Christmas Is About Giving

The Hospital Carolers, Christmas 2010
(not shown: Elliott, who took the picture)

In spite of childhood memories and fantasies, we move on to adulthood. For me, that transition demanded, among other things, a long adventure in trying to understand myself – my own likes and dislikes, attitudes, fears, beliefs, loves – everything about myself. Simply coming to understand my own response to Christmas required a particular effort.

Early on, after the side trips into university, the Army and graduate school, I had expected to be able to reach a point from which I could recreate the annual Christmas season into some semblance of my Ogbomosho memories. [Patsy and I even managed one Ogbomosho Christmas during that time, when I was doing my graduate field research in Nigeria in ’76.] But more Christmases in England, then visits to family each year, all failed to make me happy, and I resigned myself to further delay in creating The Ideal Christmas.

Please understand that Christmas with the in-laws was really quite nice of itself. “Mrs. J” had spent months cooking goodies and buying lots of gifts, and we always came away from her house carrying extra weight and far too many new things. But each Christmas Day, after a wild few minutes of opening presents, the day would quickly settle into that odd depressed boredom at which the Christmas afternoons of my childhood had previously hinted.


Year after year, I marveled that I could so anticipate the delights of Christmastime, only to end up depressed and disappointed that it had not met expectations.


What was wrong with me, I wondered? I had so much for which to be thankful, and yet – I usually came away feeling … empty. Why?


Then, one Christmas afternoon at my in-laws’ house, something different happened. Someone pointed out that my in-laws had no rail on the steps to the basement, and wouldn’t it be nice if they had one to which to hold?


I came alive! I could do that! I could make a safety rail!


So I did. And I had fun doing it. My in-laws kept telling me how much they appreciated my having done such a thing, and especially on Christmas, but I want to tell them: “Thank you for putting some meaning back into my Christmas!” The next year, I built a safety rail for the steps leading to the attic. Then a safety rail for Aunt Betty. And I loved doing such projects!



That series of projects, and the pleasure I experienced from them, set me to thinking. In the following years, as Matthew grew older, we began celebrating Christmas at our house in Rocky Mount. I had begun to recognize what I had been missing, and I knew what to do about it. Our Christmases started a subtle, but definite, change.



I had realized that a celebration, no matter how nice, and no matter how many presents I received, could never provide the personal joy and meaning for which I craved, so long as everything we did was about “me” and “us.” I realized that my joy came from giving, not from getting.


Christmas in Ogbomosho had been much more about sharing and giving, even if I had not really realized it then. For example, we never celebrated Christmas with our family by itself. We always celebrated with other people – we always had other families staying with us – And even for a selfish little boy like me, Christmas became a time of sharing. Even my Christmas afternoon depressed boredom only came on when the other people had disappeared and I was just trying to make myself “happy”!


There had been some hints along the way, too, even before I had my great revelation. While we were in England, away from family, we had little to do on Christmas Day, so we helped our local pastor provide a meal and entertainment for elderly people in our neighborhood. Patsy and I were all set to feel sorry for ourselves because we were so far from family, and we were amazed at how marvelous a Christmas we had when we spent it serving and making laughter for people we didn’t even know! For a couple of Christmases in England, we joined Geoff and Judith to invite various lonely people in for a Christmas dinner.


It was against the background of such joyful experiences of giving that we experienced the depressing disappointment of merely getting.


So – back in Rocky Mount, Christmas began to change. Never again would we eat a Christmas dinner with only family present. The visitors have been different from year to year. Sometimes older friends came who had no one else with whom to celebrate. One friend’s wife was dying of cancer, so they planned nothing special. She couldn’t even eat, but both they and we enjoyed sharing that time around our table. The next year, Bill came alone; Ruby had died. One memorable Christmas, we enjoyed the company of an ex-con who was freshly released from the hospital with a broken leg but who had no way to get home for dinner. [I drove him home later that afternoon.]. Each year is a little different in detail, but similar in that it is about giving.

When Matthew grew old enough to help, our church family began serving at the local soup kitchen on Christmas Day. After a few years, another church took over that service, and we began going to the hospital on Christmas afternoon to sing carols.

We sang carols at the hospital again yesterday. As usual, that singing to patients, families and hospital staff “made our day,” not merely because we enjoy singing with our friends, but because we know – from peoples’ responses – that what we did had mattered. We had a very good Christmas.

As I have come, with age, to understand more about myself and my response to Christmas, I have also come to realize that … I also shouldn’t be surprised!

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son ….”

Giving at Christmas time was God’s idea, anyway, but it works for me, too.

