only three of those had survived. The other six had been enjoyed by some critters, probably my pet rabbits. But two appeared ready to harvest. So I cut them off the vine and took them inside, hoping that they really were ripe and ready. Even if they weren't, better that I should take them than to leave them to the watermelon-devouring rabbits.

You must understand that watermelons are one of my favorite features of God's creation. Right up there with coffee and chocolate. I love locally grown melons each summer (not those tasteless, mushy ones grown far away and available all year long). My favorite melons are grown in Stockdale, TX (the home of the annual Watermelon Jubilee) and sold at Bush's, a family roadside fruit and vegetable stand on Hwy. 123 just north of town. When I stopped by Bush's last month I learned that there were NO watermelons this year. The drought had prevented their raising any. I couldn't believe that. I wound up buying a good one grown in the Rio Grande Valley from a guy with a trailer load of them in Floresville. But my garden had several in process and I hoped to see them to harvest.

I put the larger of the two in the refrigerator, The next morning I spent four hours mowing and cleaning up the garden. I discovered a small puddle beside the long, caliche driveway, which, in a time of exceptional drought, should not have been there. Some digging around revealed a burst water pipe between the water meter and the house. I turned the water off at the meter and called a plumber. I was hot, gritty, and tired, but could neither clean up nor cook until I had water restored. While I waited for Red Rose Plumbing to arrive, I cut the watermelon and sat with a ice cold piece on the front porch.

It could not have tasted better. Cold, sweet, juicy, crisp -- perfect. I cooled off and quenched my thirst in a most satisfactory way -- with the first watermelon I had ever picked from my garden. Now I had a dilemma. Taylor and his family were arriving the next day. Amber, my daughter-in-law, enjoys watermelon about like I do. Do I eat the whole thing before they arrive or save some and share. My pride in actually growing a good-tasting melon trumped my appetite, so I saved it and served it with breakfast this morning.

The vines continue to stretch out, across rows and even outside the garden fence. They continue to blossom and form fruit. Another melon is about ready to pick, if the critters don't get to it first.With some luck we'll have others available soon.

Skunks 'n Stuff

2011-07-13T22:50:00.001-05:00

Taylor and Amber loaded their two kids, Ava and Jonas, and their big yellow dog, Cole, into their SUV and headed east on I-10 from El Paso late last night. The idea was to have the kids asleep for most of the 590 mile, nine hour journey to Floresville, on their way ultimately to their new home in North Carolina. All went as planned until early this morning, about twenty miles west of Ozona at about 4:30 AM. They needed to stop and found a large rest area with lots of parking for trucks. Taylor parked the car. Amber was caring for Jonas. Taylor let Cole out and he managed to find a skunk immediately. He chased the critter, picked it up in his mouth and threw it, and then pursued it toward the edge of the woods. At this point the advantage was on the skunk's end, so to speak. When Cole approached he received a large dose of skunk juice right in the face.

Now, four hours away from their destination, tired of driving and not sleeping, in a car crowded with four people, they had a skunk-soaked dog on their hands. What to do? Taylor suggested borrowing a gun from one of the truckers parked there and saying good-bye to the dog. Amber and Ava vetoed that plan. He thought of chaining him to the garbage cans and leaving him. Amber searched the Internet on her smart phone for options. There were the usual home remedies for dogs who have encountered skunks, such as a bath in tomato juice or vinegar, neither of which were readily available. One site suggested a bath in mouthwash. Well, they had some of that. So Taylor took the bottle of mouthwash, some dog shampoo they'd brought, and paper towel and did his best to clear the air. Meanwhile Cole's eyes were swelling and he was foaming at the mouth.

I was up reading at 6:00 AM. I got a call at 6:30 from Taylor.

Taylor: Hey, Dad, are you up?

Me: Yeah. How are y'all doing?

Taylor: Not so good right now. We stopped at a rest area and Cole got sprayed by a skunk.

Me: Sorry to hear that. (Really sorry. Glad I wasn't there.)

So the reeking dog rejoined the family in the car, still emitting waves of odor like sulphur and burned rubber, and they rolled the windows down and drove 80 mph. for the next four hours.

Meanwhile I looked up a home remedy for the situation. It turns out that most consider the tomato juice or vinegar options as only cover-ups that do not actually remove the oily spray from the skunk. A preferred option is a solution of baking soda, liquid soap, and hydrogen peroxide. I drove to Wal-Mart and bought dog-cleaning supplies. I came back to the house and waited. They arrived at about ten, and I served them breakfast tacos and coffee and went to work on Cole. When I stepped onto the front porch the odor hit me. Cole was chained to the pecan tree ten feet away. It was like he was a skunk. I put on rubber gloves, added a quarter cup of baking soda to the dishwashing detergent and quart of hydrogen peroxide I'd poured into my big blue plastic bucket and began the first bath. Fortunately, Cole was entirely cooperative.

I have to admit that I have a vested interest in this dog's aroma. First, he would be staying at the farm house with us for the next five or six days. And, second, we are going to be adopting him. He's headed back to Waco with me next week to live out the rest of his days with us. It is important to me that his smell improve.

I gave him a couple of baths with the H2O2 and baking soda. That helped a lot. Meanwhile Taylor and Amber were sorting out suitcases on which he'd been laying, finding that clothes in one particular duffle bag were definitely skunky smelling. Another Internet search suggested adding 1 cup vinegar and 1 cup baking soda to the regular wash to clean clothes. (Which by the way worked wonderfully, even on the towels they had placed under the dog.) I stopped by Tractor Supply and got a container of "Nature's Miracle Skunk Odor Remover," which finished the job that the other baths had started.

Cole spent the day on the front porch, shamed and embarrassed by his poor decision earlier that morning. By nighttime we all concurred that he now passed the smell test and could be admitted into the house for the night.

Sunset

2011-07-12T20:37:00.002-05:00

It takes so long for the summer sun to go down. At 6:30 it was still a hundred degrees and the sun was turning orange. I looked out the kitchen window as I placed an empty bowl in the sink, still carrying just a trace of the beans and cornbread it had held. Just outside the gate of the X Garden a pair of Bobwhites engaged a ritual that sent me off to get the binoculars for a closer look. One (she?) buried herself deep into a damp spot of grass and earth where until yesterday the water hose had been leaking. The other (he?) stood with his head high beside her, radar on full, watching for any threats while she disappeared into the ground. I'm not sure what that was about. In a while they both went into the garden and wandered among the melon plants and bermuda grass catching bugs.

They are a cute couple. I see them pretty regularly now. I thought I might catch a photo of them, so I grabbed the camera and walked quietly toward the garden. It was not to be. They flew off in a flutter that only a quail can make, one that will scare you if it happens at your feet in a field. They lighted in the tall uncut grass between the house and the mesquite woods. I found only a small feather they'd left behind, stuck to the bermuda grass, jumping in the wind.

But a hundred degrees or not, I was outdoors now, and continued the sunset walk. Walking on the property at this time of day is one of my favorite rituals. Sometimes we walk out on the berm so that a good view of the western edge of the field, lined with mesquite and oaks, allows us to watch the sun disappear slowly, orange light lingering for a long, long time.

This afternoon, however, I walked along the eastern edge of the field, next to our neighbor's property. The twelve acres adjacent to our place belonged to my grandmother as well. But she gave it away to a neighbor who'd cared for her in her last years. That property recently sold to a Church of Christ minister in town. He's in his 70's and is building a house on the place. I walked to where the house is laid out in wooden stakes and string on level ground, waiting to spring up. I walked about the clearings he'd created with his little red tractor. I found he'd cut a roadway through the thick mesquite woods all the way to the edge of what was once a pond. The pond is on the end of the property nearest our house. It looks like he's taking good care of these woods. I'm glad.

I retraced my steps and walked into the shadows swallowing the front yard I'd mowed this morning.

Birds were getting their final meals at the feeders and taking their evening baths. Despite the drought, the birds have been thick here this summer. Just today there was the usual gathering of cardinals, but also a big roadrunner, the quail, a woodpecker, and hummingbirds. The waxing gibbous moon is up over the pecan tree. In two more days it will be full, rising in the east, big and orange.

Company arrives tomorrow -- Taylor, Amber, Ava, and Jonas. On Friday Alan and his kids will come, as will Melinda and Jenna. This quiet, reluctant, hot, Texas sunset is my company tonight.

Wascally Wabbits!

2011-06-22T22:02:00.001-05:00

Three weeks ago when we left the X-Garden it was doing well. Tiny fingerling watermelons were forming. Lots of bright yellow blooms on the vines were being visited by the bees that live in the oak tree by the house. Dozens of small green tomatoes were forming on the tomato bushes. Squashes and a few cucumbers were still taking form on their vines as well. The two rows of corn had small ears appearing. The three rabbits that we hire to do our gardening had gnawed two corn stalks down already.

A lot can happen to vegetables in three weeks. The corn matured and then withered. The ears were never much to speak of. We didn't get to eat any. Next time -- space the corn plants out more. I removed the dry stalks from that row, turned off the irrigation, and covered the beds with a bit more straw mulch. The rabbits will probably want to use some for their den.

The squash bed still had plants that were blossoming, but no more fruit was forming. My guess is that they quit doing that when it gets so hot, even with plenty of water. A few butternut squash lay on the ground and one large green gourd. A couple of small eggplants were on their bush. The rabbits ate them the night after I got here.

The cucumber vine, like its squash cousins, couldn't take the heat. A few cherry tomatoes were on the bush, but only a couple of the larger variety. And the rabbits were dining on those. I conclude that it is possible to grow these vegetables in absentia, but one must be around at the right time for harvest. Or the rabbits will be.

On the fourth row we planted watermelons. These seem to be doing great. Nine large fruit are on the ground and the vines continue to blossom and spread. I hope we are able to be present when they are ready to pick. I'm told that the tiny tendril near where the melon attaches to the vine will turn brown and dry when they are mature.

Already the rabbits have been sampling melons. Wascaly Wabbits!

The rabbits seem not to care for the zinnias and sunflowers. Maybe we'll do flowers and melons next spring.

Showers of Blessing

2011-06-22T21:43:00.000-05:00

Last night I watched with hope the bright greens, yellows, oranges, reds, and purples on the radar screens on my KENS5 app. Thunderstorms exploded around Abilene in the afternoon and made their way south and east through dry, parched Texas terrain. Waco would get some of the rain. And, hopefully, the storms would hold together as they moved past Junction and on into the San Antonio area. And they did!

By the time I went to bed, lightening was dancing in the sky above the farm. I raised the blinds in the bedroom to enjoy the show and wait for the rain to fall. I was sleepier than I thought. I went unconscious almost immediately and remained so through the night.

But when I awoke this morning I heard thunder and looked out to see falling rain and large pools of water on the caliche driveway. I stepped out onto the front porch to be greeted by much cooler air and the fragrance of rain. I made my morning coffee and sat on the porch and just watched it for an hour.

The night before I’d parked my truck beside the garage rather than in front of it so my view of the fields would not be blocked. When the rain stopped this morning I went out to the truck to move it. I drove exactly one foot forward and the left rear tire sank to its axle. A gopher tunnel collapsed under the weight of the truck and I was stuck in the mud in the middle of a place experiencing Exceptional Drought. A little work with a sharp shooter shovel and I had dug a ramp out of the whole and drove out.

Yesterday at sunset a huge roadrunner appeared just outside the kitchen window and climbed onto the edge of the yellow plastic swimming pool the grandkids enjoy. A bit later I took a walk out into the field behind the house and saw a pair of coyotes running across the dry field of wheat stubble. Looking out the window this morning I saw some movement on the ground. I went out to investigate. I have a new wildlife sighting to report: two dung beetles were rolling doggie poop back home to enjoy. Never saw that before.

Father's Day Greetings

2011-06-19T16:36:00.007-05:00

Just before leaving Houston yesterday I stopped by Alan & Kat’s to pick up the dogs. The family was attending a birthday party and was not yet home. Alan sent me a text asking me if I could hang out for a while until they got back because Madison had something to give me. It was a Father’s Day greeting consisting of an original, signed painting on canvas entitled “Wheat” by two artists named Madison and Austin. In a somewhat Impressionistic style, it presents our recent wheat crop and the huge oak tree behind our farm house. It’s value is inestimable.

