Message from Dad's Bible

After the flurry of tears, plans, memorial service then a return home to reestablish normalcy, children of a parent just departed start the melancholy task of going through items they've retrieved that mean the most to them.

This morning I received a long email from my brother-in-law who has been reading reverently the notes jotted in my father-in-law's Bible. He shared many but two merit comment, probably because of my other current reading which I'll share more about later.

Dad loved the institutional church. He worked hard in it and gave generously to it. But having come to faith in Jesus later in life, he was sensitive to the possibilities that an active church life could become a substitute for a daring faith life.

Easter [Read More]
Posted by jameson ( Apr 28 2008, 11:30:28 AM EDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

Dead Man

Most people want to know how far a cyclist rides. For mountain bikers "distance" is not the true test and measure of a ride.

While an enthusiast on a good rural road can cover 18-22 miles in an hour, the hills, turns, obstacles, assorted low hanging branches and hidden stumps could make the same distance on a single track in the woods a lifetime achievement.

Last summer I rode with my buddy Chip for two hours on an unfamiliar loop near Falls Lake. We covered only six miles and were achingly glad to see the end. Literally. Chip was nursing what we feared was a shoulder cracked when a tree jumped into his path at the top of a rooted climb. I flew over my handlebars when a small, hidden stump grabbed my front wheel.

We resorted to pedestrian recon, evaluating the dips, logs, roots and jumps presenting themselves ahead. And we were not too proud to walk through some of them.

Like a Christmas Scrooge I gained wisdom from a visit by the ghost of clarity who appeared before me as I clutched my brakes in screaming protest of the irrational speed at which gravity compelled me downward.

My clarifying insight was this: I need a will.

I don't mean I need the will to keep riding. I mean I need a WILL...that document that tells the undertaker who should inherit the twisted remains of this bicycle after they pry my broken, bleeding body from its tubes, cables and spokes.

You likely want to die peacefully, not, as Steven Wright says, like the "terrified, screaming passengers in my grandfather's car."

No matter the manner, the appointed time comes for you to meet your Maker. You may have been steward of much on this earth, or maybe of little. Either way, your responsibility for that stewardship continues past your death. And you cannot manage that stewardship without an estate plan.

January is estate planning month and you need to review yours. If you do not have a will, call a lawyer today and create one. The North Carolina Baptist Foundation encourages you to tithe your estate for ministry today and tomorrow.

More money goes to estate taxes than would be required to fund the missionaries our International Mission Board says is necessary to reach all the people groups of the world. What a waste.

Some people put off writing a will because they think they are going to die as soon as they sign it.

You are not going to die just because you write a will. You are going to die because you ride too fast down a hill!

Posted by jameson ( Dec 19 2007, 05:37:59 PM EST ) Permalink Comments [4]

Beware the book

The biggest Christmas giving mistake my wife and I ever made was the year we handed our children a catalog and asked them to pick out some things they wanted. We had a limit, of course, but that simple act launched a thousand ships of agony, both for the children and their parents.

Our intention was to gift the children with a couple things they really wanted. Good intention. Bad idea.

The catalog became their life source. One of the three was perusing it 24/7. The two who didn't have it whined about the one who did taking too much time.

They burned up calculators and wore down pencils scribbling cryptic maps to their dreams in the margins.

Ultimately, this lab-experiment-gone-bad became more about the hundreds of pages of stuff they could not get, than it was about the three or four items they could choose. It was all about disappointment, not joy.

Later, we modified dramatically the process by which we received the inkles of our children's wishes. We'd ask one what he or she had heard about what another wanted. We tuned in to their comments about advertising in the newspaper or television.

We did the third-party ask. "Did you see the new deer hide bandolier your friend Gertrude wore to church today? Did you like it?"

Today I don't ask the kids or anyone else what they want. I don't care.

I'm not a coal deposit someone can rake a shovel across to scoop out a gift. My whole Christmas giving notion has shifted to this: what do I want to give? With what gift do I want to bless a friend or family member? What have I enjoyed that I'm certain he or she will enjoy because I know that person so well from time spent with them? What do I feel would bless them? Those are the gifts for which I look.

Yes, it takes longer, but I'm not burning through a list trying to satisfy other people's expectations. Consequently, I know the satisfaction of finding a gift or creating an experience I feel certain will be received with joy.

Is the recipient surprised? Sometimes. Disappointed? Maybe, at first. But later on the gift I've chosen will wear well beyond the tinsel; and outlast the cardboard box it arrived in because it was thoughtful, intentional and meaningful - at least for the giver.

How will you arrive at Dec. 26 and not lament your Christmas season again if you don't take control of your own giving, and wishing.

Posted by jameson ( Nov 01 2007, 01:21:23 PM EDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

Test Yourself

My mountain bike rides are of a pretty consistent length, mostly 60-90 minutes. You don't really calculate time and distance on the trails, because riding in the woods is more about navigating roots, ruts, creeks and plodding horses.

On the road bike though, with hard pavement and handy little odometers, you can calculate distance, average time, highest achieved speed, total time, etc. Fancy ones even record your heart rate which you can download to your computer to graph over your course.

In September I rode with my oldest son who lives near Philadelphia. We left his house in Wayne and rode through "Valley Forge National Park" out to a path along the Schuylkill River and into downtown Philly. We rode around the "Philadelphia Museum of Art" and parked for a snack at the top of the steps made famous by Rocky Balboa.

All through lunch young people ran the steps, assumed "the pose" for friends' cameras, and slouched back down. A wedding party made their portrait with the city as background.

Nathan and I had ridden 42 miles by that point and I was ready to be done. However, the first unwritten rule of riding is that you must return to your starting point.