The Way Christmas Is Supposed To Happen

Memories are marvelously individual things. We each see the past through our own, personal, lenses. Accuracy, in the strict historical sense, is not necessarily all that important. Christmas is, by its inherent nature, a time which aids in the creation of special memories. Several years ago, I wrote down the following memories of the way I experienced Christmas and thought it was allways supposed to happen.

__________________________



Christmas '59, when I received the Daisy Mod. 25
BB gun shown here slung on my back, still sets
the standard as "Best Christmas Ever" (although
'51 remains a close second).



Aahhh! Christmas in Ogbomosho. To this day, I am convinced that THAT is where REAL CHRISTMAS happened, especially during the 1950s and early '60s.

Christmas there was not just a day, but a season. The best season.

We lived on a very large mission station, and celebrations were a Big Deal. There were a series of parties. A station party, often at the Seminary, I think, or perhaps at station guest house. And it was wonderful.

And there was the Christmas Pageant. Usually involving shepherds and wise men, etc.

One year, my sister, Diana, was Joseph, because she was the biggest kid. Linda Goldie was Mary. I think Pat & Jim and Jonathon were the Wise Guys. John and Bill Carey and I were shepherds.

Then later, John and BC and I aged into being Wise Guys. We always sang "We Three Kings," and my verse was always "Born a King on Bethlehem's plain, gold I bring...."

One year we did something like "The Littlest Shepherd," and Kenny was Him.
For weeks ahead of time we would have rehearsals, and it seems that Aunt Jane was usually the one tasked with making us into real thespians. And it was wonderful.

Sometime in November we would make our pilgrimage to Lagos to buy Christmas presents. We stayed, of course, at "the Hostel" and shopped at Kingsway and UTC and Chelarams and Leventis. Kingsway had a black Father Christmas, and I had my picture made sitting on his knee. And in the afternoons we would go to Victoria Beach for a couple of hours, and I would be delighted and terrified (and sometimes almost drowned) by the tremendous breakers. And back at the Hostel there would be a quarter inch of sand in the bathtub when I was finished. And it was wonderful.

My mother always hosted a carol sing at our house -- usually on Dec. 23rd. Most of the station crowded into our living and dining rooms to sing Christmas carols, while my father and a few other non-singing men retreated to the kitchen to fry up donuts. And we always sang "The Twelve Days of Christmas." And it was wonderful.

And there was lots of good food, with cakes and cookies and pies in quantities not seen through the rest of the year. And there was Mrs. Jester's fruitcake. And it was wonderful.

And there was the excitement in the air, and marvelous anticipation, and parents hid things from children, and children were forbidden to enter certain rooms. And it was wonderful.

And the days were hot and dry and the nights were cool and you could fantasize about winter, and it seemed that Christmas would never actually arrive because time seemed to pass so slowly. And it was wonderful.

Sometime along through this process, the Christmas decorations came out. For years, we had a casuarina tree – or at least a branch – for a Christmas tree. Daddy would string the lights, and Mother and Diana would attach the decorations, and I was "shooed" away from the tree because I was not trusted to place ornaments properly (and to this day, I am satisfied to allow others to do the Christmas decorations).

The tree lights were the old fat-bulb kind, and if one bulb was bad, then the whole string would hang in darkness while Daddy would change one bulb after another to find the offender, and then the lights would come on in delightful, colorful glory. There were a few of the candle-shaped lights that were supposed to bubble, but after a few years they did well just to light up. In later years there was tinsel to hang on the tree, and plastic icicles, and even lights that did not all go out if one failed.

Then came the years of artificial trees. They were more perfect and modern and from America and they looked more like the pictures in the Saturday Evening Post, but somehow -- they never seemed quite as "right" as the casuarina branches -- and the only smell they had was of musty staleness.

Sometimes I would just sit in the living room and look at the tree, and at the wrapped presents that began to accumulate under the tree (but which we were forbidden to touch), and I would dream delightful dreams of anticipation and wonder what was in those packages.

And it seemed that Christmas would never actually arrive.

And it was wonderful.

Finally, after weeks of anticipation and delighted, seemingly unending, frustration, The Day Before Christmas arrived.

The excitement was unbearable. Nothing really happened that day, and the boring suspense was marvelously terrible. Sometimes, there was a station party that night, and that was wonderful, because it was fun, and it filled more time until The Day arrived.

I knew that some families cheated and opened their presents – or at least one present – on Christmas Eve, but I knew that such behavior wasn't really proper, and that wasn't how WE did Christmas. No, we waited – and suffered – until THE Day.

The Night Before Christmas was not just a poem to me. It was the LONGEST night of the year. I lay and tried hard to go to sleep (because I knew Santa Clause couldn't come until I was asleep). At the same time, I listened carefully for reindeer (I had been assured that Santa could handle the fact that we had neither chimney nor snow). And my mind danced in unquenchable excitement as I anticipated the delights to come with the next daylight. Eventually, sleep would sneak in behind the drumming from the town and overpower me when I wasn't looking.

