Archive for February, 2005

Valentine’s Day

Published
by
Mike
on February 14, 2005
in marriage and music
. 49 Comments

My first date with Diane was 28 years ago today. Fifteen months after that we got married and took off for Hot Springs (yes, we heard all the jokes) for our honeymoon.

This will not be the most romantic Valentine’s Day, I suppose. We’re caught up in the daily tasks of helping Chris recover from the accident.

And yet . . . after all these years with the Love of my life . . . there’s something deeply romantic about it. For all these years we’ve cuddled, fought, forgiven, traveled, danced, prayed, laughed, and poured our lives into Matt, Megan, and Chris. There’s something deeply romantic about a quite evening with Diane to continue helping Chris.

For the occasion I’ve ripped a CD of some of our favorite love songs:

Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love”
Eric Clapton’s “Change the World”
Steven Curtis Chapman’s “I Will Be Here”
The Dixie Chicks’ “I Believe in Love”
Collin Raye’s “Love Remains”
Terri Clark’s “I Just Want to Be Mad” (pure eroticism)
Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle”
John Mayer’s “Your Body Is a Wonderland” (hey, we’re married!)
Dan Fogelberg’s “Make Love Stay”
Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody”
Norah Jones’s “Be Here to Love Me” and “The Nearness of You”
James Taylor’s “How Sweet It Is”
Beatles’ “Something”

Help me out here. Any glaring omissions? What are some other great love songs?

Closure?

Published
by
Mike
on February 12, 2005
in friends and the wreck
. 19 Comments

We’ve loved having James and Marla Walters, friends of ours from Boston, here for the weekend. While they went to ACU’s dinner theater last night, Diane, Chris, and I watched “The Man from Snowy River.” That’s a movie that just doesn’t get old. Any other Snowy River fans out there?

I’m looking forward to preaching tomorrow. But . . .

But life is still surreal. I keep hearing that we’ve had “closure” as a church to the wreck. I’m very thankful for that — but most of the families directly involved weren’t around for the closure. We were stuck in hospitals. And for these families, it just isn’t that easy, anyway. There are femurs and vertebrae and collar bones and thumbs in the slow process of healing. Plus, there is the lasting of trauma of receiving the news and wondering, “Did anyone survive?” There is the ongoing agony of knowing that one of the friends didn’t survive. There are the images of our children hanging upside down in a ditch as earth-time suspended.

And so, no, we haven’t experienced closure. We aren’t ready to go on. I have almost no interest in committee meetings, worship style, travel, lectureship, etc. The only place that makes sense to me right now is by my son’s side–helping him try to get relief from that darn back brace that has to be synched down tight over broken ribs.

Our little basketball team played at noon. We play again for the championship at 5:00. I never thought I’d find myself coaching next to my son in a wheelchair. Thanks for continued prayers, and thanks for the prayer requests that can be found in Thursday’s comments.

BlogPrayers@aol.com

Published
by
Mike
on February 10, 2005
in prayer and the wreck
. 31 Comments

Dear Friends -

Six months ago today, with the help of a couple people much younger, I dropped a clicker on this blog. Since then, it has received 127,688 “hits.” Thank you for visiting here some and for considering my rantings and ravings.

Twenty-five days ago I left a desperate message as I ran out the door to head to Cook’s Children’s Hospital in Ft. Worth. Right now, most of that evening is a fog. I remember, as in a dream, hearing about the wreck, finding out that Chris was in it, later hearing that one of the children had died, gathering with the other families in a waiting room at Hendrick, being called by our friend who is an ER doc, looking at my boy and not recognizing his face, whispering in his ear, hearing that the preliminary CT scan was better than expected (given the trauma to his face), learning that he would be flown to Children’s with one parent, and running home to pack a few things before Dickie and Becky drove me over there. It’s just a dream . . . or a nightmare. I’ve forgotten most details. But I remember a desperate sense that I didn’t have much prayer in me, so I stopped at my computer long enough to type out those few sentences.

Within hours, there were responses from six continents (hey, what’s with you people in Antarctica?) and from all over the States. Even now, I can’t come up with words to describe what those prayers mean to Diane, Matt, Jenna, Chris, and me — and to the other seven families.

Some have commented that a sort of cyber-community has developed through the months. There are limits to what such a “community” can do, of course. But there are some things we can do. And prayer is clearly one of them.

