Cogitation

Dr. John McCall is one of my long-time mentors—44years! He is 95 years young, and he is such a blessing to me every time I talk with him on the phone or visit with him.  He has had several careers: Army chaplain, 35-year pastorate in Vicksburg, Mississippi, professor at Boyce College in Louisville, Kentucky, professor and head of department of religion at Mississippi College and finally he just retired a year ago as the “interim pastor” of a church in Edwards, Mississippi where he served over 9 years!  Show me someone else who can match that longevity for the Kingdom!?!

Dr. McCall is having some challenges with his eyes now, and after his wife medicates his eyes, he can’t read, watch TV or anything else for about 3 or more hours after the medication is applied. While talking with him on the phone, I asked, “So what do you do during that time, Dr. McCall?” His one word response was “Cogitate.” OK, so who has used that word in the last six months?

I recall hearing the word used when I was younger and I know that it means to ponder something, but I looked it up and in addition to ponder it means to think deeply about something, to muse, to ruminate, to mull over and to contemplate.

After the telephone call I reflected on when I have recently cogitated. I was shamed because I don’t remember the last time I have had a long period of meditation.  I am so task-oriented that I usually don’t think about something for a long time. I am also an activator according to Gallup’s StrengthsFinder profile. That means that I don’t like to sit in meetings and talk about doing something for a long time. I like to talk about what needs to be done for a short period, and then we make assignments to get it done. I think we spend too much time sitting around talking about how to solve issues when we should be out there fixing them.

 OK, so I am impetuous sometimes. I am also guilty of not cogitating. I don’t think deeply or mediate on what the Lord is trying to say to me. I get too busy with all the important work that needs to get done, and I do not think about the most important thing—my relationship with my heavenly Father. The Psalms have a plethora of reminders about how important it is to cogitate. Here’s one from the first chapter: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

Wow. How bad am I feeling about my Bible reading habits? It seems that I read the Bible like it is more important to get through “X” verses or finish a chapter or a book of the Bible, so I can move on to the next challenge. I read too quickly over the verses and I miss what God is trying to say to me. I don’t know how to cogitate, but I am working on refining my cogitating skills.

I am back

OK, so now I am feeling guilty. I have not made writing on this blog a priority. Last week four friends who have been encouragers and colleagues for many years have plugged me about not writing on the blog. I don’t have a good reason. I have rationalized with myself that I have been extremely busy, but that just does not hold water when I use that for an excuse. It seems that the longer I wait to write the guiltier I feel.

I have started five different blog posts over the last several weeks and I have yet to complete one of them. But I am inspired once again by my friends, so I am going to be writing again.

In the meantime, I want to once again direct you to Kelli’s blog, Pink Laundry (http://pinklaundry-kelli.blogspot.com/), for a great November 19 post entitled “We are not cold.” Most Americans do not know much about the civil war going on in Syria right now and about the plight of the homeless people that have fled the war-torn country and spilled over into Jordan and Lebanon.  If you want more information, Baptist Press has a series of new stories about how Arab Christians are aiding these Muslim refugees at this site: http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=39177

I’m back.

Pink Laundry

I am so very proud of my daughter-in-love, Kelli, for the five part series that she has just completed on "Pink Laundry." Kelli has chronicled their journey to have more children since Jason was diagnosed with testicular cancer over 10 years ago. From her Christian worldview she deals with how they dealt with the very sensitive issue of in vitro fertilization. I encourage you to read all five parts on this blog: http://pinklaundry-kelli.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-10-16T02:59:00-07:00&max-results=7
Go to the October 6 post for part one.

Thank you, Kelli!

Jason and Jeremy

I could not resist sharing this with friends and family: Jason and Jeremy are the young alumi of the year for Mississippi College. Unfortunately, Jason and Kelli and Cheryl and I will not be able to attend. Jason and Kelli will be in a meeting in Europe, Cheryl will be in Jordan staying with their girls, and I will be in Thailand for a project. Some very close friends will be there to represent us as surrogate parents.

We are very proud of the boys!
http://www.mc.edu/news/brothers-jeremy-and-jason-cox-named-mississippi-college-young-al/

Tell the next generation

Some of you are old enough to remember Art Linkletter’s TV show called “House Party” where he interviewed 4 and 5 year old children. Bill Cosby’s show, “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” was based on Linkletter’s program.  I think about those shows and how good Caleb, five years old, and Emma, four years old, would be if they could have appeared on them.

They are clever kids—all our grandchildren are smart dudes! They both can come up with some great one-liners. Here are a few examples: Emma came home from pre-K and confessed to her mother that she had said something that she should not have said. Mom asks what she had said, and Emma said “Oh my God.” Mom asks, “So what do you think you should have said, Emma?” Emma thinks a moment and then says, “Oh, my Jesus?” When Kimberly was encouraging Emma to eat her dinner, Emma looked mom in the eye and asks, “Do you really WANT me to throw up?”

”One Sunday as we were preparing to eat lunch after church at our house Caleb just walked up to me, looked up, and said, “Papa, time has not been good to you!” He asks a lot of questions—normal, right? But, some of them go like this: “Why are there lines hanging from poles along the road?” “Why is the sky blue?” I try to answer all of his questions with brief explanations. I recently learned that maybe I should not answer all of his questions as he asked me: “Papa, do you know everything?”

I assured him that I don’t know everything, but one thing for sure is that I want to know enough to share life lessons with our grandchildren. I want them to know about the everlasting God of the Universe. I want them to know that they are a person of worth created in the image of God to have an eternal relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.