Suddenly, it was The Morning, and Christmas was HERE! Mother would wake me and bundle me into my robe and slippers, and we would step out onto our upstairs porch to begin CHRISTMAS!

There was a special progression of events that then unfolded and which could not be altered.

It was The Way Christmas Is Supposed To Happen.

As we made our way onto the porch in the pre-dawn damp darkness of the harmatan mist, we could hear coming closer and closer one of the most beautiful sounds in all the world. Then we saw them coming. Along the path from the next house approached a line of angelic figures, all in white and carrying candles and singing Christmas carols. They were the nurses and nursing students, plus several missionaries, and this was their present to us. Sometimes the carols were in English, sometimes in Yoruba, and Bill William's flute sang through the mist between the voices with a sound that, to this day, I have never heard equaled for the thrill it produced in me.

We really missed the Williams and the nursing students after the Nursing School moved to Eku in the mid-'50s, but the Hospital nurses continued the tradition.

Slowly, but all too quickly, the singers-in-white circled our house and moved on. They never stayed long enough, but it was OK for them to leave, because it meant that we also could move on to The Next Thing. After all, there was a precise order to the way Christmas must unfold.

By the time the singers had left, Daddy probably had the lights on. Electricity was very important to a Christmas morning (Christmas trees don't really look very exciting by lamp light). Usually, the station light plant was working, but if not, Daddy would have our small generator cranked up. We could not go downstairs until Daddy said it was OK.

Then the word was given, and we rushed down the big front outside stairway and in the dining room door – then right, into the living room. What would be under the tree? Had Santa Claus found us?

Santa was remarkable in his ability always to come through for us. Besides the wrapped presents under the tree, there would be other marvelous things that had mysteriously appeared in the night. My sister and I would descend upon them with delightedly selfish tunnel-vision, while Mother would urge us to slow down, and Daddy would busy himself with tuning the radio  the BBC with its all-day Christmas music that crackled over the short-wave radio.

The two contenders for Best Christmas Ever are '51 and '59.

In '51 I found that Santa had brought me one of those wonderful huge English Raleigh tricycles and a wooden "tommy" gun with a handle-and-ratchet I could turn to produce a rat-tat-tat sound. That tricycle was the beginning of my independence, and I could go anywhere on the compound (at least until the bush dogs around the hospital chased me home).

In '59 there was a full-size bicycle and a Daisy Model 25 BB-gun by the tree. I would love to know how many miles I put on that bike. I wore the BB-gun out completely in two-and-a-half years. I could ride that bike without holding on and shoot my BB-gun and hit every tree along one side of Teak Boulevard while going as fast as I could pedal.

There were always other people there to share Christmas with us, too. Martha Tanner came some years, and the Seats and Griffins and Browns. They always made Christmas more special, and having them with us spoiled me. I still do not think it is really Christmas unless we can share our table with non-family.

After the first rush at the Christmas tree, and the presents had been summarily dealt with, we would have a big breakfast, usually with special goodies. Then it was time to play with the new toys. Christmas mornings seemed to pass in a blur, and I have very few clear memories of them. I might go to check on what other kids had received, but that was usually anti-climactic, because for the most part, since our parents all shopped at the same stores in Lagos, we all got pretty much the same basic presents. The only opportunities for envy came with special items sent out from the States, and I don't remember too many of those.

Sometime during the morning, all the various servants in any way connected to our household would come by for their gifts – usually money. They would all be dressed in their fanciest clothes and would often have wives and children in tow.

One Christmas, the old “peanut woman,” who sold peanuts around the compound and the town from a calabash on her head, came by. The once-brightly-painted calabash was long since faded and scratched to the point that the colors were hardly recognizable. Daddy took her calabash and repainted its designs in fresh, bright, good-quality paints – and a new Christmas tradition was born.

Lunch time. A lingering excitement. Then the grownups went off for their naps, and I would be alone in the living room. This was the only day of the year I didn’t have to take a nap after lunch. But by this time, it would be too hot to go outside, so I would sit in the semi-darkness of the now-unlit living room and look at my gifts.

Sometimes, there was a sense of disappointment, because I was already getting bored with my new toys. I remember marveling that one could so anticipate Christmas, and it be SO wonderful and exciting, and then it could leave one feeling so deflated – and there was nothing special left to look forward to for a very long time. It took me years to realize that the real delight is mostly in the anticipation and preparation and the doing-for-others, not in the getting.

Sometimes, on those hot, quiet Christmas afternoons when it seemed that the rest of the world had dozed off to sleep and only I was left to be bored, I would pick up a new book (Mother always made sure I had a new book for Christmas) and read. I usually finished that book the same day.

