So This is Christmas...

And what have you done? Another year over...blah, blah, blah. Um, Yoko, could you take the microphone away from him?

It's not quite as lyrical as John Lennon's, but here is a New Year's Eve prayer for thee and thine as well as me and mine:

Giving honor to what is past, we thank you God for the completion you bring.
Giving hope to what lies ahead, we thank you God for each new work you begin.

May we in the next year:

• Love without care for risk
• Drink deeply from the cup of life
• Know sorrow only because we have lived & loved well

What, readers, would you add to my prayer for 2007?

The Boys Go to Galveston

The Brother and I have been planning a fishing trip for about three weeks. We were going to take the Bolivar Ferry over to Crystal Beach and camp last night and surf fish. That got rained out.

So, a friend’s bay house came to the rescue. We packed a bag and headed down to Bayou Vista for a 24-hr all-male bonding time.

• We took in A Night at the Museum. You should wait for video, but worth it to hear Owen Wilson say, “I can’t quit you.”


• I put him on a diet of unlimited junk-food. One bag of Dorito’s, a half pound of sunflower seeds, a king-size Hershey bar, a huge bag of movie popcorn, two Coke’s (and half of my Diet Dew and Diet Coke), a Salt Grass sirloin and salad, and half of a brownie sundae later he said, “I’m full.”


• We rode the Bolivar Ferry anyway – at 10pm in a horrible thunderstorm. It was cool to stand on the observation deck in the howling wind and rain. We got soaked, hurried back to “Dora the Explorer,” and u-turned it on Bolivar Peninsula to catch the same ferry back to Galveston. We braved the storm again with laughter and a “dispute” over whose hair got the wettest.


• Finally dried off and in bed back at the bay house, we watched Sea Biscuit and Jackie Chan’s First Strike until 3am.


• The Brother souvenir shopped in the morning and we took this photo at the hurricane commemoration statue on the sea wall. Then it was Shipley’s donuts and kolaches for breakfast while he drank straight from the 2-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper.

We talked about everything and nothing, and he said “Thanks for the trip, Dad” more times than I can count. He is growing into a young man right before my eyes. Every time I blink he’s grown another inch, hit another single, learned a new word, laughed too many times that I missed. His room is messy, he “forgets” to brush his teeth, and sometimes he’s a pain to the Two Sisters. He is a normal 9 year old.

I thank God for his bright blue eyes, his inquisitive mind, and his healthy body. And his messy room. He has a gentle spirit, a need to be building or drawing something, and an eye for detail. All of these are traits that will serve him well in adulthood. They’re also things I’d wish to instill in him as a man.

It was about 5 am when the king size bed we shared became a little too big for him. He nestled against me in his sleep and said, “Dad, you’re warm.” Ahhh, for the moment, he's still a boy.

Lord, help me wisely use these days as a father to a young boy. I have some important work to do.

The Kennedy's are Upstairs

The Three Siblings are all upstairs in the Oldest Sister's room. They're not there by force, and they're not fighting. They've actually been upstairs for almost twenty minutes and there's been no screaming. I can't verify they're dancing up there, but the light fixtures down here bear witness to my surmisal.

Mark it down. Cats are sleeping with dogs and the lambs with the lions. The four horsemen of the apocolypse are coming down the street. The Three Siblings are getting along, if but for a beautiful moment. As John Mayer's Waiting on the World to Change was blaring down the stairs it was a melodious gift to hear them, 15, 9, and 5, all sing/shouting,

One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
So we keep on waiting,
Waiting on the world to change.

I don't think they understood what they were singing I'm pretty sure I've got some parenting left to do before I turn them loose on the world.

Getting "It" Back in Steamboat Springs

A longer post than normal.
I met James the ski instructor on Sunday, December 17. I’d put him at 43, give or take a few years. I based that on his story not on his looks because the dry Colorado air made him seem more like 55. Along with Traci and the Oldest Sister, I signed up for a boarding lesson and wound up in James’ Level 1 class.

He wasn’t the greatest teacher because he sometimes gave us contradictory instructions and spent a little too much time on the “philosophy” of snowboarding. Pause to allow the absurdity of a “philosophy” of snowboarding to sink in.

What’s more, his spit built up in the corner of his mouth like someone who’d lost feeling in his lips. I thought maybe he’d hit his head on the ice in a bad fall and damaged the part of the brain that tells the rest of us, “Wipe your mouth or at least lick your lips.” I stared at the corner of his mouth thinking, “Can you feel that or what?”