In addition to the painting, I was given a coffee cup with “Papa” bear on it. Madison explained the connection between the bear on the cup and my association with Baylor University. I get it.

I was greeted by other things when I arrived at the farm late on Saturday night. Two deer bounded away from the house as I drove up. I performed my usual initial inspections of the place. Before entering the house I took a flashlight and walked around outside. I checked out the X-Garden and discovered that the row of corn plants had run their course and were wilted and brown, just like the entire field of corn across the road. The ears that grew on the brown stalks had been devoured by our pet rabbits who operate the garden in our absence.

Two small eggplants hung on a bush. I planned to get them in the morning. Several large green tomatoes were also enduring the heat of the summer. A few butternut squash were available for harvest. Purple zinnias, orange zinnias, and wild sunflowers decorated the place. The biggest surprise was the melons. Just three weeks ago the watermelons were no bigger than my thumb. Now seven large melons were lying on the ground in the garden. This is encouraging, since I went to Bush's roadside produce stand in Stockdale to buy a watermelon this morning only to be told they had none because of the drought. I'm not sure what I will do with rabbits that decide watermelons are on their diet.

(This morning I returned to the garden to get what I could – the squash and a bouquet of flowers. The eggplants had become rabbit food over night. And one of the big green tomatoes was on the bunny buffet as well.)

Inside the house another surprise awaited me last night. I entered the utility room to switch the water heater from “Vacation” to “Hot,” and found myself stepping into two inches of water. The water heater had sprung a leak in the last two weeks. Water had run into the garage and out the garage door. I spent an hour and a half mopping up the mess. Cold showers only until it is replaced.

When I stepped into the garage I found that John, my new lawn tractor, had flats on both front tires, a consequence of encountering mesquite and cactus thorns during his last workout. Fortunately, I knew about a magic solution called “Slime” that repairs and then prevents such leaks. I picked up some today and will repair the tires tomorrow.

This morning I was greeted by the usual wildlife – our pet rabbit checking out the garden, the cardinals gathering to devour the sunflower seeds and to enjoy the birdbath, hummingbirds checking in periodically for a refill of the sweet, red nectar I’d hung for them, and Mexican eagles patrolling the field.

Then I received the new version of Father’s Day cards, text messages from my children with embarrassing evaluations of my performance as a dad. Leaks, flats, and rabbits are nothing compared to such things as original artwork, coffee mugs, and Father's Day texts.

Diēs Caniculārēs (Dog Days)

2011-06-19T15:58:00.007-05:00

I left Houston late yesterday for a few days at the farm. I did not travel alone. Two of my grand-dogs, Porter (my guess is he’s a beagle/weiner dog combo) and Presley (all beagle), accompanied me in the truck. Their family is travelling to Destin and I’m the designated baby sitter. They’ve been to the farm several times and they like it a lot.

We were an hour and a half down I-10 when I noticed that one of them had emitted a rather strong odor. I scowled at both. Porter looked the most guilty. I rolled down the driver’s side window to clear the cab, and both dogs immediately sat straight up and stuck their noses in the air, taking in rural scents they do not normally encounter. So I switched the air conditioner from recycled air to outside air. Each of them moved quickly to a vent and stuck their noses to it and remained transfixed by the smells for the next hour and a half. It makes you wonder what it is like to have one of your senses that hyped up. It also makes you wonder how an animal with such a sense of smell could survive emitted aromas like that.

Technically the “dog days” do not begin until sometime in July. The Ancient Romans identified that period as July 24 – August 24 (some say July 23 -- August 23), and the Germans, French, and Italians stick with those dates still. The Old Farmer’s Almanac list that period as the forty days from July 3 until August 11, which coincides with the ancient rising of the Dog Star, Sirius. According the 1552 Book of Common Prayer, the “Dog Daies” extend from July 6 – August 17. The 1559 version says July 7—August 18. The lectionary of the 1611 KJV lists July 6 to September 5.

All kinds of things were associated with this summer period. Werewolves were supposed to rise just before sunrise. It was believed to be an evil time when “the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies” (according to Brady’s Clavis Calendarium of 1813).
Mostly, the dog days refer to the hot, humid, sultry weather. This year they started sometime in May and have no predictable end. It’s 104° on the front porch at the farm and no significant rain has fallen since January (a total of 3” in six months). Each morning the dark clouds blow over bearing gulf moisture, but refuse to shed their treasure on the land. They just add to the humidity. The hot wind blows all day like a convection oven, cooking everything it touches. (Note the difference between the front yard this year (above) and last year (below).

So by mid morning, I must sit in the cooled house, read, write, nap, and grade papers. And pray for rain.

Anniversary Weekend

2011-05-31T20:51:00.004-05:00

Memorial Day is about remembering the dead -- those who have sacrificed life for our freedom. Wedding anniversaries are about remembering the living -- celebrating the time that has passed and the sacrificing of life for each other over the years in small and large ways.

Thirty seven years ago tomorrow, Melinda and I drove my sister’s 1974 maroon Malibu with the white vinyl roof from our honeymoon suite at the Ramada Inn in Houston to my grandmother’s house in Floresville to spend our first week of marriage exploring San Antonio, New Braunfels, and just being alone at the farm. Now that place is ours. We were there again this weekend, but did not have much time alone. None, in fact. But that’s ok.

We were joined by Alan and Kat, celebrating their seventh anniversary (rookies, still). Alan and Kat brought the next generation, Madison and Austin, with them, and the aging grand-dogs, Porter and Presley. Jenna drove up on Saturday. And Saturday evening, the Farmers, friends of Alan and Kat, arrived with their two daughters, Zoe and Ava. And their dog.

I had responsibilities in McKinney on Sunday morning, and so made the now familiar flight from San Antonio to Dallas on Saturday night and returned on Sunday afternoon. In my absence, the entire entourage drove to Leakey, Texas to swim in the Frio River at Neal’s. About the time I landed at SAT, they were done swimming. We agreed to rendezvous at La Gloria, a Mexican street food restaurant on the San Antonio River that we’d enjoyed once before. The celebration of our thirty-seven years and Alan and Kat’s seven (rookies) involved the eleven of us (dogs were still at the farm) dining for a couple of hours on likes of tlayudas, tortas, potosinos, and molcajetes. We walked down to the river and enjoyed the evening that was quickly cooling down from the hundred degrees we’d endured most of the day.

We spent Monday, Memorial Day, exploring the farm, finding and identifying a variety of wild flowers, and making a road trip to Rhew Orchard , a couple of miles down County Road 401 from our place. The peaches were ripe and peach cobblers were still warm in the Rhew’s store when we drove up. We took one of those back with us. Some amazing vegetarian tacos awaited us for lunch back at the farm. Then cobbler and coffee. Then a lawn sprinker aimed at the trampoline in the backyard kept the kids occupied and drained off some of their energy (not all of it) in preparation for their three hour trip back to Houston.

By 4:30, the Farmers and Alan Creeches had left. I forgot how quiet my life normally is. Melinda, Jenna, and I cleaned up the house and spent the remainder of the evening watching 8 mm films Melinda’s dad had made of their family in the early 1960s. We’d dug out the 50 year old films and Sears projector while moving in the past week. Amazingly, the machine worked perfectly and the old films entertained us for several hours. We saw brief footage of Hurricane Carla and a short appearance of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans astride Trigger and Buttermilk making their way through downtown Houston in the Fat Stock Show and Rodeo Parade. We watched ten year old Melinda playing, attending Vacation Bible School at Shady Acres Baptist Church, and performing in the “May Fete” at Helms Elementary. We saw her mom and dad, who have been on the other side for many years now, walking about, laughing and enjoying life as much younger people. We saw Missy Momma, Melinda’s grandmother, in most of the short films. It made me wish my folks had made some movies along the way.

We returned to Waco today, ready to start the summer school work tomorrow. Melinda will be taking Latin all summer. I teach one Doctor of Ministry Seminar. Jenna will be an intern at KWTX in Waco, while taking nine semester hours of government and economics online.

Meanwhile, we have a lot to celebrate and a lot to remember.

The X Garden Update: May 2011

2011-05-31T19:51:00.007-05:00

I understand some of Mr. McGregor’s consternation regarding rabbits in his garden. This morning I went out to clean up the X Garden and found Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail enjoying the greenest place on the property during this extended dry period. It looked like they’d managed to gnaw down at least two corn stalks. I’m pretty much at their mercy, I suppose, since they are present every day and I’m not.

We harvested a few more yellow squash, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and one small eggplant – not enough to live on. But hope remains. We planted relatively late, so our production is behind schedule. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

Watermelons are just beginning to form on the spreading vines and the bees are doing their part pollinating the plants.

Beans look pretty poor for some reason and we may have crowded our corn plants a bit too tightly. They are still short and the ears that are forming seem small. We’ll have to wait until I return in three weeks for a verdict on that.

Tomatoes are covering the vines, but we have few red ones. Butternut squash are showing up, but are not yet ready to be gathered. The pepper plants are not making a showing yet.

Here’s what I think I’ve learned so far. The irrigation system is perfect (although a connection has popped loose twice and I have had to tape it). Despite less than two inches of rain in three months, the garden remains verdant. The mulching with straw has both preserved moisture and has prevented an outbreak of weeds. That seems to be working. I do believe it would have been good to plant a couple of weeks earlier. And we’ll need to consult a corn expert about density of the crop before having another go with that one.

I’m excited about the watermelons. A dozen little ones are forming; the plants look healthy and green and are covered with yellow blossoms. I’m forecasting an enormous crop. A single good one would be nice, however.

The next X Garden report will come in three weeks.

Whole Wheat

2011-04-30T22:49:00.005-05:00

In 1980 Melinda and I attended a Southern Baptist Convention meeting in St. Louis and stopped en route in Portia, Arkansas to visit with her kin. We had a son nearly two years old at the time. The field across the road from Melinda's uncle and aunt was filled with wheat, golden and ready to harvest. I took my camera and my son into the field and shot a photo that we later framed and hung on the wall of our homes over the years.

In May 2008, our first crop of wheat on the farm was ready for harvest and that little boy now had a nearly two year old daughter. So we travelled to the farm to photograph her in the wheat field.

Now our second wheat crop is ready for harvest and there's another little Creech kid almost two who clearly needed to join the club. So we all ventured into the field today to document the occasion.

Later, when things cooled down some (a record-breaking 95 on April 30 today) we walked out on the berm in the middle of the field and watched the sun set over the oaks and mesquites that line the western border of our fields.

Austin seemed a bit worried about the lack of rainfall.

For more details and photos, check out Kat's blog.

The X-Garden: The First Fruits

2011-04-30T22:25:00.004-05:00

A leisurely (read "long") drive from Waco to the farm took us through Bastrop (dinner at the Roadhouse -- two thumbs up) and down the backroads through Luling, Nixon, Pandora, and Stockdale. The Great Horned Owl who shares the property with us greeted us when we drove up, launching from a low perch soaring away as our headlights exposed him. We got in just in time to unpack, open the windows, and go to bed early.

This morning Melinda replenished the sunflower seeds in the bird feeders and filled the bird bath with fresh water. In moments four pairs of cardinals gathered for the treat. We have not had measurable rainfall since before March, although there is hope for tomorrow night. The birds were glad to have water. A mockingbird soon took to the bird bath as if it were his own personal spa, chasing off any cardinal who ventured near. Swifts patrolled the wheat, flying low and fast to catch unsuspecting bugs for breakfast. A Mexican Eagle swooped and perched in the pecan tree halfway down the drive.

After coffee we went out to the X-garden to see how things were surviving in this dry period. The green of the garden contrasted with the brown of all the rest of the yard. When we walked through the gate we noticed, however, that a connection to our irrigation system had parted and that at least one recent watering had only managed to water the grass. I repaired the connection and gave the garden a drink.

One tomato plant has a dozen small cherry tomatoes and at least a half dozen yellow squash were ready for harvest. We decided to wait and let the grandkids do the honor when they arrived later in the day.