My job is this: “That you may tell the next generation that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us forever.” Psalm 48:12-14 (ESV)

Giving the BEST

Recently a friend was describing to me how difficult it is to accept gifts. This friend and his family are having a difficult time right now with the loss of his employment. His family’s financial situation is not good at this time. They were habituated to a very comfortable life style with significant income to support all their needs and most of their wants. During these days they have been in a situation where they are trying to make ends meet on the salary from his part-time job.

He has been accustomed to being a giver to Christian and other charitable causes, but now he finds himself in the position of being a receiver instead of a giver. This is hard for most of us. We want to be independent and our pride is hurt if we are perceived as being “needy.”  In talking with him I asked him to consider that this is a season of time in their lives when God is teaching them to become receivers instead of givers.

While living in West Africa we learned so many valuable lessons from the nationals among whom we lived and worked for many years. The culture there dictated that when someone gave you a gift, you were to accept it no matter what the gift was or who the person was or what their giving capacity was.

Many times when I was in one of the villages, I was given a gift of eggs or a chicken or guinea fowl or a handful of seed. I always accepted the gift no matter how poor or needy the family was who was giving the gift. My modus operandi was to accept the gift and then give it to another family in need.

Every year in Burkina Faso one of the most feared times of the year for the villagers was February to April. It was at this time that there was an annual outbreak of meningitis. This disease was no stranger to most compounds and many children became infected. Parents would sometimes bring children to us who were already so ravaged by this dreaded sickness.

One such child was Laraba (the meaning of this name is Wednesday—he was born on a Wednesday!). His father walked and carried his emaciated body for 6 hours to our home. He insisted on leaving Laraba with us, and I believe that he expected to never see him alive again. We cared for Laraba for several weeks.  He lived in our compound with a couple other “project” boys, and he made a miraculous recovery.

We sent one of our workers on a bicycle to tell his father that he could come to get his son. A couple days later Laraba’s father showed up at our house. I went out to greet him in the shaded area of our compound where I often received villagers. After the normal 10 minutes of exchanging greetings—how did you get up this morning, how are your wives, how are your kids, how are your goats, etc.—Laraba and his father were reunited. Laraba was a very quiet 10-year-old, and he did not express much emotion, but his father was elated. He said over and over that his son was a miracle. I had an opportunity to tell his father about the miracle worker called Jesus.

It is customary to give a gift when someone has done something for you, so when I started the “good-bye” conversation with Laraba’s father, he stopped looking at me and dropped his head and stared at the ground. I could tell he was in deep thought, and finally he said to me, “I thought that my son was going to die, but you took care of him and he has been healed. I can never thank you enough, but I do not have a gift to give to you except this: I want to give you my son, Laraba, as a gift!”

My first thought was Lord, help me out of this one! Now it was my turn—I tucked my chin to my chest and stared at the ground and I prayed. The Lord quickly guided me to respond to him: “Thank you for such a wonderful gift. I accept your son as the very best gift that you could possible give to me.” I went on to tell him that we had a small problem with Laraba during the time he stayed in our compound. His father looked upset and looked at Laraba and said that he was sorry that he misbehaved. I told him that Laraba was a good boy and that he was well-behaved. The problem was that he did not like my wife’s cooking, so we had to have someone prepare “sagabo” for him—that is millet mush which is the staple for all villagers in our area.

So, I asked his father if he would be so kind to care for our son, Laraba, in his compound and feed him the good food that he was accustomed to eating. I told him that we would help to provide for Laraba while he lived and grew up in their village. His father was silent for only a moment and then said that would be a very good arrangement for me and his family. I was relieved for I was able to be culturally correct in accepting the best gift Laraba’s father could possibly give, and to successfully get Laraba back into his family situation.

Laraba’s father gave the very best gift possible for him. God asks for our best. What do we give Him?

Fine print

When our new issue of Consumer Reports arrives, the first thing Cheryl looks at is the inside of the back page. This page is called “goofs, glitches, gotchas” and features some interesting advertising errors submitted by readers. Often the goof or gotcha is in the fine print.

As a boy, I remember reading and studying the back of cereal boxes. There were great treasures inside some of those boxes, but sometimes you had to order the special toy. I sent my three box tops from cereal boxes in an envelope expecting to receive this big toy car—because the car looked so huge on the back of the cereal box. When Mama told me that it had arrived, I was so excited. That excitement was squelched when I saw the size of the package. I opened the very small package, and the toy car was less than two inches long! What a disappointment. I went in the kitchen and looked at that car on the back of the cereal box, and then I noticed the asterisk beside the car. The fine print by the asterisk at the bottom of the box said something like this: Car is not actual size depicted in the illustration. What a rip-off!

Have you ever read the fine print on a real estate document? Oh my goodness! Last week I signed a contract to sell Rolfe’s house in Louisville. I am so very grateful for someone in whom I can have complete trust as a real estate agent. The agent is the former church secretary in Rolfe’s last pastorate, and he requested that we use her. What a blessing. Not only is she taking care of arranging for painting and repairs, she is even making arrangements for charities to come to the house to pick up clothes, household goods and furniture to be given away. I did not even have to read the fine print in the contract because I trust Doris.

I was reading tonight in 2 Kings about King Hezekiah—yeah, the one that did not have a book in the Bible named after him. Chapter 18, verse 5 says, “He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses.”

There was no fine print in Hezekiah’s relationship with God. Everything was clear between God and Hezekiah as he “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.”