What I liked about James wasn’t his teaching method – or his accumulating spittle. I learned far more two days later from Pete, a 20 year old instructor who wiped his mouth and taught me how to “feel” the board. No, I liked the stories James told. In a former life he’d been the CFO of some company that mined some obscure metal in some dangerous place in South America. He’d given it all up to play in the snow.

His stories were a stretch beyond believable, but they were entertaining. I didn’t catch the details, but somewhere in between leaving behind the corporate life and landing in the powder of Steamboat Springs, he lost a wife, a daughter, a house in Hilton Head, and a nice car.

He tried just a little too hard to get us to validate his lifestyle by saying about a dozen times, “Isn’t life great here in winter paradise?” But somewhere in between the truth and the stories he spun I caught a glimpse of a soul that fought and beat the slow death that comes from doing the “corporate thing.”

I like to imagine James came home from a skiing vacation and one day ripped off his tie and told his wife, “I’m going to go teach snowboarding now,” and hopped the next plane to Hayden with a mule bag full of ski’s, poles, and parkas. The powder will do that to you: Make you ask yourself why you do what you do, make you try to remember when you started doing what you are doing, leave you to wonder how much longer you can do it, and even if you should.

That was on Sunday.

By Thursday I’d gotten good enough on the board to board the peak of the mountain. I was all alone headed down a trail called Cowboy Coffee when I turned the bend and before me was a view of the Yampa Valley that took my breath. I could go no further. I did a quick heel turn, skidded to a stop, and sat down to savor the splendor that God had poured out for me drink in.

I sat solitary in snow ten inches deep. The woods were so quiet that I could hear the snow landing on me and the ground around me. You really can hear snow land in the Big Room when it gets quiet enough. It’s corny, but like a little kid I actually stuck my tongue out to taste the falling snow.

In those moments I remembered why I got into this whole religion business to begin with. I remembered that at heart I am an admirer of God’s work and want to share the wonder with others. My ministry used to resemble some kid jumping up and down, shouting to his friends, “Hey guys, look over here at this!” Instead of being a docent on the spiritual journey, I’ve become a relatively impotent religious administrator who knows way more about budgets and church logistics than should be required for any child of God.

I thought of Lester in American Beauty saying, “I know that I didn't always used to feel this ... sedated. But it’s never too late to get it back.”

There in the snow I had communion with God and resolved that I am undoubtedly called to ministry, but I need to "get it back." God reminded me that I’m in this for the wonder and the journey, not the personal glory or the approval of others. Where this latest revelation will lead is uncertain, but I believe this:

God saved me one more time on that mountainside.

Snow Boarding Mt Werner

Written 12/23/06
I am writing by the fire and gazing longingly at the snow on Mt. Werner in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. In a few minutes I’ll load my family’s bags into the rental and catch our flight home to Houston. If it all goes well I’ll have my family of five back in time to celebrate Christmas at home.

But for now I have my eye on the lifts conveying eager skiers and boarders atop the piles of powder that I’ve been running a board over the last six days straight. My muscles are sore but satiated from snowboarding down the shoulders of the she-mountain. She’s all woman, gently curving and porcelain white, and though cold to the touch, perfect and enticing.

But make no mistake, that’s my view from the valley. The peak is 10,568 feet above sea level and when you’ve made it to the top you realize you’ve mounted a mountain, not a woman. The wind whips cold and the snow accumulates on your body if you stand still for only a moment. The air is thinner than newspaper and deep breathing is a constant companion.

It’s on this mountainess (named after Buddy Werner, who was an Olympian from Steamboat that died in a Swiss avalanche in 1964) that I’ve learned to be a little better than competent on a snow board, something that I think, at age 36, is a pretty adventurous thing.

I was 17 when my wife-to-be first taught me to get down a mountain on two skis, and over the years I followed it up with a few lessons here and there. I was confident enough to ski all the blues and most of the blacks and though my form was never that great, I could get down the mountain and enjoyed it. Now I’m legitimately able to say “that was gnarly” in reference to anything that happens on a snow board and I plan never to go back to skis.

Look for some stories soon about the people I met this week, I’ll post them as I have time after Christmas.

Cartridge in a Bare Tree

This is the Christmas tree my father brought to Houston from North Carolina. He even brought the decorations in his checked luggage. Easy to see why I like this guy, huh?

If you don't see the humor just start singing The Twelve Days of Christmas. If you still don't get it, email me at garylong@houston.rr.com.