Melinda went back to complete a research paper and I weeded and trimmed things in the X-Garden. The kids arrived around 4:30 and when it was time for dinner, they gathered the squash, which Melinda transformed into a kind of squash lasagna dish that went over quite well. This is the first fruit from the garden. We hope for more.

Based on the cost of installing the garden, those squash were worth about $50 each. Watching grandkids harvest and eat them . . . priceless.

Grampaws Rule!

2011-04-27T17:00:00.002-05:00

I read a quotation once: "Little boys love their grampaws. Nobody seems to know why." I like that. Here are a couple of others.

Grandfathers are just antique little boys. ~Author Unknown

Few things are more delightful than grandchildren fighting over your lap. ~Doug Larson

Or how about this: "Grandchildren are the reward God give you for not killing your kids."

Previously on the X-Garden . . .

2011-04-18T21:30:00.005-05:00

It had been two weeks since we put the finishing touches on our experimental garden and left it in the capable hands of the automated irrigation system. We returned to the farm to find the garden in good condition. Despite the extremely dry conditions, the plants inside the fence were a lovely green. The morning glories I planted last time were not in the watered area, and have not appeared. Few weeds had managed to find life through the straw mulch we'd laid around the vegetables. Unfortunately, wind had blown the mulch over a few of the smaller plants, like basil and carrots, that were just emerging from the ground. They, like the weeds, were smothered. But the larger plants are doing well.

One tomato plant has fruit on it, and several have blooms.

The squash is beginning to form as well. Some of the bush bean plants are blossoming, too. It will be a couple of weeks before we can examine the garden again. By that time, some of the squash may already have produced.

Meanwhile, the wheat crop in the field is making it transition from the deep blue green we saw a few weeks ago, to the green and gold that precedes the solid gold that will mean it is ready for harvest. In three or four weeks that harvest will be done.

Ava & Jonas at the Farm

2011-04-17T23:18:00.003-05:00

I was planning a longer trip to the farm this weekend, Thursday-Monday, but plans changed. Melinda’s assistance was needed in taking care of Jonas while his mom and big sister shared in a friend’s wedding – Amber as a bridesmaid and Ava as flower girl. That meant leaving late on Friday rather than early on Thursday. So on Thursday (Diadeloso -- the Day of the Bear -- at Baylor), I graded papers until I could not see straight and completely emptied my inbox. (Who assigned all these papers? I’d like to get my hands on him.) On Friday afternoon we made the trip down I-35 with our usual stop to see our favorite daughter in Austin at Quack’s, our favorite bakery/coffee shop. Then back on the road.

We got to Floresville with some daylight remaining. I attached some nifty ramp ends to my 2x8 homemade equipment ramp to make it easier to help Juan down out of the back of the truck. Melinda was inside. I got into the bed of the truck, released the lawn tractor’s parking brake, and carefully pushed and steered him from over his hood while I backed him toward the ramps. I successfully lined up his wheels over the 2x8’s and prepared to ease him down the incline. I was not paying so much attention to myself, however. I stepped off the end of the tailgate and tumbled on the ground ungracefully while Juan simple eased down the ramp. I jumped up and looked around. No one had witnessed the event. Good. I cranked him up and mowed a bit of the field in front that I had not been able to take care of last visit.

Amber arrived with Ava and Jonas a while later. We stayed up late playing and talking and getting better acquainted with Jonas, whom we’d last seen at age six weeks. Now he’s five months and quite entertaining.

Most of Saturday was spent playing with Ava. We went on walks and explored around the farm. She’d not been here since she was a baby, so this was new territory for her. I pushed her down the long rock driveway on a tricycle we’d gotten at a garage sale several years ago. She hunted rocks and chased a lizard.

Sometime in the afternoon she began “cooking” on the front porch. She gathered all kinds of items from the yard, mixing them into her soups and stews, and serving them to me in pink plastic dishes.

She found red sandstone that Mimi showed her could be used to write on the concrete and that would make war paint on your face as well, so she used it on me.

She pulled almost all the petals off the fading red roses by the door to “practice” being a flower girl, strewing them all over the front porch.

I flew to Dallas to preach at FBC McKinney again (they are calling a pastor on May 1) and back to the farm today. We saw Amber and the kids off around 5:30 and set about our work for a while. Melinda put finishing touches on a term paper while I caught up on my blogging.

A report on the progress of the X-Garden will follow soon.

Lawn Tractors, Death and Resurrection: Murray & John

2011-04-11T06:40:00.009-05:00

Murray came to live with and work for my grandmother in 1998. I have his papers and pedigree. He was a brand new Murray Select I, with 16.5 hp and a 42" deck, and cost $1,200. He served her long and faithfully. She drove him herself until late into her 80s, mowing the 2-3 acres around the house. Once while she was mowing, a swarm of bees attacked her, stinging her more than a hundred times, almost killing her. That did not prevent her getting back out on the mower and taking care of things herself. She wore a bee hood after that, though. I don't know if Murray required many repairs when my grandmother was working with him, but when I inherited him he was already 10 years old. I figure that's about 75 in human years. He was already blind -- headlights had not worked in some time. I cleaned him up, changed his oil, got him a new battery, and put him back in service.

Murray made frequent trips to the hospital. Once a blade broke. Then the deck broke. The belts broke. The transmission broke. A pulley broke. Tires went flat a couple of times, and once a wheel broke. And one time, the engine gave out in a cloud of white smoke. I thought that was the end. But each time, I figured that a repair would be less expensive than replacing him, so I loaded him in the back of Willie, driving or pushing him (depending on his physical condition) up a ramp made of 2x8's, and taking him to Tractor City on Hwy 97 or Ken's Farm Parts down in Poth. When his engine died, I brought him all the way back to Houston to a repair shop there and had the engine rebuilt. Each time he worked a while longer before something else gave out. I've not kept up with the costs, but I suspect I could have paid for most of a new one by now.

In February he threatened to give up the ghost again. He just would not start. It seemed to be an electrical problem. When I told Melinda it was time to get rid of him, he started again. But when I returned in March he hesitated once more. Finally, he found the gumption to crank up and worked with me for about an hour. I turned him off to go inside and check on the beans, and when I returned, he was dead. I think a new starter might keep him going for a while, but I had already decided that there would be no more trips to the hospital, no more extreme measures. He has served well, but we need to let him go and look for a new hired hand to help keep the place up.

Research led me to Murray's replacement, John (Melinda suggested he be called Juan). I found that he was available just around the corner from me in Waco and so I went to check him out. We negotiated a good price (thank you, Dave Ramsey) and I picked him up to start work on Wednesday. He rode in the back of Willie, all shiny, new, young, strong, and eager to work on a farm like his big brothers on the sales lot. When we got there I backed him down the ramp and he went right to work. I was a bit disappointed in the work before us, since the dry weather hasn't produced much growth. But I wasn't going to bring a new lawn tractor all the way to Floresville and not cut something. He did a great job. I parked him in his new home where he patiently awaits my return in a few weeks to work with him again.

When it was time to go back home, with great effort I managed to get Murray's corpse loaded into the back of Willie one more time. Willie was sad to see his friend in such a state. We brought him back to Waco where the man who had sold us Juan took him off our hands. He will be recycled soon. We will remember him fondly.

I have noticed a theme in recent posts -- aging, mortality, and hope. I'm sure it has to do with approaching 60 soon. Murray is a metaphor, I suppose. We are not machines that can be repaired and sustained infinitely -- transplanting hearts, livers, and kidneys, replacing hips and knees, removing cataracts and being equipped with hearing aids, managing cholesterol with chemicals. We are mortal, finite, "beings-unto-death" according to Heidegger. We are not the only creatures that die, but we are the only ones who live knowing that we shall die. Heidegger says,

If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself.

We are not inherently immortal. I do not believe in the immortality of the soul -- a pagan concept given to early Christianity by the Greeks ("the Trojan horse of Christian theology," William Hendricks used to say to us. "Beware the Greeks even when bearing gifts!") Rather I confess in the words of the Apostles' Creed: "I believe in the resurrection of the body."

Easter is around the corner. Good Friday proclaims our mortality. Death is real. Resurrection Sunday proclaims God's victory over the last enemy, Death. God raised Jesus from the dead. He who raised Jesus will give life to our mortal bodies. Our souls are not inherently immortal. We are dependent on God's gift of eternal life, of resurrection. Unlike lawn tractors, we will be made new.

Grandfathering Kingdom

2011-04-11T06:30:00.006-05:00

I have yet to be present for the assembly of all the subjects of my entire grandfathering kingdom, although they gathered in Houston without me yesterday. I plan to see them all together Easter weekend. I do not often get to see Taylor & Amber's two (Ava and Jonas, left). In fact, Jonas was only six weeks old the last time we saw him. I don't see Alan & Kat's two (Madison & Austin) often enough, but somewhat more frequently. I'm grateful for the technology of Skype, texting, cell phones, digital photos, and blogs that keep us more connected with them than my parents or grandparents were ever able to be. I actually feel sorry for people with ordinary grandchildren, although I have never met such folk.

For more on the cutest grandchildren around, check out Kat's blog on picking strawberries.

1000 Words -- South Texas Spring

2011-04-03T13:20:00.007-05:00

Far as the Curse is Found

2011-04-03T12:59:00.011-05:00

So you know the story of our ancestors Adam and Eve who made such a rotten decision in the produce section of The Garden of Eden. Rebellion, pride, arrogance, unbelief, and a long list of others motives mingled to introduce sin in to human experience and alienation from God, each other, and creation into the human condition.

“Cursed is the groundbecause of you;

through painful toil

you will eat food from it

all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow

you will eat your food.”

Donning our fig leaves we went about the next stage of our work on the X-Garden. As planned, we added the straw mulch to three of the beds. We returned to Cooper’s to pick up some additional plants – tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and watermelon – and another pound or two of encouragement, which Mr. Cooper offers freely. When the new plants were in place, we added mulch around them. This morning we planted some morning glories along the back garden fence and along the barbed wire fence by the road.

We raised two cattle panels in an A-frame construction to support the tomatoes and cucumbers when they begin to grow. All this work is an act of hope (James 4:7).

Melinda’s been taking seminars in Milton and Augustine this semester. Milton’s had her reading Paradise Lost and the Augustine seminar focuses on the Bishop of Hippo’s reading of Genesis. So all this gardening experience we have been working on at the farm has a theological and literary context.

She found a serpent in the garden (a Texas Spiny Lizard), whom she named "Satan." We also had a sighting of our Texas Rat Snake, my close encounters with which have been earlier recounted. He poked his head out of a drain pipe next to the house. I hope he's tired of eating dust and has developed an appetite for the many field mice around the place.

If my previous blog seemed a bit melancholy, reflecting on mortality, then perhaps it is appropriately so. Wrapped up in the curse that we are reminded of every time we grab a handful of Bermuda grass and pull it or decimate a thistle with a Weedeater is this word about our dustiness. Every time sweat runs down our face and mingles with the red earth we recall our dusty nature. Between Milton, Augustine, Genesis 3, the X-Garden, and the serpents, we have had plenty of reminders. (Oh, yeah, and there was also the expected, inevitable death of Murray, our lawn tractor who has served so faithfully for nearly 14 years. With great effort he finally started and cut his last field. When I turned him off to take a break, it was the last time he would breathe. His starter would not work. I know the feeling. Having spent more than his original cost of $1200 keeping him going these past four years, it is time to let him go.)

“Cursed is the groundbecause of you;

through painful toil

you will eat food from it

all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow

you will eat your food

until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are

and to dust you will return.”

I am reminded that planting is an act of hope and that the story ends in a Garden, even as it began in one, and that a promise remains:

Then the angel showed me the riverof the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowingfrom the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. (Revelation 22)

Tending Garden, Setting Sun

2011-04-03T12:04:00.014-05:00

Nanci Griffith has been one of our family’s favorite musicians since our boys were small. All three of our kids have been reared listening to her Texas folk sung with a thick twang. She’s our mainstay on long drives across Texas when we are in a “Lone Star State of Mind.” What we like about her is that her poetry is serious – not a C&W genre. We have heard her in concert in Austin, Ft. Worth, and Houston. Once, in Houston, we got to go backstage to the green room and meet her because Rex Waldheim, one of our astronaut friends, the guy who introduced us to her music long ago when there were only cassettes and vinyls, had recently flown a CD of hers on a shuttle flight, and was delivering it to her after the concert in Jones Hall. She was funny and gracious, holding her glass of white wine and posing for photos.

