.
I did not grow up with friendly dogs. The dog I first remember was “Booger”. He was not any particular breed and was sort of a compilation of all the bad traits of the most ornery breeds. He was not friendly, liked to chase cars, trucks, and trains, howled when the train came by, ate “Tony” dog food, and like some people are referred to as being a “man’s man,” he was a “dog’s dog”.
There was no way to personify this dog. He was not made for indoor living, did not exhibit personable qualities, had no great desire to get along in this world, and resisted tender touch with a vengeance. I don’t think he ever bit anyone, but he had one of the most persuasive scowls you have ever seen. He could show his side teeth, bristle up the black hairs on his back, and turn sideways to you like he intended to open up a can of “dog-bite” on you at any minute. We gave Booger a big comfort zone and only seldom and out of necessity ventured across the DMZ for a quick pat on the head, rub on the back, or quick hug. His tail did not wag.
The story goes that Booger, in spite of his anti-social tendencies, took great interest in the children: namely me and my sister. Evidently, when we were out playing he was always watching us, staying close by, being aware of our whereabouts and safety. I have seen pictures of us playing in the sandbox with Booger about 5 feet away watching us. It was believed he was making sure nothing happened to us. He was a protector of sorts. There is another theory that he may have been trying to figure out how he would eat us if he killed us. We have no proof this second theory is true for he never acted upon it and was always the perfect “gentle-dog” when we left him alone.
However, Booger had one thing he did well. Whenever we would return home, in the dark of night, Booger would jump up from his sleeping place with a howling excitement and run all around the yard, down into the woods, all around the car, and around us until we made our way into the house. It is not surprising that we hardly ever took notice of the great drama since it was so exaggerated and noisy, but we would usually just ignore the antics and make our way into the house leaving Booger panting in the yard, finally making his way back to his sleeping location.
We often said, (and this is the reason for his name), that Booger was chasing the “boogers” away from the house when he conducted these religious activities upon our return on dark evenings. Booger was making sure nothing would get us. He was behaving like a protector. We took it for granted and thought little about it.
Since that time I have often longed for something that would chase the “boogers” away from my life. What would you give to be free from those baseless fears that keep you awake when you are supposed to be sleeping, those unsubstantiated worries that haunt your quest for success, doubts that hamper your belief, anxieties that possess far too much of your life, or particular moments you would live differently if given a second chance. How valuable would it be to have these consuming issues exorcised?
I would like to be able to tell you “Booger can do it,” but I know Booger cannot. I also know incantations, concoctions, magic words, amulets, crystals, and magic elixirs cannot. I also wish a substance in an aerosol can could do it, but it cannot. Unfortunately, and fortunately, the only answer is a humbling realization that we are broken, needy, and hurting people who do not have within ourselves the wherewithal to find peace, and that only by looking outside our little world can we find a source great enough to meet our need. Jesus Christ is the source of peace. Consider a visit to the Lord’s house on a Sabbath day.
Booger wants to help but Booger cannot.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Leaves that Cling
.
I know a tree that does not want to let go of its leaves. Even late in December, this post oak tree has every leaf that was produced in the spring. Maybe a few leaves have been dislodged from the tight grasp of the bonded relationship of the stipule and the leaf sheath but these are few and scant throughout the tree. Mostly, and I mean majorly, the 125-year-old 50-foot tall post oak has every leaf it enjoyed over the summer.
I am not sure why the leaves stay on this tree so long. Maybe the tree is timid and wants to hang on to what it has always had without voluntarily relinquishing a single leaf for fear of coming up empty. Is the post oak a timid tree with insecurities? Does the post oak have trust issues: believing that if the leaves fall off in the autumn there will be no new leaves in the spring? Does the post oak believe that “what is, is all that will ever be, and there is no hope or dream of anything else in the future”? Does the post oak lack faith in a purpose, a process, and a vision that is greater than itself? Is “fear” the true lord of the post oak tree?
If any of the above scenarios is accurate, I feel sorry for the post oak and pray that this fearful and gripping tree will find the courage to let loose just a little, to relax the grasp in order to see the sun begin to rise from low in the south sky as the days of winter subside. I pray for healing from this sort of tight-fisted fear.