Al Pacino and Elton Trueblood...Together at Last

In Al Pacino – In Conversation with Lawrence Grobel Pacino is asked about screen testing for the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather.

Pacino - At first I didn't care if I got the part or not. The less you want things, the more they come to you. If it's meant to be, it will be. Every time I've stuffed or forced something, it hasn't been right.

Grobel - Yet you always knew you'd get the part, didn't you?

Pacino - You just get a sense of things sometimes. You just know it. It's kind of simple to assess something if you allow it to happen. It's when the ego and greed get in the way that it's harder to assess what the situation is. But if you step back and you take a look at it, you can sense what's going to happen. If I hadn't gotten the Godfather role, it would have surprised me, frankly.

Pacino was 39 or so when he said that. Throughout the 1979 interview Pacino bears a mantle of surety that stops short of arrogance. He is confident in his acting, yes, but not too confident. He ascribes to standards that are beyond the reach of his craft.

Because he reaches for his own high standards he creates a film and stage presence that consumes everything around him. “He had so much violence in him that he shattered the mystical line that allows the audience to feel comfortable. He scares the s*** out of me,” wrote Arvin Brown, reviewing one of his plays.

We are captivated by excellence, and Pacino’s career testifies that striving for high standards is the noble way to escape the mediocrity for which most of us settle. That truth applies to all us, whether plumbers or actors or preachers.

I am reminded of a gem given to me recently by my octogenarian friend Mary Mills. In the foreword to Elizabeth O'Conner's Call to Commitment, Elton Trueblood wrote this:

There are, at one point on this earth, men and women who have been so touched by the love of Christ that they tithe their time as well as their money, make their secular occupations into ministries, and pray and study and witness and serve. These same people have avoided spiritual pride by virtue of the fact that their standard is so high they never reach it. They are conscious daily of the contrast between their standard and their practice.

To see the great distance between where we are and where we would like to be is ambitious. But to see the distance between where we and where God would have us be is something altogether different. It is imaginative. It is visionary. It is spiritual.

Whatever it is, it can’t be found on eBay, but it can drag us out of bed in the early mornings and keep us at task until late in the night. It is to live audaciously close to God. It is to imitate God.

One of my Jewish friends goes so far as to say that striving for a high standard is part of being a tsaddiyq – a righteous one – and that the human grasp for the unobtainable is part of God’s way of finishing an unfinished creation.

So I pray the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, Sweet Tequila Blues by Chip Taylor/Carrie Rodriguez:

I keep looking for it,
I hope I never find.
If I get close to it,
Just put me on the train.

I pray for my children that they would be captured by a dream that forces them to stretch, and I pray for me that I never lose my restless stretching.

Between the second and third Sundays of Advent, 2006

Christmas Parade To Remember

Reading this story I am reminded why, growing up in North Carolina, I was taught my home state was a vale of humility and grace between two pillars of arrogance and ignorance.

Drunk at the helm of float
AP 12/6/06
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A man accused of speeding down Main St. in Anderson, South Carolina, has been charged with drunken driving -- of a float in a Christmas parade.
When officers caught up to David Rodgers, 42, he had an open container of alcohol in the truck he used to haul the children and adults on a float for the Steppin' Out Dance Studio, police spokesman Linda Dudley said.
Witnesses said Rodgers was driving in line in Sunday's parade when he pulled out to pass a tractor in the float.
CALLED 911
Rodgers sped down Main St. and ran a red light, while a witness on the float called 911 on a cellphone, police said. Officers started chasing Rodgers, who didn't stop for 3 miles. When he pulled over, he tried to attack an officer, Dudley said.
Rodgers, whose child was on the float, faces more than three dozen charges, including driving under the influence, 18 counts of kidnapping, and assaulting an officer, authorities said.

Full Belly – Empty Soul

"It's not easy to put a light-up representation of a baby in a small manger scene, you know." At least that’s what Dick Callaway, mayor of St. Albans, West Virginia says. His town left Jesus, Mary and Joseph out of the manger this year because of lawsuit fears concerning separation of church and state.

There’s irony here, if you’re following the church’s calendar. You see, this is Advent, the season of preparation and waiting. To be liturgically correct, there should be no baby in the manger until Christmas day. Nor should there be any Christmas carols or Christmas trees. All that stuff is for Christmastide, the two week period of the church’s calendar beginning December 25 when we celebrate the birth of Christ.