For the most part, I’ve been the recipient of your prayers. This morning I’m wondering — are there things we can pray for you? I’d like to invite you today to leave a note here if you’d like other readers to be praying for you.

If you just can’t get the comments button to work (or are a bit technologically challenged and can’t figure out how to get registered), I’ve created a temporary e-mail address, BlogPrayers@aol.com. If you’ll send your prayer request there, I’ll type it into the comments here.

May the love of God encompass you, my friends, as he continues forming you in the Way of Christ.

Single Parents

Published
by
Mike
on February 9, 2005
in Church, family and the wreck
. 17 Comments

We were fortunate that Diane was able to be a stay-at-home mom. She quit working at Memphis State on the day Matt was born (1982) and was able to remain at home with the kids until Chris entered first grade (1999). I know not every family makes this choice or is even able to make such a choice, but it was a blessing to us that she could be at home with our children.

Since she started teaching, we’ve had a few times when Chris was sick and we had to ask, “Okay, who’s staying home?” It’s always gone pretty smoothly. We’ve talked about whose schedule was more permissive on certain days, and we tried to alternate days.

But now Chris is out until at least Spring Break. So — who is the stay-at-home parent? Well, we’re trying to split some of the responsibilities, but Diane has generously taken a leave of absence from teaching until the break.

One thing that has struck us (again!) through all this is how amazing the women and men are who are in single-parent families. As we took turns sleeping during those ten days at Cook’s, and now as we split duties during the night to care for Chris, I’ve thought again about those amazing people who do this by themselves.

It makes me wonder all over again — how can we, as the people of God, be “family” to those single-parent families among us? How can we carry part of that load? How can we encourage? How can we pray — and then back our prayers up with action?

The Shaping of Things to Come

Published
by
Mike
on February 8, 2005
in Books, Church, missional and the wreck
. 21 Comments

Here’s the problem with getting rest these days: I keep picturing my little boy rolling around and around at 65 mph on I-20. Eventually, I know, this will stop.

- - - -

Wells and Fences

Today a quote from Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch’s THE SHAPING OF THINGS TO COME:

“A useful illustration is to think of the difference between wells and fences. In some farming communities, the farmers might build fences around their properties to keep their livestock in and the livestock of neighboring farms out. This is a bounded set. But in rural communities where farms or ranches cover an enormous geographic area, fencing the property is out of the question. In our home of Australia, ranches (called stations) are so vast that fences are superfluous. Under these conditions a farmer has to sink a bore and create a well, a precious water supply in the Outback. It is assumed that livestock, though they will stray, will never roam too far from the well, lest they die. This is a centered set. As long as there is a supply of clean water, the livestock will remain close by.

“Churches that see themselves as a centered set recognize that the gospel is so precious, so refreshing that, like a well in the Australian Outback, lovers of Christ will not stray too far from it. It is then a truly Christ-centered model. Rather than seeing people as Christian or non-Christian, as in or out, we would see people by their degree of distance from the center, Christ. In this way, the missional-incarnational church sees people as Christian and not-yet-Christian. It acknowledges the contribution of not-yet-Christians to Christian community and values the contribution of all people. Jesus’ faith community was clearly a centered set, with him at the center. . . . There was a rich intersection of relationships with some nearer the center and others further away, but all invited to join in the kingdom-building enterprise. If the modern church followed this biblical model, the church would be more concerned with relationships than with numbers.”

I’m just starting this book, but so far it’s incredible. Could those of you who’ve read it tell us a little more?

Blue Like Jazz

Published
by
Mike
on February 7, 2005
in Books and faith
. 25 Comments

This weekend I read BLUE LIKE JAZZ by Donald Miller. His writing is what one reviewer called “Anne Lamott with testosterone.”

A few teasers:

About the title: “In America, the first generation out of slavery invented jazz music. It is a free-form expression. It comes from the soul, and it is true.”

About blowhard preachers: “A couple of years ago . . . I visited a church in the suburbs, and there was this blowhard preacher talking about how television rots your brain. He said that when we are watching television our minds are working no harder than when we are sleeping. I thought that sounded heavenly. I bought one that afternoon.”

About sin: “Nothing is going to change in the Congo until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror.”

About mystery: “I don’t think you can explain how Christian faith works either. It is a mystery. And I love this about Christian spirituality. It cannot be explained, and yet it is beautiful and true. It is something you feel, and it comes from the soul.”