Of course, the tree could be innocent and actually trying to get rid of the leaves. On the other hand, the leaf itself could be the clingy culprit, holding on for dear life to the leaf sheath at the lateral bud for fear of the fall, or the uncontrolled breeze, or the lack of community that is sure to result from leaving the only world that it has always known. Maybe it is the leaf that has a fatalistic grip on the tree and will not let go of the sense of security that has bonded this relationship. I have witnessed this type of behavior in other areas of society and culture, where usually symbiotic relationships are formed and both parties benefit. However, these relationships are always changing, evolving, becoming more trusting and empowering until distance is no longer synonymous with desertion.
Maybe the post oak leaf is actually so insecure and immature in its relationship with the tree that it believes, ignoring the dead and brown reality of its existence, that it is actually better off posing as a cipher on the tree than revealing and reveling in the real plight of its existence as a purposeful fallen leaf. Somewhere, in the training of post oak leaves, these leaves forget that leaves leave.
Clingy and grasping relationships, fatalistic as they may surely be, are false realities that end in March winds when the tight and insecure grip can no longer be maintained. Surely, the leaf must fall.
Birds must fly from the nest, children must become the true mix of a mother and father (different and unique from both) by leaving home and embracing life, ripe tomatoes must be eaten, ripe peppers must be made into hot sauce, and yearling pigs must become country ham, sausage, and bacon. This is the way life works.
People in the pew must become servants outside of the pews; Sunday students need to, sooner or later, graduate from Sunday School; children’s church lessons must not be assumed to be sufficient for adults and should become fully mature theology of the living Jesus Christ for a world with mature and broken issues; and the church needs to cease being the place where we come to cling onto security but, instead, must be the place where we courageously let go into the servant ministry of Jesus Christ.
Finally, in the spring, when the post oak tree is using resources and juices to bring about new leaves, the yearling leaves finally and surely lose their grip and fall. No leaf of the post oak hangs on for two years. All leaves must fall.
Trust in the Lord, O ye clingy leaves. Jesus catches and holds all things that fall.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
I know a tree that does not want to let go of its leaves. Even late in December, this post oak tree has every leaf that was produced in the spring. Maybe a few leaves have been dislodged from the tight grasp of the bonded relationship of the stipule and the leaf sheath but these are few and scant throughout the tree. Mostly, and I mean majorly, the 125-year-old 50-foot tall post oak has every leaf it enjoyed over the summer.
I am not sure why the leaves stay on this tree so long. Maybe the tree is timid and wants to hang on to what it has always had without voluntarily relinquishing a single leaf for fear of coming up empty. Is the post oak a timid tree with insecurities? Does the post oak have trust issues: believing that if the leaves fall off in the autumn there will be no new leaves in the spring? Does the post oak believe that “what is, is all that will ever be, and there is no hope or dream of anything else in the future”? Does the post oak lack faith in a purpose, a process, and a vision that is greater than itself? Is “fear” the true lord of the post oak tree?
If any of the above scenarios is accurate, I feel sorry for the post oak and pray that this fearful and gripping tree will find the courage to let loose just a little, to relax the grasp in order to see the sun begin to rise from low in the south sky as the days of winter subside. I pray for healing from this sort of tight-fisted fear.
Of course, the tree could be innocent and actually trying to get rid of the leaves. On the other hand, the leaf itself could be the clingy culprit, holding on for dear life to the leaf sheath at the lateral bud for fear of the fall, or the uncontrolled breeze, or the lack of community that is sure to result from leaving the only world that it has always known. Maybe it is the leaf that has a fatalistic grip on the tree and will not let go of the sense of security that has bonded this relationship. I have witnessed this type of behavior in other areas of society and culture, where usually symbiotic relationships are formed and both parties benefit. However, these relationships are always changing, evolving, becoming more trusting and empowering until distance is no longer synonymous with desertion.
Maybe the post oak leaf is actually so insecure and immature in its relationship with the tree that it believes, ignoring the dead and brown reality of its existence, that it is actually better off posing as a cipher on the tree than revealing and reveling in the real plight of its existence as a purposeful fallen leaf. Somewhere, in the training of post oak leaves, these leaves forget that leaves leave.
Clingy and grasping relationships, fatalistic as they may surely be, are false realities that end in March winds when the tight and insecure grip can no longer be maintained. Surely, the leaf must fall.