The dominant culture of America, though, is about spending and consuming, and all that happens in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Christmas meaning has morphed into gift giving – or gift getting – whereas Advent is about waiting. We cut to the party before properly preparing, creating lots of opportunity for empty rituals.

Isaiah uttered a harsh word on God’s behalf about this. “Your New Moon feasts and appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of them.” Imagine a ritual so empty that God is burdened and tired of it. Or, closer to home, consider the holiday rituals that burden and tire you. Why do we do all the things we do?

Empty rituals and feasts of Christmas leave us with a full belly, but an empty soul. Like so many sugar cookies and fruit cakes, the calories of Christmas are aplenty, but we wake up December 26 unsatisfied. Have our feasting and rituals become meaningless? Is your family’s observance much different that the feasting that Isaiah condemns?

Maybe the empty manger in St. Albans is a good thing. Maybe it is good for us to wait on Jesus’ birth and postpone the hype until we’re sure the Savior is central in the scene – in the manger, and in our lives. Or at the very least we can reflect on which of our traditions matter most and jettison the ones that tire both God and us.

I’ll be preaching a sermon entitled Full Belly – Empty Soul this Sunday based on Isaiah 1.14-19. Willow Meadows Baptist Church will gather at 10:30am, so why not join us for a few Advent songs and prayers? Maybe we’ll decide together that Christmas is worth the wait.

Postponing the party,
Pastor Gary

You Would Be Impressed by Who I Know

My friend and ministry colleague Cyndi is a real artist. That is to say that she makes art whether anyone else pays her, notices the art, or otherwise lets her know she's talented. So you can imagine why I'm excited that she's entering some of her art, like this piece, in a sale this weekend.

This is a painting w/ water colors and ink mixed. The others are too large to get scanned in, but they are mixed medium as well, such as oil and ink on canvas.

The sale is a good cause, too. It's the Christmas Bazaar sponsored by Ecclesia Church here in Houston. Ten percent of all sales will go to Living Water to build a well for Project Chacocente. The show will be at the Taft Street Coffee House and Art Gallery (2511 Taft Street in Houston) on December 9, 2006 from 11am - 3pm.

You can contact her at cwehmeyer@wmbc.org if you're interested but can't make the show. Cyndi has real potential to be famous one day, so help a good cause and invest in some art. Then your friends will be impressed with who you know!

We Buried Jessie Today

At 93 she’d begun to recede as the Alzheimer’s took over. Just before that happened, though, I got to know her. When I first became her pastor she was only 89 and spry. Genteel falls short in describing this Lady (yes, that’s a capital “L”) and her vivacious bright eyes kept her dim sight a secret.

She was a part of the Sunshine Sunday School Class, a group I like to drop in on from time to time and “flirt” with my “girlfriends.” Jessie was one of them and she was always appreciative for any gesture, saying thanks for the smallest of things that go unnoticed by most of us. I smile every time I remember her in that beautiful green dress that she wore to her 90th birthday party. She looked positively giddy as young girl when she told us that she'd been ready since 8am that morning for a 2pm party.

She wore that green dress again today.

In her eulogy I spoke of her quiet faithfulness. The church cannot function without gifted people like Jessie, who serve behind the scenes, without fanfare or need of public recognition. In my experience as a pastor – only 15 years or so – I have come to appreciate how the simple gift of faithfulness in the life of one individual touches the lives of others in many ways, ways unknown to the rest of the world.

She was no flash in the pan, and that’s a good thing, because I’m convinced that the world doesn’t need any more flashes in the pan, but solid, consistent, faithfulness. It’s a seemingly simple thing, but her presence was an anchor to many, and she was a gift to me, though I only knew her four years.

Receive our sister in Christ Jessie into the arms of your mercy.
Raise Jessie up with all your people at that great gettin' up in the morning!
Receive us also, and raise us into a new life.
Help us so to love and serve you in this world that we may enter into your joy in the world to come.
Into your hands, o merciful Savior, we commend your servant Jessie.
Acknowledge her, we humbly beseech You, a sheep of your own fold,a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming.

And, God, if you don’t want her, we’ll take her back.

Amen.

"X" Marks the Spot

Again with the violin.

Tonight the Youngest Sister impressed us all at dinner by spouting off from memory the notes of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" (the foundation of Suzuki violin teaching method). On demand, we got the song, in the key of "A" from a kindergartener.

We were eating chili and crackers, a simple meal all at once morphed into a magical mystery tour for me as I realized that the lifelong love of music is being birthed in her as it was in me. Unsolicited, she sang over supper and I was stirred to remember the hours and dollars my parents invested in me to study piano, clarinet, tuba, and voice, a gift now being resuscitated, perhaps Easter-like, as I find enduring value in things asthetic.

