Balcony Person Delcares Vacation!

Summer’s here.  The tomatoes are on the vine and a few of them that survived the deer and the blight have been harvested!  Ever eaten a $200 (approximate cost of growing your own) tomato?  It tastes much like the ones for 99 cents per pound at the Farmer’s Market.

I’ve decided it’s time for vacation even though my vacation won’t officially start for another two weeks.  My mind vacated about the time the thermometer hit 97 a couple weeks ago.  My trips outside, even in the heat, have become more prolonged as I watch the sky and the formation of the clouds, listening for thunder and rain so I don’t have to mow the grass!

Even the work as chaplain at the hospital has slowed a bit it seems.  Who wants to go to the hospital for elective surgery (or any surgery for that matter) when the skies are blue and lake is beckoning?  I am still helping out at the hospice when needed, but even the pace there seems slower.

And I must confess that I am tempted to miss a couple Sundays at Church as June progresses.  I can’t wait to see my children and grandchildren and enjoy our annual beach trip. That’s something I’ve been anxiously awaiting since the snow was on the ground.

So I am announcing that the balcony person is officially on vacation! There won’t be any posts for a while.  I’ll be back, so all the faithful followers out there (both of you), please don’t be disappointed!  But when I return to this sometime in the later part of the summer, I may have to change the name because beginning July 5, I shall no longer be a balcony person for a while.  I’ve gone the way of so many “young” retired ministers and accepted an interim position as pastor in a town near Raleigh.

So stay tuned.  And let me know if I should change the name of this blog from balcony person to something else (Recycled Minister? Pulpit Person? Back Sliding Balcony Person?) As for now, let’s all enjoy a change of pace and call it summer vacation.

Are Kids Smarter Today?

Are kids smarter these days or am I just getting dumber?   Please don’t answer that question.   The answer is probably “yes.”  I must admit that I wondered where some of my brain cells had gone as I sat in the balcony at Church Sunday.  It was graduate Sunday and a number of FBC’s graduates shared in the worship with a meditation.   They proved to me that they can do sermons both better and shorter than I ever did them.   They also impressed me with such wisdom that I suspected that the President’s speech writers may have composed the meditations, and if not a professional speech writer, then certainly the Church’s ministers!  Then again, the speeches had to be authentic.  They were too filled with personal stories and chocked full of nuggets of each graduate’s personality to be anything but original. 

Anna recounted the importance of community during a medical crisis she experienced.  Justin spoke of being a shy introvert who would hardly talk to others, to  become the person who was able to stand at a pulpit and face five hundred listeners with ease and eloquence. Morgan spoke of how connecting with the past gives direction to our futures.  Ian reminded that Church provided him a balance and gave to him stability in the move to a new city and the many other transitions he has experienced over the years. And Luke spoke of the importance of relationship, service, and mission in his pilgrimage of faith.

All pointed to mentors in the community of faith and to relationships developed during times of crisis, transition, social engagement, and mission.

Kudos kids!  Or better said, “thank you, young men and women of FBC.”  You show us older folks who are losing our brain cells what we too often forget:  It is in relationship and community that our faith grows, and that we continue to learn and become the children of God. Even us old folks with diminishing wit can learn that. 

An Open Letter to the Deer

Dear Deer,

I’ve tried everything I know to keep you away from my tomato plants, so I am appealing to your sense of compassion by this letter in the hopes that you will PLEASE stop eating my tomatoes.  You see, I have spent many hours trying to cultivated these beautiful plants.  I began earlier than usual this year since the spring was warm.  The rains have finally fallen gently on my fields and it looks like a bumper year for tomatoes.   I purchased the best plants from the best nursery in town and have applied Miracle Grow according to the directions on the box.  The result has been many tomatoes that would have ripened early, had it not been for your midnight raid on my garden.

In order to keep you at a distance, dear deer, I have tried the highly lauded “Deer Away”, which contains herbal and non-toxic ingredients, the smell of which I find a little nauseating, but can endure if I know you will find it nauseating, too.  Unfortunately, you did not seem to mind it.  Nor did you mind the previous year’s experiment with moth balls.  A little girl from the neighborhood told me my yard smelled like “grandma’s” house.  While the moth balls did decrease the moths in my yard, they did not deter you.  One year, my wife heard that hair clippings helped, so she brought home a bag of clippings from her beauty salon.   You gingerly stepped over the clippings of red, blonde, brunette, and gray hair to find your way to my tomatoes.

I am almost ready to admit defeat and drive to the State Farmer’s Market to buy my tomatoes in the future. It would be cheaper than the two tomatoes you left me, which when I average in the cost of fertilizers, repellants, and irrigation plus the psychotherapy I will need to deal with my anger and loss, will be about two hundred dollars per tomato.

 As I said, I’ve tried everything, so if there is just one iota of compassion left in your heart, please read this and have pity on me and my remaining two tomatoes.