Libby

Cheryl and I welcomed our 12th grandchild today. Libby Kathleen arrived in Rome, Georgia, at 6:50 am weighing 8 lbs 6 oz and measuring 20.5 inches in length. Allison and Will are doing fine.

Three little phrases

Cheryl’s grandfather was not so good with some of his business practices, but he invented the machinery that made the world’s first fried apple pie that is sold all over the world today. He had the first patent on the fried pie (now baked!) in the early 1950s when a man named Ray Kroc (of McDonald’s fame) came to him and asked him to manufacture a 3 oz. pie. Mr. Keathley refused to do that and told Mr Kroc that if he wanted to buy pies from him that he would have to buy his 4 oz. pie. Mr. Keathley walked with the Lord all his life, and the Lord blessed him with several successful businesses. He never finished high school, but he was a brilliant man.

Cheryl’s father was also a very successful businessman in the baking industry and later in life as an entrepreneur. He did finish high school, and then he joined the army and served as an officer at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, and he had many great stories about the Nazi leaders who were tried at the famous trials after the second Great War. Maurice was wounded in the Korean War, and he retired from the military as a Lt. Colonel after years of reserve service. He was a life-long Optimist and once served as Vice President of Optimist International. During his entire successful business career he served as a part-time Minister of Music in several churches in the Memphis area.

Among these many very successful endeavors, I think that one of his greatest achievements was that he was recognized by his peers as a very intelligent man—even though he only had a high school education. He often walked among very famous scientists, academicians and businessmen, and they would usually come away from the conversation telling others what a bright man was this Maurice Keathley.

Maurice had a secret weapon and it was actually three very simple phrases. Whenever he was with someone who was much brighter than himself or when he was with a person or persons and he did not understand the topic of the conversation, here’s what he would do: he would listen closely and make sure that his body language indicated a high level of interest, and he would intersperse the conversation with these three short quips: “It could very well be.” “Yes, indeed.” “Among other things.”

I have tried using these three small phrases, and it works. Now you can easily over-use that “Yes, Indeed,” so you have to change your voice inflections and the way you say it so that you say it differently each time. Try it and you will see that it works. People will think you are very smart. Why? Because you agree with them!

Names

I have never been a fan of name tags. Wearing them has been a part of my uniform for the past 14 years, but I still don’t like them. I have been to some meetings where they have prepared the name tags for the participants ahead of time. When I go to the registration table to get my name tag and a packet of program materials, sometimes they have my name as “James Cox.” After all, that is my name—James is my first name. Anything official has my name as “James Cox.”

I don’t think my Mother and Father knew what a headache it would be to name their son and then use the middle name. I dreaded the first day of school for all 12 years because the teacher would call out, “James Cox,” and my friends would laugh out loud.

I guess the only pleasure that I get in not using my first name is when a wise-guy telemarketer calls at dinner time and asks to speak to James or Jim. We just say there is no one here by that name!

I have done a lot of thinking through the years about names, but I guess it is more on my mind now since Allison and Will kept us guessing the name of their expected first-born for several weeks—number 12 grandchild and number 10 granddaughter! We are blessed.

I have often said that the most important word to any person regardless of where in the world they live is their own name. It is the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

People love to hear their name. When I first meet someone, I try to call their name right after I meet them. That affirms the person, and oh by the way, it helps me remember their name.

As I think about how powerful a name can be my thoughts go to familiar scriptures:

"Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Philippians 2:9-11

"Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens." Psalm 8:1

Truett Cathy’s favorite Bible verse is Proverbs 22:1.

“A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold.”

Smells

While driving to work this morning I smelled the strong aroma of antifreeze in my old truck. That probably means that I have a problem with either the thermostat or the heater coil. Regardless, I am glad that I can take the truck to someone who knows a lot more than I do about repairs.

Smell is such an important sense. I have been told that I have a powerful sense of smell as I usually smell things that either others don’t smell or I smell it way before they do.

So I spent time the rest of today thinking about smell highlights in my life—I call those “smellories.” Here are some that came to my mind today.

While living in Burkina Faso, we didn’t have too many places to take visitors to buy souvenirs, but one good place was the leather shop. The shop was attached to the building where they cured the cow hides, and every time we went to the leather shop that smell welcomed us. It was a good smell, or at least I thought so.