One of Nanci’s early pieces is called “Gulf Coast Highway.”

She sings of a couple who have lived a hard, but ordinary life, along the Texas coast. He’s found work where he could -- the railroad, in the rice fields and on the oilrigs in the Gulf of Mexico. They lived in a little house off U.S. 90, the old coastal highway that was supplanted by Interstate 10. They describe their home as “the only place on earth bluebonnets grow; once a year they come and go at this old house here by the road.” Even when they are young, they anticipate the day that, “when we die we say we’ll catch some blackbird’s wing, and we will fly away together come some sweet bluebonnet spring.” As they grow old together, the jobs are gone. They spend their days simply: “we tend our garden; we set the sun” still hoping for that “sweet bluebonnet spring,” when they will “fly away to heaven.”

Those words echoed in my mind frequently yesterday as Melinda and I continued to work on the garden project at the farm. (Details in a following post.) Having pulled weeds, cultivated, mulched, and cleared leaves from under the old live oak while Melinda added a dozen plants to what was already in place, we sat on bales of hay and watched the sun go down over the blue-green wheat that has now developed heads of grain. We tended our garden. We set the sun.

We’re really not ready to fly away yet. The jobs aren’t gone and there is much to do in life. It did make me think of mortality, though, something I manage to skillfully avoid most of the time. A friend half my age lost his life a month ago. While crossing the street on campus yesterday, a close brush with a careless driver reinforced the uncertainty of my own life.

The psalmist encouraged that kind of thinking –

Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty if our strength endures;

yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,

for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

teach us to number our days,

that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90)

These days do quickly pass. I remember last spring here like yesterday. These Texas springs are a finite resource. I have a limited number left – twenty-five or thirty perhaps if “my strength endures.” That knowledge heightens my senses to the beauty of the dandelions scattered across the field and the occasional bluebonnet that has found a home at this old house here by the road.

A voice says, “Cry out.”

And I said, “What shall I cry?”

“All people are like grass,

and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.

The grass withersand the flowers fall,

because the breathof the Lord blows on them.

Surely the people are grass.

The grass withers and the flowers fall,

but the wordof our God endures forever.”

Check Out the Library -- The Rest of the Story

2011-03-25T19:56:00.004-05:00

Two years ago I wrote about how Alan, our oldest, was the architect working on remodeling the Oak Forest Library -- my library when I was a kid. Since he lives only blocks away from it, it is also my grandkids library. Well, the remodeling is complete and the building will have its grand reopening in mid-April. But last week the building received an American Institute of Architects 2011 Design Award. You can see pictures and hear his wife brag about him on her blog. Check it out.

Let the Earth Bring Forth Vegetation!

2011-03-23T22:44:00.006-05:00

Diann lives in Houston, but works in Pleasanton, about 25 miles from Floresville. A regular meeting requires her to drive to Floresville on Mondays, so she's promised to check in on the garden when she gets a chance. This helps us absentee gardeners to have an idea what's going on.

She sent these photos last week. It looks like soil, sun, and seeds are all doing their part. I can't wait to return next week and check it out myself.

The corn is sprouting.

Beans!

More Beans!

And Watermelons!

The X-Garden

2011-03-20T17:37:00.016-05:00

A friend of mine who gardens says he spends half his time trying to kill plants and the other half trying to get plants to grow.

On Thursday night Melinda and I cleared the Bermuda from 350 sq. ft. of ground in anticipation of the next stage in the experimental garden – fencing it in and laying down a drip irrigation system. I conferred with Mr. Cooper of Cooper’s Garden Place on Thursday and he showed me how to set up the system. He was out of sufficient materials, but picked them up on Friday and called me to come by and get them. I also made a trip by Tractor Supply Store to procure eight 4’x16’ cattle panels and sixteen T-posts for the fence. All we needed now was cheap labor, which arrived late on Friday night.

Saturday morning we shared some amazing breakfast tacos and then went to work. If we were to build another such fence, it would go much faster and would be a bit more elegant. But we learned as we went. We spent much time conferring, huddling, arguing, and fussing about how to get the fence good and square.

Melinda mastered the art of attaching the cattle panels to the T-posts using a nifty tool some bright (and probably rich) guy had invented. We sawed the end off one panel to form a gate and David and Jimmy attached it.

Meanwhile, Mike, who had already repaired baseboard in the house while we were fussing outside, was laying out the irrigation system, assisted by Debbie and Chris. When we connected it to the hose and tested it, it worked perfectly. We attached a timer to it, which I had to get up and turn on at 5:00 AM on Monday in order to set the cycle correctly. By Saturday afternoon the garden was set up. Mike, David, and I drove across the road to purchase some bales of hay from Herb to use for mulch around the plants as they came up. Hopefully this will conserve moisture and smother out some of the weeds.

I left Saturday night to fly to Dallas and to preach at FBC, McKinney (where I’m currently serving as Interim Pastor). The group, I was later told, was so wasted by the work, that they fell asleep early. On Sunday morning the guys watched while the ladies planted all manner of seeds in the rich soil: four kinds of watermelons, cantaloupes, a variety of squashes, carrots, peas, beans, and other good things. When we return in a couple of weeks, we hope to weed the plots and place the hay mulch around them.

We have no idea whether all this effort will pay off with actual produce, but that’s the experimental dimension of the X-Garden.

Spring Break 2011

2011-03-20T17:04:00.002-05:00

Melinda and I returned to the farm on Friday for Spring Break and set about our tasks. She had a paper to work on for a couple of days and I picked up where I had left off painting at Christmas break. Sunday morning we sat in the den, drinking coffee and gazing out the front windows. A flock of turkeys crossed the driveway into the wheat field. We’ve not seen these birds before. The big tom following the flock stopped to puff his feathers and spread his tail as if posing for a photo. They meandered across the field to the fence line while we watched.

We visited First Baptist Church for the first time and enjoyed worshipping with that community of faith. We’ll do that as often as we able. Lunch was at Jack’s Café in town, and then we made a side trip the Lodi Cemetery, an overgrown Mexican graveyard next to the auto parts store on 10^th Street. Burials there began in the late 1800s when Lodi was the county seat. One of the graves was marked as that of a Texas Ranger.

Sunday evening Melinda joined me in the painting. By Tuesday afternoon we’d painted three baths, the utility room, Grammy’s old sewing room, and the master bedroom. A group of guys from East End Glass showed up and removed and replaced the double-pane glass in twenty-one windows. For the first time in who knows when we could see clearly out all our windows. Everything was done. We packed our suitcases and drove the three hours back to Waco late that evening. Early Wednesday morning we drove two hours to Arlington for Clint Dobson’s funeral and, when that was done, six hours back to the farm.

We awoke Thursday morning to the sun rising though our now clear bedroom windows. A doe walked across the drive toward the wheat field, where we’d seen the turkeys earlier. While Melinda returned to her studies on Thursday, I cleaned up the painting mess and did some shopping around town to get ready for some outdoor projects we had planned: building a fence around our garden, laying down a drip irrigation system with a timer, and repairing a few baseboards in the house. At dusk a Great Horned Owl posed in a mesquite tree southwest of the house. (We found later one of his owl pellets on the roof under our big oak tree.)

Friday I mowed around the house, first with the walk behind mower, because Murray, the big, ancient lawn tractor refused to start. I told Melinda that we had kept him alive long enough. It would be time to replace him this season. He must have heard me, because when I tried again to start him (after mowing with the other machine for two hours), he cranked right up. So he helped me get finished just in time for our first guests to arrive.

David and Diann drove over from Pleasanton, about thirty miles away. We shared a cup of coffee and the remains of an Almond Joy Pie from the Texas Pie Company in Kyle that Melinda had picked up on the way to the farm earlier. We climbed in David’s Jeep and made the short drive over to Poth to Wiatrek’s Meat Market to pick up some steaks and bacon for the weekend. Having taken care of dessert, it was time for dinner. At my suggestion, we decided to try the Wildcat Grill and Saloon in McCoy, about 25 miles back toward Pleasanton. I’d read about the place in the Wilson County News some months earlier and it sounded good. We should have called first. It had been closed for a while. So we drove back to Floresville to dine at the Maverick Grill, a roadhouse on Hwy 181 outside of town.

Jimmy and Chris showed up before long. Then Mike and Pamm. Finally, Terry and Debbie. Friends formerly known as The Pizza Group, gathered for a weekend at the farm with lots of laughing, eating, and (as it turned out) working. More on the projects in the next post.

Senselesness

2011-03-04T22:24:00.008-06:00

The world reeled under my feet yesterday when the phone call came. I was walking across the Baylor campus, on my way home to pick up a car and drive to dinner with our dean and a guest lecturer who had been on our campus all week. Rick Carpenter called, telling me he had just received news that Clint Dobson had been murdered in his office at Northpointe Baptist Church in Arlington.

My initial reaction was that he had his information wrong. What I’d just been told would not filter through my ears and into my brain. Clint was only 29. I’d seen him just two weeks ago in the seminary building at the Winter Pastors Conference. I had embraced him. We’d talked. We’d made plans to have lunch after church with our wives one Sunday soon now that I was serving as an interim pastor for a Dallas-area congregation. And I was being told he was gone.

I’ve known Clint since he was five years old. For six years or so he was my son’s best friend. Even as an adult, whenever I saw him he always asked about Taylor. Clint decided to pursue a calling into ministry while he was an undergraduate at Baylor. He began his seminary training at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, but when Hurricane Katrina closed that school for a while, Clint came back to Waco and finished his work at Truett. He returned to UBC to do his internship with Jeff Waldo, serving in the Emerald Pointe Apartment ministries one summer.

He created friends and admirers wherever he went. He was tall, handsome, smart, enthusiastic, and inherently likeable. Professors who had him in class bragged on him, as if they had something to do with him. People who worked with him loved him. He was selected the outstanding student preacher his last year and preached in chapel. Clint served a small congregation while in seminary and then became pastor of Northpointe when he graduated. My last summer at UBC I invited him back to his home church to preach when I had to be out. He did an outstanding job. I was proud , as if I had something to do with him.

Last Sunday, I’m told, he preached on "The Testimony of the Martyrs," and his text was Acts 12 and 1 Peter 3:13-18. Then on Thursday he was senselessly murdered.

I have been interviewed by two Waco television reporters and two newspaper reporters today. Two of them asked me how I made sense of this. I don’t have a nail in my mind to hang this event on. I don’t have a way of making sense of it.

I decided some time ago that evil is irrational. To attempt to make sense of it is foolishness in my mind. It leads to saying things about God that don’t fit the Father revealed by Jesus Christ. This event was not God’s will. God states his will about murder in the Ten Commandments. It is not his will that anyone commit murder. To attempt to drive a nail to hang this on by saying, “This was God’s will,” sounds to me like foolishness.

I do believe that God’s sovereignty extends to such irrational events, however. I really do believe in the promise of Romans 8:28, that God works all things together for good to those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. By this I mean that the God who could take the worst, most irrational thing that human beings have ever done, nailing the Son of God to a cross, and sovereignly use that to reconcile the world to himself, is capable of sovereignly using any event to his purposes, I believe. Even the tragic, horrible event of yesterday. He did not stop it, but I do not believe he willed it. Apparently the freedom God gives human beings to choose and to act is something he takes seriously.

I take great hope in the promise of eternal life in Jesus Christ and I believe with all my heart that Clint shares Christ's victory over death. I hold Paul's words dear: "to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Phil. 1:21), and to depart and be with Christ is "far better" (1:23). But honestly, I feel robbed, pillaged, to have Clint taken out of my world. The church and the world are poorer for this senseless deed. Many in our seminary feel the same sense of loss. The people of Northpointe church certainly do. And his family most of all.

On Wednesday we will celebrate Clint’s life, mourn his death, and cling to God in the face of the senselessness of this act.