Eventually bath time came, and supper, and a quite evening, and off to bed, knowing that it would be a whole year 'til next Christmas.

Nigeria, We Hail Thee!

The celebrations in Abuja, the national capitol, were marred today by coordinated explosions that killed at least eight people as Nigeria celebrated fifty years of independence from Great Britain.

I remember “The Day” in 1960 when the Union Jack was lowered from flagpoles all over Nigeria, and the green-white-green Nigerian flag was first hoisted. I remember that there were speeches and partying, and everything was joyfully peaceful. All over the land, on metal masts and bamboo poles, the new flag waved so proudly.

I remember also the pride and expectancy I sensed from the missionaries all around – the kind of pride and expectancy one might find at a high school graduation – as we watched the people of our adopted country step forward to grasp the reins of power for themselves. There was an exciting anticipation of greatness and hope as we watched the Nigeria we loved so much take its place for the first time in the role call of independent nations.

We were so happy! We had such lofty expectations for Nigeria – for that country carved out of the African continent more by the topography of European power politics and self-interest than by any natural geography or cultural affinities within West Africa itself. Still, the tremendous natural wealth, backed by an apparently high education level and seemingly adequate infrastructure, gave us all the cause we needed to hold out high hopes for Nigeria’s future. Nigeria, with its western-patterned constitution and growing middle class must surely become the brightest of lights on the African Continent!

On that joyful day in 1960 we saw no hint of the profound underlying problems that would lead to a series of military power-grabs, as well as a civil war and cycles of ever-increasing criminal violence typified by the kidnapping this week of fifteen school children. We could not see then the patterns of unrestrained corruption that would affect every area of Nigerian life, would squander that nation’s resources and would siphon off its wealth into profligate lifestyles and European bank accounts – while the common condition of ordinary Nigerians has, in so many ways, become worse and worse.

Now, led by a president named Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria celebrates her first fifty years of independence. In spite of her many troubles, Nigeria has much to celebrate. For one thing, she celebrates survival, even in the face of all her difficulties, and she celebrates the many achievements of her people as they have grown past their colonial inheritance and have created, for good or ill, their own institutions and history.

As we listen to the often-sad news from Nigeria, we who love her perhaps now pray more wisely than we used to, but we still pray for her, that she may yet fulfill her potential for greatness. May Nigeria yet become that bright light we have so long desired to see!

In the words of the original Nigerian National Anthem, "Nigeria, We Hail Thee!"

Hallowed Ground?

Fifty years ago, my father told me that the time would come when Islam would present a far greater threat to the world than did Communism, and that Christians needed to understand Islam. My father died soon after, so he never saw how dramatically, and quickly, his prediction would come true.


Now, nine years after the Wahhabist Muslim members of Al Qaeda crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center, most Americans and most Christian Americans are still woefully ignorant regarding Islam and its followers. Judging by the mostly-ridiculous public discourse we have been hearing regarding the so-called “Ground Zero mosque,” both the rosy-spectacled liberals and the equally-ignorant-but-vitriolic-and-angry conservatives seem to be simultaneously jerking their knees in their particular variations of political correctness.

The former maintain that Islam is inherently a religion of peace while ignoring the Koran’s own declarations as to the Muslim meaning of “peace” and how it is to be obtained. The latter seem neither to know, nor care, the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni, and they assume all Muslims are Wahhabists set on jihad.

As a conservative Christian, to whom the Bible says that these Muslim people for whom Jesus died are not the enemy [Ephesians 6:12], my primary concern is with the incredibly un-Christian reactions of a lot of people who themselves claim to be both conservative Christians and patriotic Americans.

I am no fan of Islam, but this opposition to the proposed Muslim cultural center – modeled after the Jewish 92nd St. “Y”,with similar sport and cultural facilities and including a prayer room, not a mosque – is one of the most amazingly STUPID, IGNORANT, UN-AMERICAN and UN-CHRISTIAN activities I have observed in a long time.

Furthermore, the mob hysteria over the proposed cultural center continues to play right into the hands of America's real enemies even as it exposes its protagonists to deserved ridicule. I take no pleasure in seeing right-wing political pundits actually agreeing with Al Qaeda in their opposition to a Muslim group that seeks a moderate course vis-à-vis America.

Conservative American Christians, especially, need to re-think their knee-jerk Palin worship and consider the potential consequences to themselves and their own interests, plus the damage to Constitutional protections, if they should succeed in interfering with the construction of the cultural center.

Oh yes – American Christians also need to consider how their rhetoric relates to Jesus Christ’s interests in those same Muslims.

