Golden Buckeyes

In Ohio, "Golden Buckeyes" are not graduates of Ohio State University. For that matter, neither are they national champions - unfortunately.
"Golden Buckeyes" are Ohio's "senior citizens." Allegedly. I think the pivotal age for golden-ation is sixty. I say that because I've been informed already that I am about to receive my official "Golden Buckeye" card, the surest indication that the aging process has reached terminal velocity; and that either my home-going or the Rapture is the next major event on my calendar.
Either way, I'm in a peculiar situation. On the one hand, I could have lived a long time happily without receiving a Golden Buckeye card. Come to think of it, I have. And don't get me wrong. I don't have any problem with going to heaven and being with the Lord. It's just that I don't feel the need to hurry along the process any more than absolutely necessary. I still have lots of preaching left in me and plenty of work left to do around the church. I still have grandchildren to watch growing up, and more grandchildren to anticipate. We still have a son left to marry off, and one of my goals in life is to live long enough to reclaim the basement. My wife and I still have a world full of fun stuff to do that we've not yet gotten around to while raising our kids. In other words, I'm too young to be old.
On the other hand, there are some things about receiving the Golden Buckeye card that are, well, cool. In the first place, there are the discounts. Lots of things, especially restaurants, cost less in Ohio with the ol' Buckeye card. Certain tickets to various events cost less. Given that life isn't growing any less expensive, I confess I enjoy getting those discounts. I enjoy them enough that when I am not offered a "senior discount," I feel rather disrespected. Something like I did in high school when the term "Senior" meant rank and superiority. Like when someone would place a sign on a car that read "Contents: 1 Senior or 53 Freshmen." That kind of superiority.
So when I march into the Land of the Golden Arches, I am expecting the lines to part like Moses at the Red Sea the moment I wave my Golden Buckeye card. Then, with the honor accorded someone of my considerable age and accomplishments, I approach the counter while the cashier does obeisance and humbly declares, "Your discount, Sir!"
As you can see, each of these options is attractive, and I'm having difficulty deciding which I like best. You know what my problem is? I'm trying to find a way to be distinguished without being extinguished.

Another Year, Another Decade

Time for the annual insult. In just a few weeks I will hit the big 6-0. Every year about this time, I receive a free membership offer from AARP - the American Association of Retired Persons. The offers began as soon as I turned almost fifty.
There are lots of reasons for me to take membership in AARP as a personal affront. In the first place, I'm not retired. The way our current president is running (or ruining) the country, I may never be able to retire. So the way I see it, I am permanently disqualified from membership in anything that smacks of retirement. Second, AARP is decidedly liberal and I do not care to be associated with a liberal organization. Not content to be merely liberal, AARP has supported such outrageous radicals as Harry Belafonte, whose rants against our nation and conservative values are legendary. Further, AARP has notoriously supported "Obamacare" in spite of the fact that it seriously threatens the health and welfare of nearly every senior citizen in the country in one way or another. Do I really want to support an organization that favors trillion-dollar national debt? That's why this blog has a link to the American Seniors Association - an alternative to AARP. Check it out, especially if you know someone who needs retirement help.
But perhaps the best reason not to belong to anything "Retired" or "old" is that I'm just hitting my stride. My wife and I are not quite ready to take that ride to the rest home. Aside from the wife's hip replacement, our health is fairly good. We may be older, but we feel the same as we did thirty years ago. The church is growing, I have an growing audience for my writing, and the grandkids are only four hours away. Life is better than golden, it's good.
Next month I will join our church young people in an all-night event, and once again outlast the young ones, just to prove I can. Hey, I may even take them on in laser tag, and I can do something about that better than they can. I can shoot and hit a moving target. A lot. So put the rocker back in mothballs boys. The old man still has life.

The Language of Love...?

