Category: Faith

Jerry Mitchell, MacArthur Fellow 2009

Jerry Boo Mitchell circa 1981Pardon me, but does the goofy-looking nerd in the suspenders and top hat reading Mother Goose look like the type of guy who would strike fear in the hearts of murderous Ku Klux Klansmen?

Um, no, I don’t think so.

And if you had asked any of us who attended Harding University in the early 1980s the same question and what we thought of the future prospects of Jerry “Boo” Mitchell, first-class clown, favorite chapel announcer and author of the somewhat subversive “Fifth Column” which appeared weekly in the school newspaper The Bison, we would have likely laughed and said something like “high school speech teacher,” or “radio talk show host,” anything, really, other than the Civil Rights version of Gabriel Van Helsing.… Read the rest

He Did Jobs No One Else Wanted To Do

Dear Tim,

I don’t usually talk to dead people, but the special circumstances of your untimely death call for unusual tactics. You see, it’s very important for people to know the story I’m going to tell because I think it gives a capsule insight into who you were.

Or are. My apologies; I really don’t know what to say, because I really don’t really know what lies beyond that murky river. I guess that’s why they call it faith. I hope it’s all true, but I can’t prove it. For all I know, you could be sleeping soundly. If so, you can read this when you wake up.… Read the rest

Clarkston 1, Huntsville 0

outcastsunitedEyegal and I had the privilege Sunday night of hearing author Warren St. John (Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer–A Road Trip Into the Heart of Fan Mania) discuss his new book, Outcasts United–A Refugee Team, An American Town.

St. John’s book chronicles a season in the lives of “The Fugees,” a soccer team comprised of teenage boys from around the world who now live in the tiny southern town of Clarkston, Georgia outside Atlanta as a part of a United Nations refugee resettlement program. The central figure in the book is The Fugee’s coach, Luma Mufleh, a young Jordanian woman of privilege and Smith College graduate who, as it turns out, is something of a refugee herself (her father cut her off after she refused to return to Jordan following graduation).… Read the rest

An Ordinary Woman

mom-and-dadThis past Wednesday wasn’t the first time I’ve written Christine Brown’s eulogy in my head while rushing home to say goodbye. In 1999, my family and I drove all night from Huntsville to Roanoke, and I had everything all worked out in my mind by the time I pulled into the hospital parking garage. I even had the perfect quote from a man named G.K. Chesterton:

“The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.”

I thought that fit her to a tee.

When I got to her room, I hardly recognized her since her body was so swollen from the infection, but she was awake, the TV blaring.… Read the rest

Shoes Off, Sitting on Holy Ground

The first time I said my last words to her was just off Exit 407, I-40 East near Gatlinburg/Sevierville. Her blood pressure was plummeting, and I had told my sister to call me if it looked like she was going fast. I parked between the Russell Stover Candy Outlet and the Subway, and my sister held the phone to her ear. She was not responding by then, but they always say hearing is the last thing to go.

I told her that I loved her and that she had been a wonderful daughter, wife, mother and “Meme.” “You did a great job, Mom,” I said.… Read the rest

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

–Genesis 3:19

and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Ecclesiastes 12:7

The first time I remember hearing the phrase “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” was when Princess died.

Princess was a pet cat, circa 1968-approx. 1971. I don’t remember that much about her other than she was gray, and I don’t recall having a particular fondness for her, although I’m sure I liked her well enough.… Read the rest

And For That, We Are Thankful

When I finished “The Anatomy of a Broken Bone” two and a half years ago, I was hoping there would never be a Part II. “Here’s hoping our first one will also be our last,” I wrote.

So much for wishes, well-laid plans and good intentions.

Number Three Son is down again. This time with a broken distal left fibula (ankle, essentially) obtained while sledding down a snowy hillside on a trashcan lid in the wee hours of Sunday morning in Gatlinburg, Tennessee at the annual “Juiced-For-Jesus,” mega-monster youth rally, Winterfest.

The chance to frolic in a few inches of fresh, frozen precipitation was just too much of a temptation for a gang of Southern boys whose experience with the stuff is limited mainly to pictures on the internet and coverage of the Winter Olympics every four years.… Read the rest

What Ever Happened To Don Meyer?

Well, for one thing the former NAIA national championship-winning basketball coach at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee and now HC at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota recently passed Bob Knight’s 902 career victory total to become the all-time leader in men’s college basketball history.