Birds must fly from the nest, children must become the true mix of a mother and father (different and unique from both) by leaving home and embracing life, ripe tomatoes must be eaten, ripe peppers must be made into hot sauce, and yearling pigs must become country ham, sausage, and bacon. This is the way life works.
People in the pew must become servants outside of the pews; Sunday students need to, sooner or later, graduate from Sunday School; children’s church lessons must not be assumed to be sufficient for adults and should become fully mature theology of the living Jesus Christ for a world with mature and broken issues; and the church needs to cease being the place where we come to cling onto security but, instead, must be the place where we courageously let go into the servant ministry of Jesus Christ.
Finally, in the spring, when the post oak tree is using resources and juices to bring about new leaves, the yearling leaves finally and surely lose their grip and fall. No leaf of the post oak hangs on for two years. All leaves must fall.
Trust in the Lord, O ye clingy leaves. Jesus catches and holds all things that fall.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
Friday, October 29, 2010
Snuggies Scare Me!
.
I don’t know quite how to put this. A part of me feels as though I should not be sharing this sort of information with anyone, not even my confessor. But this is the truth: Snuggies scare me. I cannot imagine that you do not know what a Snuggie is. Snuggies are the latest craze in the genre of such things as the Chia Pets, the Flo-Bee hair trimmer, the inertia chain saw, and the Genuine, Simulated, Leather, Hand-Tooled Bible Belt.
The Snuggies are those fleece blankets with sleeves added for the arms, a strange assemblage of fabric that you can wear to stay warm while lounging at your home or venturing out to various social events. The costume blankets come in all sizes and prints, and they scare me.
Now, there is an upgraded version that can be worn outdoors and to sporting events. The commercial has people wearing revised version Snuggies outside in the stands, watching what I suppose are football games. People are even line-dancing in them. What are people thinking?
These Snuggies seem sinister and subversive. There is something conniving about them. I don’t trust them, nor do I like the many prints, which include tiger, various pastels, a bright red, and a camouflage pattern. Of course, the camouflage is a hoax; otherwise, we would not be able to see it, and so, since we can see it, then it must not be camouflage.
I, who have never been cold in my life, feel that Snuggies are nothing more than a hot tomb where a person can get caught and sweat themselves to infinity. Oooooooo, the thought of having my body in a warm fleece bag that fits around my neck and arms makes me swelter to the point of a heat stroke. I have never been cold lounging in the winter, and I usually spend most of the winter barefooted inside and outside to keep from getting hot from the thermostat being set all the way up to 65 degrees in the house.
I look at LL Bean catalogs and see all those people wearing wool pants, thick flannel shirts, long underwear, wool socks, boots and wool hats, and I swelter. I would love to be able to wear any of the above-mentioned items, but even the thought of such clothing makes me want to kick off my shoes and throw my socks away.
I have a closet full of sweaters. These items of clothing are properly named. Occasionally I will wear one outside if I am going to be away from any additional source of heat. However, as soon as someone builds a fire or turns the heat to high in the car, I am coming out of the sweater and rolling up my sleeves.
All of my sleeping bags have zippers at both ends so I can get my feet out of the bag when I become trapped like a turkey in an oven bag. I even take all the cinch lines out of the hood of my sleeping bag so I will not accidentally get cinched up inside from head to toe without a way to escape.
I do not need a Snuggie. I need a Cool Suit. I need a set of clothing that pumps cool liquid through tiny veins that can deliver coolness. Now that would be the ticket.
I once thought of being an entrepreneur and invented a cooling item that I referred to as “Cool Head.” The imagination behind this item was born on a hot summer day in a tobacco field located beside a watermelon patch. At a break, we took a couple of watermelons and halved them and ate the insides out. Then, to stay cool we put the watermelon hats on our heads. Cool things on the head really cool you down. (Of course, the flies and the gnit-gnats think it is a pretty glorious thing as well.)
But I digress. The Cool Head prototype was a zip-lock bag filled with that blue alcohol cooler ice found in reusable ice packets. I froze a zip-lock filled the blue alcohol ice over a bowl in the freezer. When it was frozen I took it out and put it on my head and put a cap on. I wore it for an hour or so and soon noticed my teeth were hurting. I soon had the worse headache you have ever imagined. Within a day I had a terrible summer cold that lasted until the next Easter. I deserted my invention and went back to wearing hollowed out half watermelon rinds.