The words of Luther’s hymn have been on my mind all day:

Let goods and kindred go,

This mortal life also.

The body they may kill.

God’s truth abideth still.

His kingdom is forever.

John wrote of Christ's promise to those who offered their lives for him:

Then I heard a voice from heaven say,

"Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on."

"Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them."

(Rev. 14:13)

So Clint's rest begins earlier than I would have imagined.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

Amen.

Added 3/25/11 The Texas Baptist Standard published a nice article on Clint's life this week.

Snow Day in Waco

2011-02-04T10:03:00.008-06:00

It gets really hot here in Waco. August and September are often marked with days over 100 degrees. But it gets cold here, too – at least in comparison to what I have known in Houston over the years. I know it is nothing to you Northerners. We are in our fourth day without getting above freezing and last night a gentle snow blanketed Central Texas. Snow fell twice last winter, but was gone before the day was over. We don’t expect this to melt for a day and a half!

When it snows in this part of the world, things grind to a halt. Most people don’t get out and drive, and those that do crash into each other. Schools close. Pipes freeze. Texans complain and shiver while transplanted Minnesotans walk around in short sleeves grinning.

So for the day the Baylor campus is shut down. I have a warm house, papers to grade, coffee to drink, a book to read, and time to make a couple of blog entries. Yesterday and today were set aside as Truett Preview Days, when prospective students come here to be introduced (and hopefully recruited) to our seminary. We had dinner with twenty-five of them last night, some of whom have travelled from California, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. But the campus is shut down today. Some of us are going to try to meet them for lunch nevertheless, so I’ll be walking across the white Baylor campus in a bit, bringing back some photos as a prize. If you Baylor alums want to see the campus of your alma mater covered in snow, click here .

Dressing and Keeping

2011-02-04T09:45:00.009-06:00

One of the earliest biblical metaphors for God the Creator is that of a farmer. In Genesis 2:8, having formed a man from the soil like a potter, God tills the soil and plants a garden, putting in vegetables and fruit trees. Then he gives the soil-formed man the task of dressing and keeping it. I suppose every time we turn over soil and carefully commit a plant or a seed to its care we perform a small God-like act. Pot plants in our windowsills, patio crops of tomatoes, back yard gardens in the city or the country, vast fields of grains, orchards, and vineyards echo one of the early acts of the Creator.

Eating, then, becomes a kind of sacramental act. Wendell Berry writes, “To live we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament.” (Gift of Good Land) We are formed from the soil. We live from the soil. We return to the soil. So does all of Creation.

Somehow all this becomes hard-wired into the human. We have a compulsion to see things grow. Yielding to that compulsion, last weekend Melinda and I took the first steps toward creating an experimental garden at the farm. Melinda has faithfully grown things during the thirty-six years of our marriage. Never has there been a time, no matter where we lived, when something green (though not always something edible) was not flourishing in our home. She has put in gardens as often as possible. We have beds, now snow covered, behind our home here in Waco. She volunteered last spring at the World Hunger Relief Farm outside of town.

So as an experiment, and in hopeful anticipation of a time when we will be able to give more complete attention to things in Floresville, we laid out a small garden plot between the house and the wheat-sown fields at the farm. The story of two fairly intelligent adults, with mild OCD tendencies, who scored well on standardized tests, trying to get this garden plot lined up with a corner of the house and parallel to the outside wall would be material for a sit-com (nearly a CSI episode). We borrowed a min-tiller from our neighbor across the road, bought a truckload of manure compost, went to the city park and procured a half cubic yard of wood mulch for the paths, and went to work. Four 22’ x 4’ beds now lie next to each other with a wood-mulched path between them.

The adjective “experimental” is necessary because this garden will be grown more in absentia than gardens normally are. On our next trip we will build a fence to keep the deer and wild hogs out. We will install a drip irrigation system with a timer to provide moisture through the unpredictable weather in South Texas. We will plant our seeds and seedlings. And we’ll place a thick mulch of sorghum sudan hay over it all to help manage weeds and maintain moisture. We won’t be there daily to fight off insects. As often as our schedule allows (and it looks pretty good March-May) we’ll make weekend trips and check on things.

The garden is experimental because we are not dependent on its doing well, but we want to see what will grow for us and with how much attention. I’ll attempt to post the progress of the project here for your entertainment.

Winter Solstice

2010-12-22T07:45:00.004-06:00

It is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. I spent the longest day of the year in Fairbanks, Alaska, exactly six months ago, standing outside at midnight with the sun still visible. As I sit in the front porch swing and write, the December full moon rises in front of me, big as a Texas orange. It will eventually become gleaming white, bathing the field before me with enough light for even my ancient eyes to read by.

I came to the farm alone today, ostensibly to paint. The walls of the old house need it. I doubt they’ve felt the bristles of a paintbrush since they were built in the early 80’s. But the work is just an excuse. It always is. “I really have to go mow the place.” “Those trees need trimming.” I sometimes suspect that I come here not because I have to, but because I must. It is more of an internal need than an external one.

I did not choose this place. It is not my favorite part of Texas. I love the rocky Hill Country and the rolling farmland of central Texas. I think this place chose me. My grand-parents and great-grand parents lie beneath its soil -- the Creeches, Cryers, Cockes, Rossers, and Martins some two miles southwest in Floresville and the Culpeppers a dozen miles northeast in Stockdale. They all came here a hundred and fifty years ago when Texas had been a state for only a couple of decades. I probably made my first trip to this spot fifty-seven years ago next weekend. I say that, not because I remember, but because we always came out here at Christmas to be with my grandparents. I’m sure we did my first year.

Now, almost sixty years later, I still come. I come with my family and I come alone. The ritual of arrival has become rather fixed for me. Before I enter the house I walk around the property. I notice the fresh mounds of soil excavated by our resident gophers. At times the feral hogs have also left portions plowed up as result of their visit. Mesquite branches that failed to endure a recent windy south Texas day lie scattered on the ground. I walk out on the berm that twists, serpent-like, through the field behind the house. Today I see that Herb has done his planting and small green blades of winter wheat are just now poking their heads up through the red soil. By March they’ll carpet the place with a blue green beauty that will turn golden by May. The two bird feeders are empty and dangling askew in the mesquite tree in front of the house. I replenish them with seed and fill the bird bath with clean water. In no time a pair of cardinals take advantage of my provisions.

I have a trip to make into town to get my own provisions. Tonight I will eat fresh squash, onions, tomatoes, and bell peppers layered with cheese and marinara sauce and baked until they are bubbly and melty. That will be lunch as well. Tomorrow night I will enjoy borracho beans, rice, and tortillas. That is part of the ritual as well. While in town I paid my taxes, thinking of Luke’s Christmas story, KJV – everyone returning to the land of their ancestors to be taxed.

Winter means the place is dead. Nature is not fighting back. The grasses and weeds about the house lie dormant. Spiders and grasshoppers no longer challenge me as I approach. I don’t have to do violence to them and their habitat with the old riding mower. Instead, I will work indoors. Today I have cleaned, moved furniture, and prepared for the mindless work of painting tomorrow. I put Christmas music on the stereo, turned it up loud, and dragged heavy Lazyboy sleeper sofas from one room to another (My grandmother left three such pieces along with at least five Lazyboy recliners. I wonder how the company has stayed in business since her passing.) I washed linens, made beds, and cleaned out the refrigerator.

I have thought of my grandmother, Lillie, often as I worked today. She is still so much a part of this place. I washed a casserole dish accidently left in the refrigerator since Thanksgiving. In black marker her initials were scrawled on the top – “L.V.C.,” signifying those days when the dish had borne her contribution to assuage the grief of a neighbor. I thought about the place where her garden grew as I walked through the back yard. I saw the evidence of her handiwork in a piece of crochet. The house still smells a bit like her perfume.

We have so much we want to do here, but progress is slow. Just twenty feet in front of me grows a pecan tree my dad planted who knows how many years ago. Now it reaches thirty or more feet into the air, rising above the house. Creation’s time moves so much slower than ours. I want things in minutes, hours, or days, and the Creation lives its life in terms of decades, centuries, millennia, and eons. Trees don’t seem to be hurried.

Orion’s Belt lines up its three bright stars directly in front of me. The moon rises higher now, and an owl calls from the trees on the fence line several hundred yards to my left. An insect buzz rises from the thicket to my right by the old stock tank. Herb’s livestock protest his driving the tractor through the field across the road in the dark. It is all so familiar.

Plenty to Be Thankful For

2010-12-04T11:22:00.004-06:00

Thanksgiving week was full and rich. Early Monday morning I drove to the farm alone, being the early arriver to get things ready. I took care of the usual chores – purchasing enough groceries to get us going, mowing around the house, clearing the dead limbs fallen from the mesquites, and turning the water heater from Vacation to High. Murray, our ancient lawn tractor, had apparently picked up a thorn in his left front foot during our last outing and could not join me, so I walked behind the small lawnmower, taking twice the time.

I worked outdoors most of Monday, until it was dark. Then, returning the tools and equipment to the garage, I entered the house, groping for the light switch. I found it and turned it on to get the overhead light in the garage. No response. Bulb’s probably out. So I found the switch for the utility room. Nothing. The guys installing the furnace a couple of weeks ago must have turned off the breaker. So I felt my way into the dark house and discovered that none of the lights were working. I walked to the front door and gazed across the road. No lights on at any of the neighbors’ homes either. I called Janie who lives at the top of the hill and caught her shopping at HEB. She called home and checked and called me back. Power was off all down the road.

So, sweaty, gritty, and hungry, I sat on the front porch in the dark for a while. Shower and supper would have to wait. It was not long before lights flickered on and I went inside. I turned on the shower and let it run. When I came back a few minutes later, the water was still ice cold. Furnace guys had turned off the gas for the install and had not relit the pilot on the water heater, I guessed. This time I was right. So I found some matches, lit the pilot, and proceeded to dinner, still sweaty and gritty.

Tuesday morning I went rock hunting. The goal was to build a campfire ring in the backyard out of local stones. I took the wheelbarrow and a hand pick and walked through rows of tall sorghum sudan grass that remained in the field, looking for pieces of sandstone or flint at least as large as my fist. I took my quest down the road to the far end of the field for a while, and then down the county road to an outcropping of eroding sandstone where large pieces were falling off onto the roadside. Eventually I had managed to gather enough to construct a ring five or six feet in diameter. I found enough dead limbs around to erect a campfire-sized stack that would turn the marshmallows, Hershey bars, and Graham crackers I’d picked up at the HEB in to ‘smores for my grand-daughter when she arrived.

Tuesday evening Alan and Kat arrived with their kids and and their dogs. I had a now traditional farm meal waiting: borracho beans, a pot of rice, and pan of cornbread. Melinda and Jenna showed up a bit later, and we had a full house. Wednesday was spent exploring with grandkids, planning a Thanksgiving meal, and battling the other last minute grocery shoppers. The campfire was a big success and an encore was requested for Thanksgiving evening. Thursday morning was all about cooking. When it was time to eat, we spread a feast on the picnic tables and enjoyed the creative work that Kat, Jenna, and Melinda had invested in all morning. Then naps.

The weather remained unseasonably warm, in the 80s, through Thanksgiving afternoon. Then, near sundown, we were sitting at the picnic tables. I'd been gathering some more dead mesquite limbs for another round with the 'smores and campfire. Suddenly -- really suddenly -- the still, warm air was replaced with a stiff, icy wind from the north. It was exactly like someone had turned on a massive air conditioner. We all offered an "ooooohh!" at the same time. By morning we were looking at 36 on the rusty front porch thermometer.

Friday the kids went into San Antonio to a museum. Jenna took a car and headed to Houston to visit friends home from college. And Melinda and I had the place to ourselves for a while. She worked on papers and I spent the day reading and walking and resting.

Saturday we all returned to San Antonio for a day at the zoo – riding the train around Brackenridge Park, gawking at animals, and laughing at grandchildren. We had dinner at La Gloria Icehouse, a restaurant near the old Pearl Brewery on the San Antonio River featuring Mexican street food. Five stars. Definitely try the molcajetes.