And for another, he did that while recovering from a near fatal car accident and battling inoperable cancer.

Having a bad day? Don Meyer would say that there is no such thing as a bad day.

… Read the rest

A Full Extension, Both-Toes-Inbounds Catch

Here’s the question: If I could somehow translate Steeler receiver Santonio Holmes’ sublime, full-extension, both-toes-inbounds Super Bowl-winning catch (or for that matter, James Harrison’s “Pass the oxygen, please” 100 yard interception return) into Eyeguy language, what would it look like?

Possible answers:

  • When I hear the splatter of rain on the gutters, I would round up my gear and go for a run anyway, or short of that, hit the elliptical trainer after work.
  • I would write something–anything–to jump-start my aging gray matter and focus it toward constructive work.
  • I wouldn’t be in so much of a rush that I would forget to kiss Eyegal before heading out the door.
… Read the rest

Settlin’ Down Me Ol’ Soul

Number Two Son and I are in Pensacola, Florida this morning. It’s not the first time I’ve been here with one of me lads.

And Pensacola means McGuire’s Irish Pub, a steroid-enhanced, Gatlinburg version of one that I’m sure a real Irishman would scoff at and probably scrap over if anyone dared to call it the real thing. Aye, I think he would.

But the filet was melt-in-your-mouth wonderful and the, ahem, “root beer” was just what the doctor ordered after a hard, six hour drive. We had a seat near the stage, so we got an earful of some loud and raucous Irish music, all of which bore the same basic theme–whiskey and fightin’.… Read the rest

Be Careful What You Want Someone Else To Pray For

There’s an old saying, “Be careful what you pray for.” Perhaps we should change that to “Be careful what you want someone else to pray for.”

Allow me to explain.

Last Saturday, the thought began to cross my mind: I wonder if anyone will pray for President-elect Barack Obama at church tomorrow? It began to burr into my consciousness; no, it actually got stuck in my craw. I figured I knew the answer to the question, but then I thought: Wait Mike, you ornery old so-and-so, break some new ground–think positively and charitably for once.

And I tried. I really did.… Read the rest

Rosa to MLK to JRB–Justice Rollin’ On Like A River

But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!

–Amos 5:24

Regular readers know him as JRB. He’s a Harding grad like me and the most prolific commenter on this blog, the one whose fervent man-passion for his beloved ‘Dores and his meticulous command of the King’s English often get him into a scrap or two with my Bama-lovin’ alter ego, Mike the Redneck.

And through the power of the written word, a cell phone speed dial and a few blessed opportunities to break bread together, he has become one of my best friends and confidantes in the world and the “little brother” I never had.… Read the rest

Writing Is A Lonely Job

Having tasted some modest success as a columnist last year for The Huntsville Times, my goals for 2009 are to sniff out some more freelance writing opportunities and to become a better practitioner of the craft.

To that end, I plan to continue to write at least one column-quality post per week here (along with whatever other mundane slices of life that strike my fancy), read good quality fiction and nonfiction works and “go back to school” by reading books on writing, most of them the main texts from various writers’ workshops for which I currently have neither the time nor the money.… Read the rest

That’s The Way It’s Supposed To Be

I should have known better than to start a “My Hair is Bigger Than Your Hair” embarrassing photo war with a guy who had his own darkroom and always kept a fully-loaded 35mm camera in his glove compartment.

But that’s exactly what I did this past Saturday when I uploaded my photo album “Big Hair Alert!” (“Selected shots of family and friends from 1980-1990, back when hair was hair and we wore it loud, proud and tall”) to my Facebook page.

Did I mention that I had one of those now? I think I did. And I have almost 100 friends, some of whom I’ve actually met.… Read the rest

A “Thin Place”–Right Hand Side, Two Thirds Of The Way Back

“Our pew” is on the right hand side, two thirds of the way back. That’s where we always sit when we attend Christmas Eve services at our second church home, Episcopal Church of the Nativity in Huntsville. I’ve written of our experiences there before, and as longtime readers know, that’s our refuge where we occasionally go in order to escape the tyranny of the modern (e.g. PowerPoint!) and surrender instead to the power and holy mysteries of the liturgy.

Picture in your mind the quintessential Christmas Eve setting: an old, storied building topped with a 150 foot Gothic Revival spire reaching toward the heavens, the nave bathed in soft candle light and bedecked with festive, seasonal greenery, a 12-foot Christmas tree near the front, beckoning with a thousand starry lights.… Read the rest