About trendy religion: “I don’t think any church has ever been relevant to culture, to the human struggle, unless it believed in Jesus and the power of His gospel. If the supposed new church believes in trendy music and cool Web pages, then it is not relevant to culture either. It is just another tool of Satan to get people to be passionate about nothing.”

On kissing dating goodbye: “When I first moved to Oregon I was befriended by this vibrant kid who read a lot of Bible. Josh was good-looking and obsessed with dating, philosophies of dating, social rituals, and that sort of thing. He was homeschooled and raised to believe traditional dating was a bad idea. I traveled with him around the country and introduced him at seminars he would conduct on the pitfalls of dating. He wrote a book about it, and it hit the bestseller list. No kidding. A couple years later he moved to Baltimore and got married. I called him after the wedding and asked him how he got to know his wife without dating. He said they courted, which I understood to mean he had become Amish. But he explained courting is a lot like dating without the head games.”

On living with buddies: “I have a picture on my desk of the six guys at Graceland, which is what we named the house. People thought we named the house Graceland because we wanted it to be a place where people experienced God’s grace and unconditional love. But we didn’t think about that till later. We really named it Graceland because that was the name of the house Elvis lived in, and, like Elvis, we were all pretty good with the ladies.”

On worship and wonder: “At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my math is wrong we are still going to be okay. And wonder is that feeling we get when we let go of our silly answers, our mapped out rules that we want God to follow. I don’t think there is any better worship than wonder.”

I (heart symbol) My Kids

Published
by
Mike
on February 4, 2005
in family
. 3 Comments

John Phipps, a 44-year-old father of three, was on the fateful train that crashed in California on January 26, killing 11 and injuring 200. As it turned out, he was one of the 200 and is now recovering.

But at the time, he thought he would be one of the fatalities. He knew he was bleeding profusely and his whole body was trapped.

So he began writing with his blood on a seat: “I (heart symbol) my kids. I (heart symbol) Leslie.” If you were Leslie (his wife), Shara (22), Jeremy (19), or Josh (15), how do you think that would impact you?

A man who thought he was dying wrote his final words (or so he thought) in blood–words of absolute love.

If you can’t make a spiritual application at this point, we’re taking away all your old VBS stickers.

Love/Hate Relationship With Traveling

Published
by
Mike
on February 4, 2005
in family, grief, the wreck and travel
. 5 Comments

It’s been a blessing of my ministry that I’ve had so many kind offers through the years to travel to speak. But it’s something I’ve fought, too. Everything sounds wonderful, but I can’t live on the road–not with a family at home. I know there have been times that I’ve disappointed people, but that’s better than disappointing Diane or the kids.

At times I wonder, Isn’t it funny at all the plane tickets that are purchased to take one minister from point A to point B, and another minister from B to C, and still another from C to A. Have you ever wondered what it might be like if we just quit doing that and used the money to help support missions or to feed and house the poor?

Traveling is enticing. It’s the easy stuff, really. You get to talk to people whom you don’t have to live in relationship with. And they aren’t people who listen to you all the time so they tend to be more affirming. (No complaints here–it’s just human nature to take people around you for granted. Unfortunately, I do this, too.)

But there are some times I’ve been VERY thankful for all the kind invitations I’ve turned down. Like when Megan died . . . and when Matt graduated . . . and when we celebrated our 25th anniversary (5/03) . . . and on the morning of 1/17 when we were waiting to see if Chris would wake up and respond to people. At all of those times (and many others!), I’ve been very thankful that for every invitation I accepted I turned many others down.

Really, I shouldn’t sound so darn heroic. I love being home. I love being with Diane, with Chris (and formerly with Matt and Megan), with my friends, with my church. I’m fortunate that I’ve had sane people around me–including my assistant, Gina–to help me remember that joy.

- - - -

Winterfest. To be honest, Chris really didn’t want to go. He didn’t know anything about it. And neither did I for that matter. I’ve never been. But I’ve heard good things about it. And the best part would be a weekend to bond with the youth group from Highland–especially in Chris’s first year in the group (6th grade).

It’s been one of a hundred things I’ve rolled around in my mind. “Why did I tell him we wanted him to go?” Also, why did he have to be in that car? Why on a clear, uncrowded day on I-20? (Even as a constant worrier, I didn’t think anything about it because it’s such a straight shot from the Metroplex to Abilene . . . good weather . . . ten cars traveling together.)