If Muslims can be kept from building their cultural center on private property after they have jumped through all the legal hoops, then Christians can expect to be victims of the same lynch-mob rationale as, in future, their own precedent is turned against them to prevent church buildings from being erected, etc. You can kiss goodbye to any idea, not only of "religious freedom," but also of "private property rights" and "the rule of law."

We cannot safely pick and choose which Constitutional rights to recognize for others without endangering ourselves and our children, and when we would ignore the rights of Muslims in America, we remake ourselves into the very image of the intolerant Muslim governments we decry overseas.

How can we ever again claim any kind of “moral high ground” in the Middle East or anywhere else?

And these considerations do not even begin to touch the ridiculous posturing by the Becks and Palins of the world as they talk about "hallowed ground" (have you noticed any of the other businesses that are built at the same distance as the proposed mosque around Ground Zero? Look at http://daryllang.com/blog/4421 & http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/gallery/2010/08/welcome-to-the-neighborhood-a-look-at-the-area-around-the-ground-zero-mosque.php?img=17), etc.

If it is true -- and perhaps it is -- that the Muslim community is just trying to "spit in America's face" with this proposed mosque, then keep in mind that one of the things that has kept this nation great is the fact that in America, one has the Constitutional right to spit (at least figuratively) in the face of just about anyone. THAT is one of the very things that has historically made "us" better that all the "them"s of the world, and especially, of the Islamic world.

This very thing -- the recognition of the rights of those with whom we disagree -- is part of the HIGH COST OF FREEDOM.

Dear Reader, get a grip! Emotional reactions are a terrible way to make decisions, especially those that have such far-reaching consequences!

Whether as Christians, or merely as Americans, GET BACK TO THE ROCK FROM WHICH YOU WERE HEWN and stop giving real aid and comfort to the enemies of both our freedom and our faith! While you are at it, tell the Becks and Palins of the world to get off their self-aggrandizing soap boxes and hush!

Yes – there is real danger to America from some Muslim quarters, but I have no fear that America will be damaged by a Muslim establishment on Park Place in New York. America can be destroyed, however, by people who – even in the name of a misguided and false patriotism – are willing to ignore and trample the rights of others.

As prescient as my father was about the dangers of Islam, I am glad he did not live to see the Lord Jesus so shamed by this knee-jerk hatred against Muslims for whom Jesus died.

[Cf. also:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/opinion/17dalrymple.html?_r=1
&
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/opinion/22rich.html?hp]

Stray Blessings

When Matt was very young, he wanted a cat. I said “NO!” Patsy told him that if Daddy said “no,” he should go over Daddy’s head and ask God for a cat. Not long after, there appeared in our driveway, under the car, a tiny stray kitten that was much too young to be away from its mother.

I had been overruled. We had a kitten.

I should not have been surprised. After all, I come from a long line of people who took in “strays.” After my Grandmother Gilliland’s death, I learned that during the Great Depression, hobos had placed a chalk mark on the foundation of her house to indicate that she would feed anyone who was hungry. It might be only cornbread and milk, but a passing hobo could get a meal.

My parents were like that, too. As a child, I never knew who might show up at our dinner table, or who might be spending the night in our guest room. No one in need was ever turned away, and one of the great delights I remember from childhood was sitting at that dinner table, listening in wonderment as those unexpected visitors shared their lives with us. We enjoyed those guests, and the idea of showing hospitality to strangers was thoroughly ingrained in me.

Mother and Daddy made very real to me the Scripture that says: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” [Hebrews 13:2]

We still take in “strays.” My wife, Patsy, has been wonderful about taking in unexpected visitors, whether for a meal or for a night – or longer. She really does have a gift for hospitality, and she makes our home such a warm, welcoming place. Her gift is one that certainly does “keep on giving.”

Through the years there have been so many unplanned guests – I can’t begin to remember them all. Not all of our guests have been angels, of course, but I would have to say that each of them has blessed us in some special way. Yes – sometimes the blessing is more obvious, and then again, sometimes the strays seem to bite us. Still, although many of our friends think we’re crazy,  we don’t mind that such unexpected blessings continue to come our way.

Another such visitor arrived yesterday, thanks to a highway patrolman who went beyond the call of duty to make sure she was not left stranded at a truck stop. We enjoyed this new friend’s visit before putting her on a bus toward home this morning, and we considered ourselves blessed for the privilege.

As I drove back from the bus station today, it occurred to me that God apparently cares a great deal about strays. Jesus was saying that when He told the story about a shepherd who had a hundred sheep, and one wandered off. He said that the shepherd left the ninety-and-nine in the fold while he went out looking for the stray, and He concluded, speaking of the Shepherd: “he rejoices over it [the stray] more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray.” [Matt. 18:12-13, Luke 15:4-7]

Sometimes, the Lord allows us to get in on His outreach to wanderers.