Another vivid smell memory in Burkina Faso is the smell of smoke. Every village compound smelled like smoke. The villagers clothing always smelled like smoke. When I am burning debris and limbs at the farm, my clothes smell like smoke, and my thoughts always return to Burkina Faso—good smells!

Right at this very moment as I am typing this post, my thoughts about writing are interrupted with the aroma of fresh sausage. Cheryl is cooking sausage for a breakfast casserole—UMMM. Now back to collecting my thoughts…

Once while walking in desert sand in northern Sudan I smelled the camel dung as we walked through the largest camel market I have ever seen. For some of you who don't know me well, you would think that this would be a bad smell (for most people) - but not for this farm boy. UMMMM!

In the weekly market of Atee, Chad, where 3,000 people come from all over the Sahara, I smelled the pungent odor of dried seed from the nyeri tree, which is used in preparing the sauce that provides nourishment for families in the Sahel.

Other “smellories” include: the knock-your-socks-off aroma of a Lebanese bakery! The sweet whiff of mangoes being peeled in Egypt! Mustard greens cooking at Mimi’s house.

My nose burning from the odor of the dyes used in making rugs in the Atlas Mountains in the Maghreb. Crepes from a street vendor in Paris.

The cured leather of goatskin as I walked the narrow streets of the medina in Sanaa. Durian in Jakarta. Haria soup in the Marrakesh market - tastes as good as it smells. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire on the streets during Christmastime in Wiesbaden.

While thinking on all these smellories, the Lord has been saying to me, “Larry, if you have any purpose in My work—it has to do with these smells. For this is the fragrance of the world I died for.”

“For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” 2 Corinthians 2:15 ESV

Together

I was in the Frankfurt airport train station waiting on my train. Sleepy and hungry after a trans-Atlantic flight, I bought hot tea and a pain au chocolat at a kiosk. I left the main part of the train station and wandered into a shopping mall. It was a Sunday morning about 7:00am. The city was still asleep, so I had plenty of choices of places to sit and have my breakfast. During the time that I ate, I only saw seven other people.

As I have traveled over the years I have always enjoyed watching people. I don’t mean staring, but I do admit to some intense looking. When I am traveling and in an airport or train station, I like to look for indicators that will tell me something about that person. Anyone can tell if a person is of Asian descent, but I like to study the face and guess whether they are from Korea or Southeast Asia or the Philippines.

A couple of young Asians (Korean I guessed) sat near me, engaging each other with the tell-tale signs of being in love. I knew that they were not siblings by the way they gingerly touched one another. Maybe I did stare at them because they abruptly stood up and walked swiftly away. But, remember that I am trying to stay awake so I had to be doing something so that I did not miss my train.

 

Soon after the young couple disappeared from the mall, another couple—much older than the young Asians—strolled into the atrium area. They were definitely not in a hurry, but then, why would there be a rush to get anywhere as nothing in the mall was open. As they strolled along hand-in-hand, I watched. They stopped and stared inside a storefront.

I have watched a lot of “window shoppers” in my time, but these folks were not looking at merchandise for sale inside the store. They were standing in front of a dry cleaners shop and just gazing inside. Why? I don’t know, but I did not dwell on the why. I was really impressed with the “what” they were doing. They were simply enjoying each other. They did not have to be entertained. They did not have a destination. They were happy just being together.

“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The First Christmas Pageant Ever

This afternoon we went to the Rome Little Theater production of “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.” It is a great Christmas classic and the production was excellent. Allison played the role of Grace Bradley, and she and her fellow thespians did a great job.  

Tonight as I am reflecting on the play, I am thinking about an experience that could be called “The First Christmas Pageant Ever.”

One Christmas in Burkina Faso, our kids, our colleagues’ kids and some volunteers decided to have a live nativity during a Christmas Eve program at the church closest to our home. All the believers in our churches were first generation Christians, so the kids wanted to show the villagers what a Christmas pageant was all about.

Amanda was four at the time, and she was chosen to be Mary. She was excited after we explained what she was going to do. She had never seen a live nativity, much less participated in one.

The other four MKs and the Tennessee played the parts of the shepherds, wise men, and angels.

As usual we were on “African time,” so we waited at our house for some of the church members to come get us when all the people had gathered. It was late when they finally came and told us that we were ready to begin the service. Cheryl had to stay at home with baby Allison who was asleep by that time, and as we were leaving our home to walk the short distance to the church, Cheryl told Amanda to go to her room and get a baby to be the baby Jesus. Amanda came back with a baby all wrapped up with a blanket and cuddling it in her arms. When we arrived at the church, Amanda went to be with the other pageant participants.