I guess you are wondering why I have told you all of this. Actually, no reason. I just had a desire to write a little something, and this is what came out. All I wanted to say was that Snuggies scare me, I have never been cold, and hollowed-out half watermelon rinds will keep you more appropriately cool when worn on your head than frozen blue alcohol ice in a zip-lock bag placed on your head (and will cause fewer headaches).
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
I don’t know quite how to put this. A part of me feels as though I should not be sharing this sort of information with anyone, not even my confessor. But this is the truth: Snuggies scare me. I cannot imagine that you do not know what a Snuggie is. Snuggies are the latest craze in the genre of such things as the Chia Pets, the Flo-Bee hair trimmer, the inertia chain saw, and the Genuine, Simulated, Leather, Hand-Tooled Bible Belt.
The Snuggies are those fleece blankets with sleeves added for the arms, a strange assemblage of fabric that you can wear to stay warm while lounging at your home or venturing out to various social events. The costume blankets come in all sizes and prints, and they scare me.
Now, there is an upgraded version that can be worn outdoors and to sporting events. The commercial has people wearing revised version Snuggies outside in the stands, watching what I suppose are football games. People are even line-dancing in them. What are people thinking?
These Snuggies seem sinister and subversive. There is something conniving about them. I don’t trust them, nor do I like the many prints, which include tiger, various pastels, a bright red, and a camouflage pattern. Of course, the camouflage is a hoax; otherwise, we would not be able to see it, and so, since we can see it, then it must not be camouflage.
I, who have never been cold in my life, feel that Snuggies are nothing more than a hot tomb where a person can get caught and sweat themselves to infinity. Oooooooo, the thought of having my body in a warm fleece bag that fits around my neck and arms makes me swelter to the point of a heat stroke. I have never been cold lounging in the winter, and I usually spend most of the winter barefooted inside and outside to keep from getting hot from the thermostat being set all the way up to 65 degrees in the house.
I look at LL Bean catalogs and see all those people wearing wool pants, thick flannel shirts, long underwear, wool socks, boots and wool hats, and I swelter. I would love to be able to wear any of the above-mentioned items, but even the thought of such clothing makes me want to kick off my shoes and throw my socks away.
I have a closet full of sweaters. These items of clothing are properly named. Occasionally I will wear one outside if I am going to be away from any additional source of heat. However, as soon as someone builds a fire or turns the heat to high in the car, I am coming out of the sweater and rolling up my sleeves.
All of my sleeping bags have zippers at both ends so I can get my feet out of the bag when I become trapped like a turkey in an oven bag. I even take all the cinch lines out of the hood of my sleeping bag so I will not accidentally get cinched up inside from head to toe without a way to escape.
I do not need a Snuggie. I need a Cool Suit. I need a set of clothing that pumps cool liquid through tiny veins that can deliver coolness. Now that would be the ticket.
I once thought of being an entrepreneur and invented a cooling item that I referred to as “Cool Head.” The imagination behind this item was born on a hot summer day in a tobacco field located beside a watermelon patch. At a break, we took a couple of watermelons and halved them and ate the insides out. Then, to stay cool we put the watermelon hats on our heads. Cool things on the head really cool you down. (Of course, the flies and the gnit-gnats think it is a pretty glorious thing as well.)
But I digress. The Cool Head prototype was a zip-lock bag filled with that blue alcohol cooler ice found in reusable ice packets. I froze a zip-lock filled the blue alcohol ice over a bowl in the freezer. When it was frozen I took it out and put it on my head and put a cap on. I wore it for an hour or so and soon noticed my teeth were hurting. I soon had the worse headache you have ever imagined. Within a day I had a terrible summer cold that lasted until the next Easter. I deserted my invention and went back to wearing hollowed out half watermelon rinds.
I guess you are wondering why I have told you all of this. Actually, no reason. I just had a desire to write a little something, and this is what came out. All I wanted to say was that Snuggies scare me, I have never been cold, and hollowed-out half watermelon rinds will keep you more appropriately cool when worn on your head than frozen blue alcohol ice in a zip-lock bag placed on your head (and will cause fewer headaches).
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com
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