In this I am learning perhaps as much - or more - than the Youngest Sister. I sense the ponderous nature of parental nurture and the often-elusive sense of what matters most. But more importantly, I find now, despite my deceased mother's shortcomings, a treasure imparted to me subtly through her valuing music in my life, a treasure stolen from the dysfunctional demons who pillaged our family and buried deep within me that is now marked by an obscure "X" in my heart that these children of mine seem to see easily.

Jesus said that a man who discovered a treasure of great value in a field would sell everything to purchase that field to possess the treasure. The secret to this story about the kingdom of heaven seems not to lie so much in understanding the value of a treasure on sight, but in plowing the right fields with diligence to unearth the things of worth, believing that despite the presenting circumstances there is treasure to be found everywhere in life.

I believe I have found the field of greatest worth, and it is my family. Logically, I say that surely the treasure lies within us and can be passed on to those who will follow our well-placed footsteps. Now it is upon me to leave a good map and well marked trail.

Untitled Poem

OK, dear readers, here is a post of poetry. I've never revealed verse publicly, so it if sucks be gentle in so saying. There is no title for this, perhaps you'd make a suggestion? If you wish not to post publicly, then email me at garylong@houston.rr.com.


With friends new and old
Gathered ‘round drink and warmth,
I laugh and watch you sparkle,
The poetry in your eyes a-wont to flail free.

But still the harboring, burgeoning, blissful burden:
Burden of pregnant restraint yielded there, yet now
Lying furtive and fallow in sheets, merely contented,
Unfruitful, unfertile, unaccompanied, and still.

Oh, so still.

My, how lonely the sleep of the pure-hearted must be.
But as for me? The waking and watching is but part,
The vigilant harboring, burgeoning, blissful burden,
That beats beneath this banal breath in lust for grace.

It yearns for freedom yet clings to the known,
Pulled t’ward something like Abraham’s bones,
Until at last upon finding the lost limbs discovers:
The still harboring, burgeoning, blissful, and burdened.

Hollow Daze or Holy Days?

The decorations are out, and the annual cursing of the Christmas lights has begun. On Monday my wife said, “I think we should get our tree this weekend,” and my anxiety about untangling lights has been growing all week.

No other holiday can elicit such intense emotions as Christmas. Whether it’s high joy or empty sadness, the period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day can be hard on a soul. There is a high cultural expectation for families to have a “Hallmark Holiday,” a kind of pressure that can be enough to make the season ring more hollow than holy. A strong dose of the theology of Advent would serve us all well as we try to dodge the “Hollow Daze” and make space for the “Holy Days.”

One of the ways you can move from Hollow Daze to Holy Days is observe traditions with your church family. This Sunday marks the first day of the Christian calendar, on it we mark the first Sunday of Advent, a season of preparation celebrating the birth of Jesus. Among others traditions, we at Willow Meadows Baptist Church will hang our Christmon ornaments, hand made and maintained by the women of our church over the last thirty years.

The ornaments aren’t fancy. There have no “chasing lights” and they don’t move like some automated reindeer grazing in your front yard. With simplicity and beauty each of these hand sewn ornaments point to the Christ of Christmas while adorning the tree in our sanctuary. But they tell another story, too. They tell the stories of our spiritual mothers and sisters.

A cross – what story of trust lies behind the eyes of the one who sewed that one?
A dove – what strength was in the hands of the one who cut this one from the cloth?
An angel – what grace event brought healing to the one who stitched a sequin of repair on a broken wing?

This Sunday we’ll all remember the dear saints who made them - some gone on to glory, some still with us - and remembering them, we’ll also remember their faith. Across time they are handing us a cup of tradition filled with the spirit of Advent. Drink deeply from this cup and you will find that your hollow daze become holy days.

I pray that you, too, will be able observe traditions of significance this season and find richness in faith, not just richness in stuff. This Sunday I’ll be preaching a sermon about this very thing, assuming I can untangle myself from the Christmas tree lights. I’ll start with Jeremiah 33.14-16 to examine how the incarnation – God becoming human in the person of Jesus – changed everything then and can change everything for you now. I hope you can join us in the flesh as we gather for worship at 10:30am.

Jeremiah 33.14-16, New International Version

14 " 'The days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
15 " 'In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David's line; he will do what is just and right in the land.
16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.'