It was my first time on the route and I did not know how far it was back to Wayne. I hoped our return route was much shorter. As soon as left our perch where we had enjoyed a rare moment that can never be scheduled, we encountered the second unwritten rule of riding: the wind will be against you both ways.

Riding in front, Nathan "pulled" me up some hills, encouraged me and set a pace that I struggled mightily to match. It was a beautiful late summer day, crisp, sunny and dry, pungent with the nostalgic decay of leaves that lost their will to hang on.

After riding up out of the river valley, I had no more will to hang on than those leaves. But I kept clinging.

By the gasping end, we had covered 60 hilly miles over four hours and I was bursting with achievement.

The following week, back in the woods on my mountain bike, I felt motorized. I took every hill one or two gears higher than usual and ate the trail like locusts through wheat.

On what plateau are you stuck? To move to a higher level in your normal tasks you must occasionally smash through the barriers that define your "normal." If you ride an hour, ride two. If you lift 10, lift 20, even if you have to rest in the middle. If you forgive seven times, forgive 70 times seven.

When you smash through the barrier, you redefine your "normal" to a higher plane and actions that now take maximum effort will seem routine.

Posted by jameson ( Oct 08 2007, 09:12:00 PM EDT ) Permalink

Alternative Christmas
You talk about it every year, but don't do anything to change. You want to wring the secular commercialism out of Christmas and reclaim it as a religious holiday. You're tired of a "holiday season" but bury yourself in gift wrap that ignores the holiday reason.

You lament the cost of living up to everyone's expectations as a gift provider. In fact, you complain about it every time you swipe your credit card through the slot buying something else nobody needs.

You cry about your children's demands and wonder how they got to be so selfish, while you compile your own list, "in case they ask what I want."

Stores shove Labor Day specials off the shelves to claim the coveted Christmas gift space before the last summer heat wave breaks.

You're wondering why in the world I'm talking about Christmas already, before you buy Halloween candy.

In the Nov. 10 issue, the Biblical Recorder is going to explore alternative Christmas celebrations and observances. There is another way to say Merry Christmas and we want to help you find it.

We will also talk about ministry opportunities unique to the season as emotional issues of stress and grief peak and loneliness is palpable as metallic residue on your tongue.

Here's what we need from you.

We want you to help us identify several families who intentionally observe Christmas with a family tradition of ministry, service or gift giving that flows outside the commercial flood and tell their stories for the rest of us. If you or a friend have a special tradition, please contact me at Jameson@biblicalrecorder.org or add a comment below so we can follow up with your story.

You can help make Christmas truly special for many families as you help them reclaim a special time of remembrance and gratitude for the gift of God.
Posted by jameson ( Aug 31 2007, 12:59:56 PM EDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

Dog days
The death of a dog has our family feeling blue.[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Apr 25 2007, 12:00:34 AM EDT ) Permalink Comments [2]

Praise garden
Some moments were meant to be savored ... and appreciated.[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Mar 19 2007, 12:42:09 PM EDT ) Permalink

Snow place like home
A snowy day can warm the heart.[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Feb 02 2007, 09:05:11 AM EST ) Permalink Comments [1]

Cold day, warm thoughts
Some memories never die ... thank God.[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jan 18 2007, 07:50:01 AM EST ) Permalink Comments [2]

So long, old friend
A fond farewell to a forlorn femoral head.[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jul 13 2006, 11:55:09 PM EDT ) Permalink Comments [3]

Deja words
On finding your words in an unexpected place.[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jul 11 2006, 07:50:56 AM EDT ) Permalink

Reluctant fandom

I'm still getting used to the idea of caring who wins a hockey game. Where I grew up down in Georgia, the only thing we knew about hockey was how to properly use it in the expression "Bull hockey!"

And only those of us who weren't allowed to cuss said that. Perhaps the expression is an unconscious comment on what we thought of hockey. As far as we knew, it was some weird sport played only in foreign countries like Connecticut and Canada.

[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Jun 19 2006, 06:54:46 AM EDT ) Permalink

Special times

Last Friday marked our wedding anniversary, so Jan and I celebrated by doing by taking a day to do some of those things we often talk about doing but never get around to.

So, we headed to Chapel Hill (rarely on our itineray) to visit two of its more celebrated institutions: a big store called "A Southern Season" (that was Jan's idea) and Mama Dip's Kitchen, with which I fully concurred.

[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( May 30 2006, 07:47:06 AM EDT ) Permalink

My mama told me so

This is an unashamed replay of a Mother's Day column I wrote a few years back. Nothing about it has changed.

There are many things I know because my mama told me so. Mother's Day provides an appropriate opportunity to review some of those, particularly the ones that are life shaping.

I know that I am loved, and worthy of love. My mama said she loved me, and she still does. Children are not born with a healthy sense of self-esteem: it has to be given to them, preferably in large and regular doses. The belief that we are people of worth must grow from the security of knowing that there are other people who believe it to be true and who demonstrate it day after day. No one is in a better position to do this than a mama. Before my infant brain could put two thoughts together, I knew there was a caring person who thought that I was special and my needs were important. As I grew -- and until this day -- that message has not changed, and its value is unabated.

[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( May 14 2006, 08:32:37 AM EDT ) Permalink

What goes up ...

What goes up must come down, or so they used to say.

That was before we invented rockets strong enough to escape earth's gravity. The space probes we blast into the nether reaches may come down, but not in this world. Some, like the Pioneer craft, won't even come down in this solar system.

That's a long way from the sort of rocket power Samuel and I have available, however. The hobby rockets we build remain subject to earth's gravity, and will come down ... eventually.

Getting them down in one piece -- or before they disintegrate in the top of a 100 foot tall tree -- is another matter.

[Read More]
Posted by TonyCartledge ( Apr 30 2006, 07:45:04 AM EDT ) Permalink