My wife speaks "pronoun." For the uninitiated and unmarried, speaking pronoun is the peculiar ability, attained by wives immediately upon the last "I do," to carry on entire conversations, alone or in the company of other wives, without specifying the identity of any person of thing they are talking about. Everything comes in pronouns. By some clairvoyant means, the other wives present seem to inherently understand the subject of the conversation without having to ask. They are equally adept at picking up and continuing the conversation in the same language. They all speak "pronoun."
Naturally, husbands are genetically indisposed to this ability. The average husband sits by wondrously clueless as his beloved carries on with numerous "he's," "she,s" and "its" to the utter bewilderment of the English language.
My wife's favorite ploy is to step into the middle of a thought she has been keeping to herself until she erupts with a statement, like "Did you see or talk to them today?"
This leaves me to wonder whom among the nine hundred, sixty-four people I've met today that I've chosen to both see and talk to.
"Uh, sure," I answer, not wanting my wife to think I've been neglectful of meeting and speaking to at least someone; and hoping for some hint or clue to know who she is talking about.
No luck. "Well, it's about time, " she answers, "You haven't talked to them in the last two days, and I saw her out in the yard yesterday."
Not only am I clueless, I am also guilty. And I don't even know who the victim is.
But this is only the beginning. My wife has mastered the art of speaking pronoun while switching subjects from one conversation to another, and almost in mid sentence. As a result, "he" and "she" may refer alternately to one of two conversations either coming or going. About the time I have "their" identity figured out, my wife will triumphantly announce, "Oh, I'm not talking about them. I've changed subjects."
Thanks for the warning.
The oddest thing about all this is that after more than thirty-four years of marriage, I find myself beginning to make sense of what my wife is saying. Scary. I think it has something to do with being familiar with our habits, interests and most common subjects for discussion.
This can produce some truly odd conversations for those who care to eavesdrop. For example, suppose the phone rings and I answer. The conversation goes something like this:
"It's her again."
"Have you seen her in the past two days? Oh, and is he up yet?"
"Yep. Talked to her this morning. He was on the loose again. And yes, he's up but he's still in the basement."
The forgoing mythical conversation is about three people in two entirely different situations. I promise, if I showed my wife the dialog, she would know who I am talking about.
What does all this mean? That two people who spend their lives together can develop a kind of unwritten, unspecified communication. They are so close, they do not need a lot of detail - like names and places - to make sense with one another. They can speak in "pronoun" and still understand one another. It comes with long marriages. It comes with intimacy. It's a sure sign they know how to communicate.

Disconnected

As my church and most of my friends know, I've been employed in a part time job for the past year as a "support staff" worker for a funeral home. I gave up that job yesterday. The combination of trying to keep up with my church duties plus caring for my family finally proved to be too much. I can't do everything. Or as I put it to one of my former fellow employees, "I can do everything poorly."
I was not quite prepared for the hasty exit I was given. No sooner had I submitted my resignation, than the general manager immediately sent through the paperwork for my release. "Well," said the surprised supervisor, "I guess you're through!"
The manager probably did me a favor whether she meant to or not. The fact is, I recognize that my church and my family need my attention much more than a part-time job does. And if the church cannot continue to grow, the part-time job is meaningless anyway.
Pastors of small churches need moments like this. When attendance is down and offerings are low, looking for a quick solution is an easy temptation to give in to. Not that I was looking for a quick answer. I had prayed much before finding and accepting the job. Still, my first and only calling is to be a pastor and preach the gospel. The way to succeed at that is not by means of working another job. I need to pay attention to the real job - the one God gave me first.
So now I'm officially disconnected from the funeral home and better off for it. There will be more time for study, for prayer, for writing, for visiting and for being a pastor. The more attention I pay to this job, the less I will need any other. What could be better than that?