Sunday morning included a picnic at the Pecan Park in Floresville. The kids and grandkids headed home. Jenna returned from Houston and she and Melinda loaded a car and made the trip to Austin to drop Jenna off and then on to Waco. I hung around to finish the clean up and followed a couple of hours later.

Melinda and I returned to Waco just in time for the first Sunday of Advent service at UBC. We saw our friends, sang Christmas carols with the David Crowder Band (a first for us), and went home exhausted from several hours of driving, a week of grand children, and a good bit of work. But it was that kind of tired that is good. Very good.

I could have asked for more -- having Taylor, Amber, Ava, and Jonas with us from El Paso would have been good, although we'd seen them a couple of weeks earlier. I have much to be thankful for these days.

Kat has documented all this in photographs quite well on her blog.

Jonas is Here!

2010-11-10T21:48:00.008-06:00

One of the features of the farm house is that has no heater. Actually it does have a propane furnace, but two winters ago when I attempted to light the pilot and could not, I called the Smith Propane Co. in Floresville to send a guy out to help. He took a look at it and attached a red tag (not a good thing) and said that as corroded as it is, it would be unsafe to light. I would need to replace it. We’ve not been at the house much in the winter, so it was easy to let that slide and just wear warmer clothes. But since we’re planning to be here with family at Thanksgiving and small children are involved, we made the decision to replace the furnace.

When class was over this morning I drove to the farm (in 2:59, a record time) to meet with William, a "comfort specialist" representing Jon Wayne Heating and Air, for an estimate. He was thorough, checking airflow with a cool hood device, measuring square footage, examining the attic and ductwork, calling in information to headquarters, before finalizing a proposed figure. I was impressed. I’ve got to drive back to Waco early tomorrow for a 10:00 meeting. This was a short trip but I’m always glad to get to the farm. So is Willie.

But the highlight of my day was not a visit with a comfort specialist. The best part of my day was a text message I received from El Paso: “For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. And his name shall be called Jonas Matthew Creech. 9 lbs. 10. oz. 21.25 inches. 2:13 PM. Everything is perfect.”

We’ve been anticipating Jonas’ arrival for some time. He showed up a bit late (as his size attests). I started exchanging texts messages with his dad early this morning, keeping up with the news and passing on what I received to others in the family and friends. I can’t wait to meet him (which I hope to do next weekend!). Pictures are available, if you'd like to see the boy. Click here.

If I could not be there in person for his arrival, which would have been First Prize, I feel good about receiving the news of my expanded grandfathering kingdom here at the farm where my grandfather, Irvin, lived. His birthday was this week, November 7. My dad’s birthday is next week, Nov 15. I heard the story several times from my grandmother, Lillie, of how Irvin abandoned her here on this farm in August 1954 to make the trip to Houston for my sister’s birth. Lillie had to remain behind because they were raising turkeys that year (Irvin’s idea). The birds had contracted some kind of disease and had to be medicated (how do you do that?) daily. Lillie got that job so that Irvin could meet his granddaughter.

It has been a privilege to be on hand for the arrival of three grandchildren. When Ava,Jonas’ sister, arrived, we drove from Houston to Corpus Christi and made it in time for her debut.

I’d just landed at Hobby Airport, returning from a trip to Ohio, when I got the news that Madison was about to show up, a mere two weeks after Ava, and drove from the airport to the hospital for that event.

Austin, Madison’s little brother, came along just over a year ago, and conveniently did so on a Friday night when I was coming back to Houston from Waco. These have been spectacular moments, waiting with family and then seeing my own offspring holding children (not an easy emotion to describe).

So, welcome to the world, Jonas. We have a host of Creeches waiting to meet you. I can’t wait to see you face to face. I will include you in my grandfathering covenant.*

*I made a pact with my friend Richard one day while out in a jon boat catching bass. We were lamenting the limited degree to which our fathers had opporuntity to be involved in our children’s lives. My sons and daughter did not see my dad often. We made a pact to live in such a way that when we die, our grandchildren will be weeping over our graves, saying, “What are we going to do without Papa!?!” I’m working on that. It involves serious amounts of aggravation and ice cream, among other things.

Blocking Out the Scenery, Breaking My Mind

2010-11-07T16:22:00.028-06:00

I pay attention to signs about me, particularly to church signs. I don't mean church marquees. I have never really been a fan of church marquees. Either they are used to put up cheesy expressions ("You think it's hot here?" during a Houston summer heat wave, for example) or they have dated information on them about the special event two weeks earlier. Marquees apparently provided practice for churches who would later fail to maintain their webpages. These signs seldom catch my attention. But others do.

I find the names of churches interesting, because these are not thoughtless. I imagine that behind these signs are committee meetings, probably several long ones, in which devout people considered what they would name the baby they were about to give birth to. What will we call our church? How do we communicate our identity? What will tell people who we really are?

"First Baptist" says something important. We are the pioneers who settled this area. We got here first and we are still here. Likely we'll still be here when you are gone. Do you want stability? Are you looking for tradition? This is the place to find it.

"Second Baptist" often says to me, "We are the folks who didn't really like First Baptist." It's not that we arrived later, its that when we got here we didn't really like what we found, so we started over. "Calvary Baptist" is reserved for the folks who left First and Second over an issue. Anyway, that's how I often read those signs. I'm probably wrong.

But really those are not such creative names. Neither are the names that identify with a given subdivision or geographical area. They are good names and it is well for them to say, "We belong here and we serve the people of this community." I belong to University Baptist in Waco myself. Early on it identified with a ministry to university students. That's solid. I served University Baptist in Houston, whose founders named it for the proximity to the University of Houston, Clear Lake. However, as history unfolded, I suppose we should have been called NASA Baptist, because our constituency was far more drawn from the aerospace industry than from the nearby campus. Those are well chosen, meaningful names. But not so creative.

I'm interested in those signs that say, "You should have been in the meeting where we chose our name!" For example, driving though Alabama several years ago we passed a church whose name demanded that I stop and get out my camera. "Perfect Alternative Baptist Church." Now that's a name with a story behind it. It tells a story of its founders' vision while saying some interesting things about the other churches in town. I wish I knew the other names offered before this one made it to the floor for discussion and received a majority approval.

Sometimes those signs present a name chosen to define the congregation as clearly as possible: "Pre-millenial, Calvinistic, Fundamentalist, KJV Only Baptist Church. Everyone Welcome!" While I have not seen a church with that particular name, I have noticed church signs with most of those designators on them. They do say something about the gospel preached there. It causes me to wonder about the meeting where the sign was designed and when it was decided that there were a sufficient number of adjectives. (BTW, the first Baptist congregation in Texas settled near Palestine as The Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptist Church.)

Last week I received a text from a friend telling me she'd noticed an interesting church sign in East Texas. She promised to photograph it and send it to me on her return trip. She did. "Little Hope Baptist Church." I cannot decide on the story behind the name. Was this a group of people who, in the midst of a hopeless time, founded a congregation to offer to their world a "little hope"? Or were they a cynical, despairing group, hardly able to see the future, who had "little hope" themselves. If so, judging from the age of the sign, they survived longer than they expected. Was there a "Big Hope" or "Lotta Hope" church they broke off from? I cannot be sure. But the name lacks a bit in confidence.

Another friend of mine was making a motorcycle trip across the West and found a sign irresistible. He photographed it and sent it to me. I find intriguing. Certainly there must a nearby town called "Dinosaur." But the name of church offers such narrative possibilities. "Well, if we keep doing what we've been doing, it's pretty certain that we'll go out of business. We have no intentions of adapting to all these changes about us. It's just a matter of time before we no longer speak a language our culture can understand. We're on the way to extinction. I suggest we own that reality and call ourselves, 'Dinosaur Baptist Church.' All in favor?" This sign would be a more honest reflection of where many congregations find themselves these days.

It makes me wonder, when did the church find it necessary to erect signs to declare our identity. When did it cease to be enough to be identified as followers of Jesus, the people of God, the body of Christ, to be known by our love for him?

Back in October I was walking on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin and encountered a sign that required a camera. "Notice," it said, "Signs Have Changed." I was not certain what to do with this information. Its message was ambiguous. I did not know what the signs had previously said, so if I were expected to compare the new signs with the old ones, I was at a disadvantage. Did this message include this sign itself? Had it also changed? Had it previously said, "Notice, Signs are the Same," or "Some Signs have Changed." It was confusing.

I have finally opted for an interpretation that sees it as a philosophical/theological statement. The signs that designate God's people have changed. Like Adam in the Garden, we have taken on the prerogative of naming things about us, including the church. The names we have chosen have been helpful to point people to the location where we gather. The names differentiate us from others. The names clarify our commitments and focus so that when outsiders read our signs they have a sense of who we are. The names we have chosen, however, may miss the point. "By this," Jesus said, "shall all know that you are my disciples -- if you love one another as I have loved you." That seems to me to be the sign that has changed. I want to work at being a better sign to others along the way, pointing to God, God's love, God's Son, and God's people -- the church.

Getting to Know the Place

2010-11-01T11:24:00.009-05:00

Wendell Berry urges us to know the land. He means by that a particular piece of property. What has Nature been doing here? What does Nature permit here? In what will Nature assist here? What would violate Nature in this place? I have been getting to know this particular place for more than fifty years. I walked these fields as a child, played in the sand, chunked the red sandstone rocks at prickly pear cacti, avoided rattlesnakes, scorpions, and tarantulas, and shot .22 rounds at tin cans on fence posts. In the last three or so I have focused my efforts at knowing the place around the soil, the weather, and the wildlife.

Sunday morning began like Saturday – dark and cool (though warmer and damper than the day before). I was a bit stiff from the work on Saturday. Melinda prepared scrambled eggs and toast to go with our coffee. Lance and Andi were sleeping in. After breakfast we retired to our separate corners to read. I opened the Book of Common Prayer to the Daily Office Lectionary and identified the readings for the day – Psalm 8, 24, 29, 84, 1 Corinthians 12, and Matthew 18. When I’m at the farm I read from a New Revised Standard Version Bible I keep there alongside my BCP. At home, I read from the New English Bible these days. This was part of my worship this Reformation Sunday morning.

Lance and Andi were stirring and Melinda was back with Hopkins, so I put on some walking shoes and went out into the beauty of another Fall morning. I cleaned up some loose branches I’d neglected to pick up the day before, took a rake to some gopher mounds in the yard and leveled them out, and then walked into the mesquite woods next to our property to look at what used to be a stock pond (in Texas that’s called a “tank.”) It is dry now and belongs to my neighbor. Although it once held water, it would take some major bull dozier work to remove the trees that fill it now and restore it. I walked the perimeter of the field beside our house, first parallel to the road along the fence covered with Muscadine grapevines, then left along the fence line that separates our property from the Jung’s place, then left again along the back fence line until I came to the snake-like berm that winds through the fields, directing the flow of rainwater to the old tank. Then I walked atop the berm, covered with thick Bermuda grass, back to the house.

Along the way I stepped through the cleared circles, six feet or so in diameter, created by the hard working red harvester ants. These insects were around here when I was a child, but the imported fire ants practically eliminated them. I was glad to see them back. Since the red harvester ants were a primary food source for the Texas Horned Lizard (horned toad, or for you TCU people, horned frog), that critter has declined in about 30% of its native habitat. We don’t see them around here any more.

After lunch we four spent a bit of time identifying various butterflies, spiders, moths, and birds around the place. We saw a yellow garden spider, one of the few left this season. They were prolific all summer. A little hairy, green-eyed jumping spider walked across the ceiling of the front porch. A Black Widow protected her egg sac under the eave in the back of the house. We saw butterflies: a Monarch, a yellow Clouded Sulphur, an Alfalfa butterfly, a Goat Weed, a Spicebush Swallowtail, and a Giant Swallowtail. We think we identified one of the many black hairy caterpillars on the place as that of a Giant Tiger Moth or a Giant Leopard Moth. Not really sure about that. Our resident Texas Rat Snake had left his three and a half foot shed skin hanging on the lower branch of the oak tree in the back yard. Mexican Eagles, Turkey Vultures, Red-tailed Hawks, and an American Kestrel patrolled the fields from above.