Amanda was sitting on the front bench—mud brick church with a tin roof and a dirt floor—with the rest of the pageant players. There was no electricity in the church, so we had set up a portable generator earlier. We had three lights hanging in the church for the Christmas Eve program.

When it came time for the pageant Amanda was holding the baby very close to her body and wrapped in a blanket, and then she gingerly place the baby into the manger. When the shepherds gathered around the manger, they started laughing. That was odd. Why were they laughing when this was such a serious moment? Then I looked more closely and saw why it was so funny. Lying in the manger representing baby Jesus was Smurfette—that’s right, the bright blue toy with blonde hair.

Later I reflected on the oddity that all the Americans at the service laughed at the thought of having a stuffed blue toy representing baby Jesus while none of the villagers even laughed when the baby Smurfette was placed in the manger.

This was the villagers’ first Christmas Eve pageant, and from their reactions, you would have thought that we had been at a Broadway production. All the villagers were so excited about everything. Since they had never experienced anything like this in their lives, they really did not know what to expect. For them they were pretending anyway, so a blue Jesus was nothing unusual—especially since none of the village girls even owned any kind of a doll or stuffed toy.

In our culture we don’t like surprises about things that we have grown accustomed to seeing and experiencing. During this Christmas season as you experience pageants, cantatas, music productions, and other special services, pretend that it is the first one you have ever seen. Don’t go to Christmas services with an attitude that you are a veteran attender or with a spirit of a scrooge. Don’t go to criticize people or music or costumes or decorations—just go and enjoy and let yourself get carried away with the celebration of the birth of the Savior of the world. This could be your best Christmas season ever.

Perfect

During my time with my dad in Colorado recently, we were having breakfast at a hotel and reading the morning paper. My dad pointed out to me a headline in the Denver Post about the devastating typhoon that hit the Philippines. The headline read, “Imperfect Man, Perfect Storm.” His immediate reaction was, “They got it right about man, but there is no perfect storm. There is only a perfect God.”

I don’t know about you but I have been listening to see how many times I hear the word perfect used. I have heard it used twice this week—once when I gave a clerk the correct change and she said, “Perfect.” My thoughts were Wow, her standards are low if that’s all it takes to score a perfect. I told someone that I was going to be 15 minutes late for a meeting, and their reply was “Perfect!” I wondered what they would have said if I had been on time?!

Baseball fans will immediately think of the perfect game—when all the batters of the opposing team are retired without a hit or a run or without any player reaching first base. It is essentially 27 batters up to the plate and 27 batters out.

When I was in high school the perfect grade was 100. But help me with this one: What is a perfect score for our high school students today. I hear frequently of high school graduates with grade point averages like 104 or 107.67. Whatever happened to 100? I thought that was the perfect grade. It wasn’t very often that I received a perfect score of 100. So, if 100 is a perfect score, then what is 106?

As I usually do when I get enthralled with a word, I looked up the word “perfect” in some online dictionaries. I found this in more than one dictionary: having no mistakes or flaws; completely correct or accurate. This definition really says more of what I was looking for with this post: Lacking nothing; essential to the whole; complete of its nature or kind.

We have all heard someone say “perfect baby” or “my daughter is just perfect.” I know those are expressions and are used loosely, but we use a lot of words inaccurately.

While I can live with the sloppy way we use and abuse words, I am really hung up on this word perfect as used in the Bible. The real challenge for me is that the Scripture demands us believers to be perfect: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). I don’t know about you, but that verse is a tough one for me. If the goal is perfection then what hope is there for anyone?

Jesus was not establishing a new standard for us with that verse because God had already outlined it for us in Leviticus 11:44: “…you shall be holy, for I am holy.” God’s standard for us who bear the name of Christ in our lives has always been perfect holiness. That is a heavy truth!

I believe that God gave us the goal to be perfect so we would never stop trying to attain it. In the life to come, perfection will be our possession and experience forever and ever. Oh that will be glory for me—I am singing that tune as I form these words.

Now I am convicted myself: I have to spend more time working on attaining that level of holiness that God wants me to reach instead of focusing all my efforts on waiting to possess perfection when I reach glory.