Comments on: Searcy Memories

By: Alice Griffith

Alice Griffith — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:49:51 +0000

Beats me–I’m out of the loop.

By: ee

ee — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:44:30 +0000

OK–I just have to ask—for those of us not privy to HU “stuff”, why does it sound as if Mike will never go back there to teach, preach,inspire???

By: Kathy

Kathy — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:46:57 +0000

I so understand you, Annie. btw-that thundering stomping you hear is those of us at Highland that are going through the same emotions and all the while, thanksgiving too for Mike, Diane and their kids!!!

By: vtc3po

vtc3po — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:15:59 +0000

Well, I’m certainly glad you came to Searcy!! What would our lives be without you and Diane? You’ve both been a blessing to both of us and we treasure our friendship. and oh yeah — Amen to Freda’s comment! Very well put.

By: Kristi

Kristi — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:27:22 +0000

I am so thankful that you were there for my freshman year at HU – your last in Searcy. Peak of the Week and hearing you on Sundays was a lifeline for me. Thank you and amen to Annie’s statement as well.

By: John

John — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:42:36 +0000

Mike, I was at Harding during your time at College church, although I was always out preaching at one of the little congregations in the area. The first time I heard you speak a young doctor from the congregation had just died. I had never been to the College church before, but could sense the sadness as I interacted with the people. I don’t remember much about the service, but I remember you giving a short sermon from one of the Psalms and feeling that God had given you just the right words for that particular moment and could sense that those words had impacted those around me as well. Of course that was only the first of many moments that I would feel that way. You made such a great impact on that church and the Harding community during your seven years and I am thankful that you and your family came to Searcy.

John

By: Lynn Cook

Lynn Cook — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:37:16 +0000

Add me to the list of grateful people for your time in Searcy.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:08:43 +0000

Here’s how deep my Harding roots go: a close friend just texted me from Dallas saying he’d just met Jerry Jones at a hotel. And my first thought was NOT about the owner of the Cowboys!

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:22:05 +0000

Paul’s early ministries in Damascus and Tarsus were, I’m sure impactful and special, as well as developmental–essential in the apostle’s growth and preparation for his larger impact via the Antiochian missions. So also your role in N.C. and Searcy were vital and special as the Spirit (rightfully) led you to Abilene, and now Heartbeat.

Perhaps our Lord will allow a pilgrimage back to “the holy land” near the foothills of the Ozarks some day. If not, welcome to an exile of grace “until the times of restoration and refreshment” arrive, and I believe those days are not far away.

Blessings and peace to you from our Lord. From a former HU contemporary….

By: George Ezell

George Ezell — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:15:34 +0000

Mike,
I have followed you silently for a number of years via your blog. I have Abilene, ACU connections which have also helped keep me informed on your journey. I just listened to the intro of your Heartbeat project with Landon and was pleased with what I heard.
I wanted to recommend a book. (I hate it when someone says “You just have to read …” but despite that!) I recently read “Hear Comes Everybody” by Clay Shirky. I was deeply impressed by the ideas he sets forth. I believe they relate well to your work and can inform and have application to church and outreach. Perhaps you have already read it.

Thanks for your faithfulness and courage.

George E

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:31:48 +0000

Ditto, and Amen to the above statements of blessings and memories, and how you continue to impact us still. Love you, friend and brother.

By: clint

clint — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:20:41 +0000

Mike, remember what happened to Mosses when he had given up on speaking to his people.

By: eirenetheou

eirenetheou — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:16:09 +0000

Once upon a time, in a “church meeting” — not to be confused, in any way, with a meeting for worship — a beloved old sister turned to me and said, “What I want is the church I grew up in.”

i thought, “Arkansas. 1939.” What i said was, “Sister, i love that church. i’ve studied it closely, and i am always learning something from it. i enjoy remembering it and reading about it and listening to the stories that others remember — but i can’t be a member of that church, and neither can you, because it doesn’t exist any more. We have to be Christians where we are, with the sisters and brothers that God has given us, in the place where we are, and we have to follow Jesus here and now.”

“Precious memories . . . how they linger.” When i was young, i had what i have called a “pornographic memory” — i remembered everything. In some circumstances, encyclopaedic recall can be a blessing, but there is a reason why memory is, for most of us,
selective and fallible. We do not truly want to remember “everything.” There were many things that i had to petition God for the grace to forget, and i did forget them, mostly, once i had done the forgiving that i had to do. By the time, in the middle of life, when i truly “went to college” and then to graduate school, the prodigious memory of my youth was greatly diminished, and i was wishing for more recall than i then had. Now, in my age, my short-term memory is a sieve, yet i can still remember some things — but not “everything” — from 50 or 60 or more years ago with great clarity, and with some joy amid the rue.

In memory and in history there are people in places that we may visit, but we cannot live there with them — and, in truth, we could not. In their very “pastness” those people and places are frozen in time, beyond our reach. We, meanwhile, are moving on. We are not the same people that we were in 1939 or 1959 or 1969 or 1989. Thanks to be God!

Our experience, and the “wisdom” we may have derived from it, is cumulative and immensely useful, but it is not infallible. Were it possible, could we, “knowing what we know now,” revisit 1959 and rectify our mistakes or prevent some tragedy? Many people have thought so, and some have explored such a possibility in fiction, but no one has been permitted to try it out “on the ground.” The greater likelihood is that in revisiting what we’d like to fix we should cause something worse to happen. Memory can revive our pleasure and renew our grief; memory can make us wish for another place and time; yet if we attend to it memory can also teach us something about how to live in the here and now, one day at a time, continuing to learn.

God’s Peace to you.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:25:52 +0000

Well, as the years have rolled on, speaking there has lost its importance to me. But the memories and the continued friendships are golden. Thanks so much.

By: Sandi W. H.

Sandi W. H. — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:25:19 +0000

Add me to the list of people thankful for your time at College Church and Harding. I didn’t realize that you were so young when you came! I do remember one of the girls in our class that Diane and Vicky taught telling Diane, “I think your husband is SO CUTE!” And Diane, a little shocked, saying, “Me, too!”

I also remember listening and even *relating* to your sermons as a young girl. God laid a foundation in my heart during those years. Thank you, Mike, and thank you to Diane, too.