In an effort to know this place, I have acquired a stack of field guides. I want to know, as best I can, the name of every species of mammal, spider, scorpion, insect, bird, tree, and grass on the place. I want to know the names of the six or eight different soil types that make up the land. I want to recognize constellations in the clear, dark South Texas sky. That’s a goal of mine I am working on. Being married to a curious amateur naturalist helps a lot.

Sharon came over from across the road. She’s Herb’s mother. I suspect she may get lonely living out here. Whenever she sees our vehicles at the house she comes over for a visit. Sometime she brings vegetables or homemade tamales. This time she just brought the lens cap to a camera one of our friends had lost up here this spring. Sharon stood for an hour on the front porch, refusing to take the chair we offered, and talked of gardening, pests, rain, drought, and plans for the future. This is part of getting to know the place as well. Sharon, with her Germanic-Texas accent, describing her efforts at growing tomatoes is part of this place as well.

I suspect that my full acquaintance with these 88 acres may take a while. There is much to know.

An Ordinary Day

2010-11-01T11:12:00.004-05:00

I hadn’t been to the farm since Labor Day Weekend. Melinda and I drove up on Friday night, stopping in Austin for dinner with Jenna and two of her friends at Kerby Lane. By 9:30 we were pulling into the long drive that leads up to the house. I could tell that Herb, the young man from across the road who leases the land to farm, had recently mowed most of the yard and raked it for hay. Earlier this summer he had taken 83 square bales out of our “front yard.” The fields, however, still contained the crop of sorghum sudan grass he had planted for a hay crop in the spring. He’d already taken two cuts off the fields, but the grass was back up to six feet or more and still covered most of the field. But around the house I could see that I would have tall grass to cut on Saturday morning.

I made a quick run to town for some groceries while Melinda unpacked. Lance and Andi were coming up the next day to spend the weekend with us. I performed their wedding seven years ago today. When I returned I put a pound of pinto beans in a pan to soak overnight and before long, we turned in for the night.

Saturday morning Melinda and I sat on the front porch in the 38 degree morning air, sipped coffee, and watched the lazy sun rise in front of us. He’s sleeping in until 7:30 most days now. In another week, however, he’ll be required to rise at a respectable hour. After a bowl of oatmeal and raspberries, we went to work. For Melinda that meant secluding herself in the back room with a stack of books and her iBook to crank out a paper on Gerard Manley Hopkins. For me, that meant cranking up the lawnmower and making the place presentable. I paused midmorning to add the ingredients to the pot of borracho beans I was conjuring up, and then went back to work.

By noon most of the mowing was done, and about the time we took a lunch break, Lance and Andi drove up. We shared a lunch at the wooden tables under the mesquite grove in front of the house in absolutely perfect fall weather. After some catching up, Melinda went back to the books, Andi put her walking shoes on and headed down County Road 401 for an explore, and Lance and I trimmed pecan trees, filling the back of Willie before driving to the county dump.

The pecans have been a disappointment this year. The first year we had the place we gathered bucket loads from our four trees. Then the drought hit and they produced nothing. This year we were ready. We’ve had a good, wet winter, spring, and summer and were anticipating a great crop of pecans. However, we were not anticipating the great crop of grasshoppers, which we also had. They devoured pecan leaves and blossoms and left us with enough nuts for perhaps one pie. Maybe next year.

At the end of the day the yard was clean, the beans and rice were ready for dinner, and Baylor was about to beat UT in Austin. We sat outside and drank coffee for a while, and then took a hike around the perimeter of the fields, exploring the wildlife and vegetation on the place until near dark. When we got back to the house, we settled in for dinner and the ball game (we had to listen on the radio, since we only have broadcast tv access). After the ball game was over, we went to bed.

What I have described is an absolutely, spectacularly ordinary day. It was comprised of a quiet sunrise, good coffee, the presence of someone I love, conversation with friends, hard work, simple food, being present in Creation, and laughter. I love ordinary days.

Ok, I Did It

2010-10-31T23:11:00.002-05:00

At 10:48 PM CDT on Halloween 2010 I deactivated my Facebook account. I read all the tearful good byes from friends. Thanks. I’m glad my posts occasionally brightened up your day. Even Facebook put up some photos of me and Melinda and Jenna and my friend Jimmy and told me that if I deactivated my account Melinda would miss me and Jenna would miss me and Jimmy would miss me and would I like to reconsider and just receive fewer emails from Facebook. Melinda isn’t going to miss me – I’m married to her. Jenna isn’t going to miss me – she’s my daughter and needs her tuition money. Jimmy isn’t going to miss me. We are going camping together next weekend.

Here’s the deal – I want to work on one-to-one relationships with the people in my life as much as possible. Relating to people en masse lacks something important to me and leads to an online persona. I had to do enough of that as a pastor. It is not where I want to live. So, if you are one of my former Facebook “friends,” take my invitation seriously.

Email me and tell me what is going on with you and I’ll do the same. Ask for my cell number if you don’t have it and give me a call or text sometime or send me yours and I’ll do the same. Or download Skype and text me that you want to meet there and we can talk face to face or chat over a cup of coffee. Or, First Prize, let’s actually find a time to visit.

And I’ll continue writing this blog once or twice a week, reflecting on life and sharing that with whomever might be interested. But in this case, I’m mostly writing for me. I’ll write it whether anyone reads it or not. (You can “follow” my blog and have an email sent to you that tells you there’s been a update, if that helps.)

Thanks for the time on Facebook. I look forward to the Journey continuing.

BTW, I just got home from the farm about an hour ago. I'll write about that tomorrow, hopefully.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

2010-10-29T09:36:00.009-05:00

Dear FB,

This is difficult to say, but over the past few weeks I have come to finally admit that our relationship just isn’t working out. I have tried, but the feelings are gone and I don’t think they are coming back.

I remember when we first met – the hours spent sitting with you on the couch, telling you things about myself, showing you photos. I told you about my favorite books and movies, my favorite music and pastimes. I told you where I’d travelled and what I’d done. I would check in with you several times a day, letting you know what I was thinking, what I was doing. You sat with me in airport terminals and coffee shops. You always had some gossip or trivia about our mutual friends. Then when I got my iPhone, it was like you were with me all the time.

We have had some difficult moments – times when I thought what I shared with you was private, only to discover you’d shared it with the world and I had to tell you not to do that anymore. And sometimes you’d suddenly change with no warning and I’d have to get accustomed to the new you. Recently I felt you have become too possessive, wanting to know exactly where I am at all times. And I refused to play your games or start a farm with you. But we made it though those seasons.

I will treasure some things about our relationship. Before I met you, I was virtually friendless. Then you came along and brought the party with you. Suddenly, I had more friends than I thought possible. They poked me and gave me gifts. They wrote on my wall and sent me messages. We chatted. You reconnected me with at least a dozen people I had not contacted in years, and now I hear from them regularly – or at least I see their status. I want you to know that I honestly appreciate that. That would not have happened without you.

Now I have exactly 1120 friends, so many I can’t really keep up with them all. In fact, I can’t really keep up with any of them. Our relationships have grown shallow and superficial. We share trivia, jests, and pointless observations. Is this all there is to a relationship? I have the sense that I’m staying in touch with people, but really I’m not.

Don’t take this personally, FB. It is not about you, really, it’s about me. I just cannot feel committed to our relationship any more. Maybe my expectations are unrealistic, but I want something more real, something deeper, and I just can’t find it with you, in spite of all the time we spend together. I’m not blaming you or any of your more than 500 million active users who spend more than 700 billion minutes per month with you. And I’m not judging you or them, either. It’s not about that.

In a good relationship, one hopes to become a better person. I’m not sure it has worked that way for us. Honestly, I think you have helped me become a bit more narcissistic. That’s not your fault – it’s mine. Although you told me that more than a thousand people needed to know tiny details about my life and thinking, I believed you. Admittedly, I often wrote status updates or posted photos, not to inform, but to impress. (And, ironically, I’m breaking up with you in a blogpost for all the world to see. Clearly I have a way to go in recovering from our years together.)

So I’m going to break this off. I’m returning all the photos, the flair, and the notes I wrote you. You can keep them. And if it is alright with you, I’ll continue relating to some of my friends in other ways, although I’m not sure how. Being with you so much has gotten me out of the habit. Perhaps if they want to know what is going on in my life without actually talking to me, they could read the blog that I have neglected since you and I have been seeing each other (www.ubcsp.blogspot.com). At least there I try to reveal myself a bit more authentically. Or perhaps I could go back to emailing people rather than sending and receiving FB messages, which just show up as an email anyway (Robert_Creech@baylor.edu). Perhaps they could call me or I could call them and we could have a conversation (cell phone number available by email request). Or we could sit with my friend Skype and hear each other and see each other. Or, possibly, we might even sit down, face to face, and talk. I don’t know how I will get along without you right now, but I know I must.

So this is goodbye. I promise not to talk bad about you to others. Please, don’t call and beg me to reconsider. But I do hope we can still be “friends.”

Virtually gone,

rrc

Leaders are Readers

2010-10-17T22:36:00.002-05:00

I received notice this week that on November 11, Leadership Network is hosting a live, online event on the topic of Leaders & Readers. Six authors will share their thoughts on the role that reading has played in their leadership experiences, drawing content from their latest books. On that day, the audience will be able to participate in the conversation through live Q&A.

Leadership Network invited me to share my thoughts on the following three questions…

1. How would you complete this sentence: “I believe that reading is valuable to leadership because…”?

2. Do leaders read differently than non-leaders? How?

3. What are 3 books that have most influenced your leadership and why?

So I have decided to take them up on it. From the time that I first began to make sense of words on a page as a pre-K, I have been fascinated with reading. The public libraries in my city and the libraries at every school I have ever attended have been among my favorite haunts (and they still are). The evolutionary process after that was powerful: I discovered bookstores, then bookstores discovered coffee, and then Amazon.com showed up and I could browse the bookstores without leaving my desk! My office walls are lined with books. Our study at home is lined with books. My laptop contains a couple of thousand volumes. I have pretty much been obsessed with reading most of my life. What difference has that made for me? What is the connection between my reading and the fact that I have been involved in leadership most of my life as well?

I believe that reading is valuable to leadership because a reader is often a person whose mind is working. Assuming I am reading books that challenge my thinking, that present ideas I sometimes take issue with, that introduce me to new ways of thinking, then reading is an act of mental growth. In a world that changes as rapidly as ours, leaders cannot afford to be people whose minds are stuck in a former paradigm. Leaders are people who must be able to learn their way through the changes in order to thrive. A supple, working, thinking brain is a leader’s greatest asset. The act of reading helps keep that asset sharp.

Do leaders read differently than non-leaders? That is difficult to say, since I’m not so familiar with the reading habits of non-leaders. Leaders do not so much read for entertainment, I think. The leaders with whom I associate do read voraciously. They love books and they love ideas. They read fiction and nonfiction, poetry and prose, theology and economics, classics and contemporary. They read to stay up and they read to stay grounded. Reading keeps leaders connected not only with the leaders of the present, but also with the leaders of the past. It is a common “complaint” heard among my peers that our conversations are too expensive – they send us to Amazon for another order as we share what we have been reading.

Which three books have most influenced my leadership (excluding the Bible, which is the easy answer)? Murray Bowen’s Family Therapy in Clinical Practice is a collection of Bowen’s essays and lectures over a couple of decades, exposing the development of his thinking about how natural systems work. This thinking, and that of many of his disciples such as Roberta Gilbert, Ron Richardson, Edwin Friedman, and Michael Kerr has informed my thinking about what it means to lead with an understanding of natural systems. Early on as a pastoral leader, I recall reading Tom Peter’s In Search of Excellence and being challenged to think about what excellence should look like in congregational life and leadership. A third influence has been the works of Wendell Berry (pick one – how about his collection of essays, The Art of the Commonplace?) I was introduced to Berry by Eugene Peterson’s comment in his Under the Unpredictable Plant, in which he encouraged pastors to read Berry and substitute the word “congregation” wherever the farmer/writer/poet Wendell Berry used the words “land,” ”soil,” or “farm.” Then, Peterson said, we’d understand something about what pastoral leadership is about. That advice has been fruitful for me. That also illustrates the way that books lead to other books and writers introduce their favorites to the reader like good friends.