But, you know what? It does no good to second guess. There’s no point in asking why I insisted that he go. He went. What happened happened.

Isn’t that true of much of life? Second-guessing is such a popular game. But at the end of the day, you have to deal with life as it has unfolded.

We had a fairly good report yesterday. We waiting a long time to see the neurosurgeon, but weren’t even close to getting in. If we stayed longer, we would have missed the main appointment (with the BONE GUY), so we said, “Sorry, but we’ve come from Abilene and we can’t miss this other appointment.”

We really like the orthopedic surgeon. He took some more x-rays and gave another good long-term report. But what we found out is that what HE meant by short-term and what Chris and I were thinking he meant by short-term were two different things.

Translation: no baseball this year. I know, I know: it could have been so much worse. But to a kid who loves to pitch, this was not good news.

We came right back to reality, of course, when we stopped by the Bourlands on the way home just to hug their necks. These are incredibly sweet people right down in the gutter of grief. We know the feeling all too well.

Thursday, February 3

Published
by
Mike
on February 3, 2005
in General and the wreck
. 30 Comments

Please pray for us today as we return to Cook’s to see the pediatric neurosurgeon and the pediatric orthopedic surgeon. I have a great digital photo from last night I’d like to post, but I forgot to ask everyone’s permission. It’s a picture of the six children who survived the rollover. With three wheelchairs (Jon Weston, Amara, and Chris C.), it was a bit hard to squeeze them together, but they managed. Thanks for your prayers for our group as we got together for the first time. So many of our thoughts were about our dear friend Julie (the driver), who is still hospitalized in Lubbock and about the Bourlands.

- - - -

Time magazine has released their list of “The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals”: Rick Warren, Howard and Roberta Ahmanson, Diane Knippers, James Dobson, Michael Gerson, Richard John Neuhaus, T. D. Jakes, Billy and Franklin Graham, Joyce Meyer, Rick Santorum, Luis Cortes, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, Charles Colson, Douglas Coe, J. I Packer, David Barton, Mark Noll, Ralph Winter, Richard Land, Stephen Strang, Ted Haggard, Stuart Epperson, Bill Hybels, Brian McLaren, and Jay Sekulow.

A few comments.

First, does anyone else count more than 25? I guess you only count for 1/2 if you’re part of a husband/wife or father/son team. (But shouldn’t Billy Graham count for 5?!)

Second, did anyone else have to say a time or two, “Who in the world is that?”

Third, thankfully some of the familiar lunatics were left off.

And finally, how can such a list not include Jimmy Carter, Jim Wallis, and Tony Campolo? But then it’s Time’s list and not mine. Who else might you have included?

The Sermon on Women

Published
by
Mike
on February 2, 2005
in Church, scripture and the wreck
. 13 Comments

Sermon on Ministry of Women

At a time that now seems long, long ago and far, far away, I preached a LENGTHY sermon at Highland on the ministry and gifts of women. The elders asked me to take an extended period in one Sunday in the middle of January to walk through our study of scripture that led to our current place in this journey. There are so many new members and students who weren’t around for the long congregational study.

There was an amazing moment that Sunday, as I now faintly remember. After my message (about an hour long, including my words of pastoral encouragement at the end), the elders spontaneously came up, affirmed the message, and prayed.

Not all readers of this blog will agree with what I said. But if you’re interested, you can order the CD from Highland. Our website is still under construction (COME BACK, KEITH BRENTON!), so it might be best to call (325-673-5295) or write (425 S. Highland, Abilene, 79605).

(A note that is probably important only to me: I don’t make anything off the sales of these CDs! I think the church sells them at cost.)

- - - -

Monday morning I heard words that made me panic.

It was the beginning of week three. Chris had gotten up early, and he and I had just finished his little physical therapy routine. He said, “I’m going to take a nap. But will someone wake me up at 10:00? That’s when ‘The Price Is Right’ is on.”

Yikes! Words I never wanted to hear from my twelve year old. A few minutes later I was off to Lincoln Middle School to retrieve homework assignments from teachers. It seemed to me that the time had come to get back into the school books.

- - - -

Tonight I believe the six children who survived the wreck are getting together for the first time at our house. Please pray that it will be a time of healing for Amara, Beth, Austin, Jon Weston, Chris P., and Chris C.