"Just One More Thing"

Those who are following this blog know my wife is currently recovering from serious surgery. Everyone will be pleased to know my wife is making splendid progress at whipping me into shape even as she makes her way through therapy. I am becoming a first rate nurse. Not the "Nurse Cratchet" variety, mind you. More like the male "gopher" of the species, as in "Honey, could you get -?"
My wife's preferred method for husband training has evolved into a simple request that follows the same pattern with earnest repetition. It's a phrase she has learned to attach to every task and it works with amazing proficiency. Each time I return from fetching or finding, she responds with a smile and "Just one more thing ..."
And there is always "just one more thing." Nothing major, of course, and that is why she has no hesitation to add it.
Being an average guy, I tend to major on efficiency especially when climbing our staircase for yet one more item. The stairs are long - fifteen steps - and steep, much too steep for Mrs. B to try them after only two weeks out of surgery. I call it the "Staircase of Doom," and the nurse quickly killed any notion of my wife climbing it.
That means I have to make the trip, and I'm determined to climb the steps only as often as necessary. I try to assemble of list of things to pick up and bring them all at one time. Trouble is, while I've gone to the mountain, my wife is still thinking. So as soon as I return with an armload, believing the job is done, she says, "Just one more thing."
She's consistent. There will always be at least "one more thing" for everything I do. Now I know why nurses wear those clubby looking athletic shoes on the job. The shoes are good for racing after "just one more thing."
Is there an up side to this? Yes. I'm getting good exercise while running upstairs. I hope to lose a few pounds until my wife fully recovers. I should do well as long as I don't have to go for ice cream too often.

The Fine Print in Marriage

"In sickness and in health..." Those are the words tucked away neatly somewhere in the middle of familiar wedding vows. They are what we might call the "fine print"; the part that does not draw much attention; the part few people notice until some time later in life.
Just such a time recently came to pass under our roof and the roof of another preacher's family for whom we've been praying. In our case, my wife underwent surgery and I've had any resemblance to a normal life put on hold while I nurse her back to health. As those of you who've been through such a time as this can attest, I've done things for my wife that defy description - at least nothing I care to describe in this blog. It is, after all, a family-friendly blog. After the upteenth episode of emptying (I shall delicately call) "the bucket," my wife declared I had gone "beyond the call of duty."
Wrong. It was exactly the call of duty. It's in the fine print. I've done much more than empty "the bucket," but I'm not going there, and no, you don't want to know. It's the fine print.
The other preacher and his wife read the fine print too. In her case, it meant watching the life slowly ebb from her husband until he went into the presence of the Lord. No one ever marries for the fine print. But it's the fine print that gets to you.
In many respects, those vows in the middle - the fine print - may be the most important of all. Those who have lived through their vows with a loved one to the end know more than anyone else that love is spelled out in the fine print. It's the point where true love shines forth; where love is not displayed in the finery of the ceremony, but shines forth in its deepest beauty.
After all, the fine print is where we live.

Life Is Just Too Busy

Some readers have probably noticed that posts to this blog have slowed noticeably in the last month. This has been the case for two reasons. First, our modem decided to expire. We went without internet for several days except for those few occasions when I could sneak off to a Tim Horton's restaurant to use their free "wi-fi." Second, life has been flat too busy.
For a preacher with a small congregation, I am on on the go an awfully lot of the time. Like many preachers in small churches, I too am bi-vocational. That's a fancy way of saying I work two full-time jobs with part-time pay and none of the benefits. I work seven days a week. Yes, I know I'm overdoing it, but what other option is there? It's not like I could hand off some work to the associate pastor. There ain't none. I work Monday through Sunday at the church except for those days -or evenings - when I am called to work at my second job. Since I could be called on to work on almost any day of the week, I begin my church work on Mondays so as to work ahead. That way, if I am called in to work later in the week, I'm not caught short for Sunday.
Of course, working all seven days leaves me little time for reading, writing or family. I could take time off, but in most cases that means taking time away from a small church that very much needs to grow. And if I take time from the other job, our family is short of the income we need just to make ends meet. So here I sit, typing away during "a brief lull in the action," as the saying goes.
My lot as a bi-vocational pastor is terrifically common. If you happen to have a bi-vocational pastor, or know one, thank him for his double life. He will probably laugh and tell you he has everything he needs except sleep. Or he may say he will rest when he goes home to be with the Lord. Tell him you understand, but he doesn't have to be in such a hurry to go. He may still laugh, but he will appreciate your thoughtfulness.