When I had my head buried under the covers as a preteen, reading by flashlight so my mother would not know I’d not yet gone to bed, I never expected to be a writer myself. But a few years ago I joined two friends and colleagues in a project that led to our writing The Leader’s Journey: A Call to Personal and Congregational Transformation. There have been other pieces as well. And currently I am working on a couple of projects. I do hope that my writing has the effect of helping readers become leaders and of introducing leaders to ideas that will shape their work.

Be sure to join us on November 11 for Leaders & Readers, you can register free at http://leadersandreaders.leadnet.org

Alaska Day 12: Sailing and Grazing

2010-07-02T19:25:00.003-05:00

We're sailing through the waters of the Johnstone Strait with Vancouver Island a half-mile off to starboard, visible from our balcony window. Melinda is perched on the balcony scanning the waters for the black finger-like protrusion of the dorsal fin of an orca. Sandra, the ship's naturalist, says there's about a 33% chance of seeing some in this area. She is on the bridge watching for wildlife and occasionally comes on the ship's loudspeaker to call attention to something she has spotted. In our stateroom we can tune the television to channel 34 and hear her narration as we sit on the balcony.

The orcas in this area are called "residential orcas" because they stay in the area year-round and eat fish. The "transient orcas" further north devour warm-blooded mammals like seals and the calves of other whale species. They vacation off the northern Alaskan coasts when the humpbacks and others return in the summer.

In this narrow strait through which we are traveling at the moment the orcas will find schools of salmon, herring, and other fish to feed on. It is a sort of whale buffet. Speaking of buffets, we have had a day of feeding as well.

Following a light breakfast in the International Dining Room we went to the theater where Amedeo Scarin, the Executive Chef who oversees the preparation of 17,000 meals a day on board the Diamond Princess and Jacques Ghennai, the Maitre d'Hotel who oversees the staff of servers and stewards, presented an entertaining culinary demonstration. Following their presentation we joined several hundred other curious cruisers on a parade through the ship's main galley to see where this work was done.

The entire ship operation is fascinating to me. It is a floating city and the logistics are overwhelming. Yet everything from navigation to communication to hotel services to food services to travel services to entertainment to shopping services to engineering are managed with such amazing coordination.

Take food for example. Each day chefs use 205 kg of flour each day, 210 kg cheese, and 152 kg rice. During the seven days of the cruise they will use 920 kg of shrimp, 6691 kg of beef, 700 kg of King Crab legs, 600 kg of pasta, 6526 kg of chicken, 7710 kg of fish, and 548 kg of lobster. (For those who have forgotten, multiply by 2.2 to get pounds.) Passengers will guzzle 4,340 bottles of wine and 8,400 bottles of beer. In addition there are fresh fruits and vegetables galore. All of that has to be purchased, stored, prepared, and served.

Not long after our tour of the galley we visited the pastry buffet for a sampling. Then the won-ton soup buffet. After a brief retirement to our stateroom we went down to the Explorer Bar for an authentic English pub lunch. We chose the fish and chips. A while later it was time for Afternoon Tea in the Pacific Moon Dining Room. We'd not availed ourselves of that experience all week, so we gave it a shot. After visiting with one of our fellow travelers on the stern of the ship, we returned to our room for blogging and whale watching.

Tonight we pack our luggage, go to dinner, watch a magic show in the theater, and then spend our final night aboard ship. Sometime around 7:00 AM we will dock in Vancouver and by noon we'll be at the airport awaiting a flight to Seattle.

Alaska Day 11: Ketchikan

2010-07-02T02:22:00.002-05:00

Ketchikan receives around 200 inches of rain a year, around 16 feet. Today it was partly cloudy and dry. We sat high in the stern of the Diamond Princess in an observation area that by night is the Skywalker Bar and watched the captain gently dock this floating city next to the pier. By 9:45 AM we were off the boat on Alaskan soil for the final time.Our plan was to take the public transportation from a bus stop just across the road from our pier ($1) to the Totem Bight, a state park a dozen miles south of town. Sandra, our ship's naturalist, told us about the place. We would be there at low tide, which allowed us to climb over the volcanic rocks in the tidal flat looking for some of God's creatures stranded by the ebbing waters.

My previous experience with catching the right bus had not gone so well in Oaxaca, Mexico. But we had our instructions -- catch the Blue Line South. While we waited for our ride two bald eagles flew overhead. The bus was almost half an hour off schedule, but we managed to get on and join a capacity crowd for the trip to Totem Bight.

The park is called Totem Biight for two reasons. First, it is a bight, or a place along the coast where the a chunk of land is missing. Second, it is the location of a collection of totem poles created by indigenous people. The totem pole is not an object of worship, but, like the stained glass windows in our cathedrals, a means of telling a story to preliterate people.

We joined a handful of others combing the tidal flat. The footing was a bit treacherous, but the rocks and tidal pools held plenty of treasures. We found an octopus, three bright orange starfish, a dozen or so purple starfish, limpets, crabs, and sea anemones. We visited the clan house and totem poles and waited for our bus ride back. By 3:00 we were let off beside our ship, went aboard for a quick lunch, and then returned to walk the streets of Ketchikan.

The walk took us to a bridge where six or eight young people were fishing for salmon. The bridge crosses the mouth of Ketchikan Creek and chum salmon are beginning to appear, staging for their final migration up the creek in the next few weeks. We saw several leaping from the water at the mouth of the creek.

Crossing the bridge we turned left onto Creek Street, which is actually a board walk that took us alongside the creek and through a canyon of shops attempting to lure tourists inside. At the end of Creek Street we walked on Married Man Trail and then on to the Totem Heritage Center, Bald Eagle Rehabilitation Center, and Salmon Hatchery run by one of the local tribes. By 4:00 PM we were on the return route, and were back aboard ship by 5:00. From our balcony we watched nine bald eagles fishing in the bay behind our ship. At 6:15 the Diamond Princess was pulling away from the pier and heading south for the final 500 miles of our 1500 mile voyage. We will be at sea all day on Friday, arriving at Vancouver, BC early on Saturday morning.

Melinda and I had only a few goals as we planned this trip. We were interested in encountering as much of the Creation as possible. The shopping and touristy excursions were not on our list. We wanted to see glaciers, whales, bears, caribou, moose, eagles, and wolves. We wanted to look out on snow covered mountains and to walk in rain forests. We wanted to see the majestic Denali. (I wanted to ride a train.) We checked these items off one by one. When we stood today and saw salmon leaping from the creek, I turned to Melinda and asked, "Is there anything else you want to see?" It was as if we'd marked through the final item on the list. The weather was unusually good by all accounts of those who have made this trip before. Denali showed itself to us on three successive days. We saw more whales than our ship's naturalist had seen on one trip. Glacier Bay was incapable of description.

We are on our way home now. Texas heat and humidity. Shopping and cooking for ourselves. No maid service. No buffet. Responsibilities. Lawns to mow. Gardens to tend. We will learn to adjust.

Thanks again, UBC, for a generous and much appreciated gift.

Alaska Day Ten: Juneau

2010-06-30T22:11:00.002-05:00

I'm sitting in front of my balcony window as we cruise rather rapidly through the Frederick Sound, an area that John Muir described as "countless forest-clad islands." He described sailing through these waters well:

"The ordinary discomforts of a sea-voyage are not felt, for nearly all the whole way long is on inland waters that are about as waveless as rivers and lakes. So numerous are the islands that they seem to be sown broadcast: long tapering views between the largest of them open in every direction."

We left Juneau about three hours ago, so following our naturalist's advice, we are looking for humpback whales in this area, which sometimes show up off the starboard side, where our balcony is conveniently located. So we are watching for the tell-tale sign of a puff of "steam" erupting from the water as the whales surface for air. So far, nothing.

In another hour we will participate in the highly cultured feeding frenzy of homo sapiens as they gather in the dining room for our second "formal night" on board. Tonight we shall dine on lobster, I understand.

We've been back on the boat since about 1:30 PM, following a morning of walking throughout Alaska's capital. We docked around 6:00 AM, just as we were waking. It was 52 degrees and raining. That did not stop us from going ashore for the day. It did affect our plans. We determined to stay in town and not take the shuttle out to the Mendenhall Glacier. For several hours we walked about town, dropping into art galleries, museums, and several visitors' centers. At the center located inside the Centennial Hall we inquired about walking trails accessible from the city. We received some excellent advice about a path that had not appeared in any of our literature -- The Flume Trail.

We climbed up the hill leading out of town and walked about three-quarters of a mile to the trailhead for the Mount Roberts trail. Across the road was the beginning of the Flume Trail, and mile and a half of boardwalk built in the rainforest on the side of a mountain overlooking a loud, white, rushing stream. Looking to the left, down the mountain, it was as if we were walking in the canopy of the forest. The upper third of the tall spruces and alders were at our eye level. To our right we were eye-to-eye with the roots and trunks of those growing higher on the mountain. The light rain continued to fall as we walked.

The trail emptied out in the Evergreen Cemetery, where the town founders now reside. We then wandered back through town to the docks and boarded our ship just in time to be seated for the luncheon served in the International Dining Room where we take our evening meals. We were seated with a man and his wife, Canadians from Vancouver. We began the usual chit-chat and learned that he was an artist and a nature photographer who had made thirty-two cruises up and down this coast while working for a cruise line. His wife simply announced, "I'm a shaman." I'd never had lunch with a shaman before. I had a thousand questions, none of which would have been appropriately polite in this cultured setting. She offered that she wrote poetry inspired by her shamanic "journeys." It was all so matter-of-fact.

Melinda looks lovely, dressed for the formal dinner tonight, wielding binoculars, scouting for sea mammals. I need to prepare for the same.

We will arrive in Ketchikan at 9:15 in the morning. We hope to see some salmon making their way from the sea to the rivers and to watch some native Alaskans demonstrating their way of life in a Tlinget village.

News item: Taylor and Amber emailed us to inform us that our grandchild, expected in November, is going to be another boy. Wow! Two of each!

Alaska Day 9: Skagway

2010-06-30T01:28:00.002-05:00

Tuesday morning we woke up, opened our curtains to see that we were staring at a stone wall. Sometime during the early morning hours we docked at Skagway. We ate a quick breakfast and then walked across the gangway to a waiting train. The WP&Y (White Pass & Yukon) Railway train was departing at 8:10 to take us the twenty miles from sea level to the summit of White Pass at nearly 2900 feet. The ascent was breathtaking, as the narrow gauge train wound its way around mountain precipices, across wooden trestles, through two tunnels, alongside the Skagway River, and past tumbling waterfalls.

At the end of the line the engine disconnected from the train, passed us by on a sidetrack, and reconnected on the other end. Inside we passengers stood, folded our seat backs over so that they now faced the opposite direction, and exchanged places with the people across the aisle so that we would have a view of the scenery on the other side as we returned.

This railroad was built in two years (1898 and 1899) to take people and supplies north to make the journey into the Yukon following the Klondike Gold Rush. It has been selected as one of the civil engineering marvels of the world alongside such structures as the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and the Panama Canal. The bridges and trestles span enormous gorges and masses of solid granite had to be removed to make way for the rails.

The train had us back to our ship by lunch time. We went back on board, ate lunch, and rested a while. Then we left again to find the Dewey Lake trail system just outside Skagway, and spent the afternoon hiking alongside loud mountain streams and deep green spruce forests. The climb was a bit strenuous, but it was worth it.

The trail eventually emptied us out on the streets of Skagway. We found the local Starbucks and visited the museum sponsored by the National Parks Service commemorating the Klondike Gold Rush. They had a film describing the event and then a park ranger delivered a lecture with photographs and quotations from letters written by a man from Detroit who participated in the insanity.

A short walk brought us back to the Diamond Princess and we changed clothes and joined our dining partners in the International Dining Room for "Italian night."

The interaction with creation that this cruise affords makes it worth the investment. Naturalist John Muir said that Nature has lit the fire and spread the table, inviting us to warm ourselves and feast. That is what the Alaskan wilderness offers so lavishly.

We have now set sail from Skagway and are cruising toward Juneau. We shall arrive early tomorrow morning.