Oh yes – about that kitten that showed up in the driveway – Matt named her “Blessing.”

A very appropriate name for a stray.

Weddings and Funerals

This week is particularly historic for our family. The seven days from June 23rd through June 29th each have special significance. It is appropriate that Patsy and I are in Birmingham this weekend for the wedding, later today, of a first-cousin-once-removed, because much of this special family history is connected to Birmingham.



On June 23rd, 1937, my parents, McKinley Gilliland and Martha Jordan, became engaged. Two years later, on June 24th, they were married at Ruhama Baptist Church in the East Lake section of Birmingham.


On June 25th, 1964 my father died here in Birmingham after having been flown back from Nigeria with a brain tumor. He died in the hospital across the street from Ruhama Baptist Church.


June 26th is the birthday of my first cousin, the mother of today's bride. My cousin lives in Birmingham.


On June 27th of ’64, my father was buried in Forrest Cemetery in Gadsden, Alabama, between two beautiful cedar trees on a hill overlooking a steel plant.


Two years ago on June 28th, I had the delight of performing the wedding ceremony for my son, Matthew, and his beautiful bride, Meghan. That happy event, at least, was in North Carolina.


This next Tuesday, June 29th, would have been my Mother’s 93rd birthday, but she died six months ago, just two days after Christmas. A month later, we comemorated her life in another Birmingham church, then we buried her ashes next to my father between those two cedars in Forrest Cemetery. The steel plant, like so much of America’s heavy industry, closed years ago after it became cheaper to build in Gadsden with Japanese steel than with Gadsden steel.

Yesterday, coming from Atlanta on the anniversary of my father’s death, we “took the long way” and drove by way of Forrest Cemetery. The cemetery is owned by the City of Gadsden and is beautifully kept. Even so, those cedars make it hard for grass to grow around the Gilliland family footstones, and the eroding dirt collects on some of them. We cleaned my parents’ footstones as best we could.

Someone had recently placed fresh flowers in front of the Gilliland headstone.


The last time we were in Forrest Cemetery, to bury Mother’s ashes, the weather was cold and blustery, with the wind whipping bits of freezing rain at us. Yesterday was hot and muggy, and we were dodging thunderstorms instead of ice.

I am glad we're in Birmingham for a wedding this time. Weddings are more fun than funerals.

Enjoying the Whitewater

A friend Photoshopped this picture to commemorate an event in my personal history.

Four years ago right now, I had cancer – a melanoma, right in the middle of my back. Surgery was scheduled for the next day (June 19^th), so I had not found out yet whether or not the surgeon would be able to “get it all.” If he did not, my prognosis would probably not be good.

A week or so earlier – after I already knew from the biopsy that I had cancer – Patsy, Matthew and I had gone for a vacation in the North Carolina mountains. During that time, Matt and I took a day to go whitewater rafting. It was one of those “perfect” days, as we paid good money to ride through rough water.

Near the end of our ride, our raft took a drop-off wrong and dumped over, and I was pinned to the river bottom by a couple of other bodies on top of me. I remember it with wonderful clarity – almost as though it happened in slow motion. And I remember how amazingly relaxed I was as I simply lay there without struggling while the other guys scrambled to get to the surface.

I was wearing the helmet and life jacket I had been issued, and I had total confidence that as soon as the others moved, I would pop to the surface. I knew there was a big air bubble under the overturned raft. No fear – complete assurance that I was safe – so relaxed that I actually had to tell myself that it was time to go up for air. I stuck my head out of the water about the time our guide was coming under the raft to look for me. Then, as we had been instructed earlier, I just let the current carry me down to where the guides had a safety line in the water – I grabbed it, they pulled me to shore, and that was that.

It really was a marvelous experience – that amazing feeling of perfect peace, even though I was intellectually aware of the potential for danger. That few moments underwater left me with a “high” I can scarcely describe.

On the June 19^th, as they wheeled me down the hallway to surgery, I felt that same kind of totally peaceful high – the kind that comes from knowing I am safe, no matter what happens. The doctor might get the cancer, or he might not – it didn’t matter, because I new that I belonged to God through my covenant in the Blood of Jesus Christ. Even as I had trusted that life jacket to hold me up, I knew absolutely that come what might, the Lord would take care of me and everything and everyone related to me.

That year, 2006, June 18^th was a Sunday, and I preached on “It’s the Whitewater That Makes the Trip Interesting.”

I have had my share of “whitewater” in life, just like everyone else. But as I trusted that life jacket while I was on the bottom of the river, so now, even as the Scripture says, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him….” [2 Tim. 1:12]

I wouldn’t take anything for that experience on the river – and I wouldn’t want to have missed the experience of God’s absolute faithfulness while I was dealing with the cancer.

Now, I am allowed to live every day with the continuing assurance of that faithfulness.

Oh yes – the surgeon apparently did “get it all.”

A Time For Drip Castles

We are at the beach. We’ve been here since Monday evening. That was Memorial Day, and most of the people who mobbed the area last weekend left as we were coming in, so things have been pretty quiet and uncrowded. It has been a nice get-away for us.

For some years, if Patsy and I were ever able to get away at all, it was usually only for a couple of days. This time, we have had most of a week. It has been nice not to have anything at all we had to do.


We haven’t tried to go sightseeing. We went to a grocery store when we had to and stopped into a couple of other shops. Mainly, we have just “hung out” together. That has been good for us. It has been a long time since we simply relaxed together.

Matt and Meghan came Tuesday night and stayed until Thursday morning. Their visit was a special treat. Since my melanoma, I don’t lie out in the sun, but Matt and Meghan went to the beach with Patsy, and Patsy was able to pass on to Meghan her special techniques for making a sand castle by the “drip” method. I joined them on the beach late, after the sun was well on its way toward hiding.

Peaceful. Fun. Nowhere we had to be, nothing we had to do. At liberty to relax. Maybe go to bed early. Sleep late. I didn’t even bother to get out my fishing tackle – too much trouble. Vegitate. Walk on the beach if we felt like it – or not.

Funny thing, though – after we had several days to “chill,” we began to realize how exhausted we really were!

We spend our lives running from urgency to urgency. Sometimes, the urgencies are even important. We go and go, and drink a little more coffee and go again. We put it down to being “Type-A” personalities, and we go some more.

Maybe one of us gets to go to bed early or to sleep late sometime, but mostly, we just stay on-the-go. Sometimes, I’m not sure where we’re going, but we keep moving….


But not this week. This week, we chilled. Even when there seemed to be an emergency back home, we just left it to others to clean up the mess, and we chilled. Not that we didn’t care, but … we just accepted that we were, at least for the moment, expendable. The world could turn without us. So we let it.

The chill time is ending too quickly. Tomorrow, we must go back to that other world that demands we help it turn.

It’s too soon. The deep weariness has not been fully displaced yet. But we have obligations, so we must pack up and go.

These five days away has been a huge blessing. I suspect we will try to do this again – soon. Maybe – is it possible? – we will even stretch things out closer to two weeks?

Life really should allow time for drip castles.

Jerking Knees

When I was a boy, I always wanted to play with the little tool the doctor would use to whack my leg just below the knee. It looked to me like a tomahawk, and I wanted one. I never did get my own Taylor’s Reflex Hammer, as the little tomahawk is properly called.

There are other designs of reflex hammers, but the Taylor’s is the most common. With it, the doctor tests our neuro-muscular reflexes by whacking on certain spots and then watching to make sure that we jerk appropriately. It is that whack just below the kneecap, and the accompanying leg jerk, that give us the phrase “knee-jerk reaction.”

Unfortunately, when we use that term, we are not usually referring to knees, but to the propensity most of us have to react unthinkingly when we encounter certain ideas or actions from other people. I regret to say that I can speak as an expert on this matter of knee-jerk reactions.

Fortunately for me, my son, Matt, has become very good at forcing me to re-think many matters on which I would previously react with a somewhat-predictably jerking knee. That is not to say that I always agree with him, even after I re-think a matter. But he has often pushed me, and he frequently – and uncomfortably – has done it by using my own words against me!

As a Christian conservative, there are a number of issues on which I have been well trained to jerk my knees. I appreciate the fact that my son frequently makes me take a fresh look at them. He does not always convince me of his perspective, but he is very good at identifying the key issues involved and presenting them with a logic – and with an attention to details of fact – that often leaves me no honest choice but to agree with him.

At the very least, he forces me to go back to my sources and re-examine and re-think that of which I had previously been so sure. Sometimes, I come away more convinced of my old position than before. More and more frequently, however, I find that my reconsideration brings me around to Matt’s viewpoint.

Meanwhile, why should I be surprised that Matt does this? After all, Patsy and I raised him. And as we, in our own generation, refused to accept everything we were taught as “Gospel” unless we “read it in the Book” for ourselves, so now Matt is doing the same thing. And he is doing it to me!

But, as I told him he should, he really is “knowing more and seeing further” than I. In so many ways, Matt has become my teacher.

Even before Matt came of age and intellect to press me so, I had already taken to trying to limit my own knee-jerk reactions to the bare minimum. Now, he will not allow me even those small luxuries! Using my own principles and logic, and using a deadly-sharp sword of facts, he often discomfits me and requires me to reconsider another long-held assumption.

Not surprisingly, I tend to find this intellectual stress uncomfortable. Sometimes, it feels as though the old soldier is having to go back through basic training. If I complain, however, I do so knowing that the exercise really is good for me.

There are certain Truths that will never change, no matter who challenges them. At the same time, I know that there have been many points of which I was sure, but which honest reconsideration forced me to see differently.

Jerking one’s knee is fine when the doctor whacks away with his little tomahawk-shaped hammer. It is not fine when one is dealing with the important issues of life. I am fortunate to have someone so close to help me deal with my own jerking knees.

Solifugids Among Us

I had never heard of a solifugid before I brought a couple of dead ones back from Sudan for my bug-collecting friend, Bill. I had a couple of these creatures, which I could tell were arachnids, but I thought they were some kind of spider. Bill set me straight; they are a separate order from both spiders and scorpions.

Later, a Google search for “solifugid” brought me far more information than I really wanted about these strange creatures, called variously “camel spiders,” “wind scorpions,” “sun spiders,” and other local names.

The name, solifugid or solifugae, comes from Latin and means “those that flee from the sun.” We never saw them in the daytime.

There are over a thousand known species of solifugids, generally living in warm, arid conditions and in virtually all desert areas in both eastern and western hemispheres. The unattributed drawing at right, which is easily available on the Internet, is a pretty good likeness of what we had in South Sudan, except that ours were a translucent tan.

I met my first solifugid on my first night in Akot. I was sitting under the lit Baptist Training Center shelter when something went whizzing by my feet. A moment later, it zoomed past me the other way. I still had not gotten a good look, but it appeared pretty fearsome. A little later, I managed to kill one.

Even dead, it was scary. Big, hairy, fast – and with those vicious jaws!

These “speedy spiders,” as I took to calling them, grew to nearly four inches long, and they moved in a blur. If one was in a small room, it would almost bounce off the walls as it ran laps around the perimeter. Knowing that these things were out at night made sleeping on the ground considerably less enticing.

After I returned to the States, it occurred to me that I had actually met a lot of solifugids before – especially in church. The Bible even refers to them. They might not have eight legs, but they certainly flee from the light.

In John 3:19-21, we read: 

And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.

I preached on solifugids yesterday.

Not your typical Pentecost Sunday sermon, I’ll grant you.  But when one considers that the Holy Spirit was sent by God to bring the Light of His Presence practically into our lives, and when one considers how few church people really seem interested in “walking in the light, as He is in the light,” [a la 1 John 1:7] one might get the connection.

And another thing – I find that the solifugids among us have vicious jaws, too.

The Graduate

My son, Matt, graduated from North Carolina State University today. I am very proud of him. I think it is going to be fascinating to watch what God will do with him in the coming years.

But a graduation is a funny thing. It marks a point of change. Change in the circumstances of a particular life. Change in relationships. 


The change is not a bad thing ... but it can be uncomfortable, at least for a little while, because it means that someone is "moving on." And I am feeling that discomfort now. It is a strange feeling.


It is strange, perhaps because there is the mix of sadness for oneself and joy for the graduate ... very much like the mix of feelings I felt when my mother died last December. (It was not for nothing that I announced her death as a "graduation.")


I am so pleased for Matt and his lovely wife, Meghan. I think they have exciting times ahead, and Patsy and I will enjoy their excitements vicariously as we try to cheer them on their way. But more than ever before, we may have to watch from increasing distance.

We have intentionally been in a process of "turning loose" of Matt since he was an infant. He was never really "ours" anyway. We only had him on loan from God, even when he lived in our house, and even when we had to make most of his decisions for him. But we knew, even when his main choices were of the orange-juice-vs.-grape-juice variety, that we could never control his life, or his choices. At best, we could try to teach him that choices have consequences.

And we could try to point him back toward the God who made Him and who has cared for him and provided faithfully for him all these years.

When, after 10th grade, Matt went away to the NC School of Science and Math, I told Patsy that he would never again come back "home" the same way as before he left. It was so. Later, we moved him off to university. Then he was married. 

Now, Matt is a "graduate."

Change. I can't say that I really like it ... this "change" thing. Especially graduations.

At the same time, I would not stop such change if I could! Anything — anyone — who is not changing is dead! And if those we love do not change, that would be tragedy.

So I accept Matt's change of status with joy. A joy mixed with some discomfort, but nevertheless, joy.


And I will continue to delight in my son's successes.


I expect Matt to know more, to see further, to do more, than I have. He should, because as I have come through life "standing on my father's shoulders," so Matt stands on mine.


What a privilege I have, even if it is sometimes uncomfortable!


Go, Matt!