For the past few months, I have been receiving writing prompts each Wednesday from a professional writer.  One recent prompt encouraged us to write an "ode."  Here is my attempt to do so:

Ode to My Cell Phone

by Dennis Herman

 O, my constant friend and companion,

You warm my palm with your radiance,

And give me comfort to know

The world is at my touch.

You glow in the night

To assure me that care is

Just a password away.

You transport me back home,

To family I now see on

Face Time, and visit

On Zoom.

 

O, Great Wonder, the fulfiller of the dream,

Of going everywhere, knowing everything.

Into your ear, I can speak questions

And make commands:

“Directions to Bob Lewis Sports Complex,”

“Fastest route to Pizza Mind Café,”

“How to clean high gutters safely,” and

“Take me to the closest ER!”

You do not mind my tone of voice,

Indifferent to my state of mind.

 

You lead me to the still waters of my tranquility app,

You restore my soul with Buechner quotes,

And anoint me with Butler-Bass essays.

If I make my bed in Candler Motel Six or Biltmore Estate,

You are there.

 

Unimpassioned, you give just the facts,

Pleasantly indifferent to the politics du jour,

But willing to let me

Read of the most heinous, horrid,

And despicable of events.

I love you because you have no brain,

Or soul, or ability to judge,

But allow me to do the thinking,

To seek, to find, to discern.

Thank you, dear friend, and

Stay close, my codependent enabler,

My rod and my staff.

You are both dumb and brilliant.

You are the composite of the world’s knowledge,

And the non-compostable of tomorrow’s earth.

 

I may be lost without you, wise one.

May your battery stay strong.

May you avoid viruses,

And may you never, ever, ever,

Lose my contact list.

 

How Many Points Should a Good Sermon Have?

 

On a Sunday night during my seminary years, we would pack into the old van of a classmate and head off for a visit at the home of a professor.  This particular night, it was a trip to visit with Dr. George Buttrick, visiting professor at our seminary.  This noted scholar and preacher, former pastor at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, and later a Harvard professor, graciously welcomed us into his home.  I do not remember much about the visit except that I was in awe of being in the presence of such a notable person.

We sat in his living room and fired a barrage of questions at him, only one of which I recall: “Dr. Buttrick, how many points should a good sermon have?”

Without a moment’s hesitation he answered: “Methinks at least one!”

While that might have seemed a disappointment to those of us who were expecting a dissertation, this nugget of wisdom has stuck with me through a half century now.  This was reinforced some time ago when one faithful member of a church I had pastored for eleven years observed, “Dennis, all your sermons really had only one point, ‘inclusion’.”

“Well,” I answered, “if there is only one point I could hope my congregation might have learned, it is that God’s love includes everyone!”

I do not preach much anymore, but when I do I remember Buttrick’s answer to that question and try to have at least one clear point or theme the congregation can take away.  As I look back and re-read some of my old sermons, I must confess they are more like one friend described as a “Texas Longhorn sermon.”

 “And just what is that?” I asked my friend.

“A point here and a point there and a lot of bull in between.” 

 

 

 

Keep Chasing Those Dreams!

 I doubt seriously that I will be a professional basketball player.  That was my dream at age ten, but it is a ridiculous dream at age seventy-two!  But I might dream of going to a professional basketball game sometime, or even watching one of my own grandchildren play on a team.  Dreams are an important part of life.  The loss of a dream happens to all of us at some point, and with the loss of a dream comes grief. It’s just that way.

But do we stop dreaming because of it?  An article for the Tribune News Service, by Judi Light Hopson, points out that the pleasure of a dream is in the planning.  “It’s uplifting to fantasize about what could happen,” she says.

Our dreams and fantasies definitely change as we age.  It might even take some practice getting back into dreaming about some positive future goal.  Maybe it is reading more novels, or writing one!  Maybe it is learning more about the world, its geography, and planning a trip, regardless of whether you will be able to go.  I remember having fun as a nine-year-old riding my bike to many continents and countries of the world, right in my neighborhood.  There was nothing like racing my neighbor across the lawn to Madagascar or Hong Kong or Australia! 

Judi Light Hopson says that the chasing of dreams can actually reduce stress. She suggests having some big goals, but breaking them down into small steps. You might want to visit Santiago, Chile, but COVID and other factors prohibit it right now.  Maybe you can research Chile, find the best beaches in January, or the various means of transportation (are there sleeper trains or river boats?), or the best restaurants in a given city.  Keeping a file on your research is a first step toward realizing that travel dream.

I have a friend who has been married for fifty-one years.  For the last three years his wife has been in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s disease.  She cannot speak to him, but he sees her and visits regularly. There are no dreams they are able to share together, but he has decided to dream again despite what seems like a hopeless future together for them. He dreams of playing golf and enjoying the beauty of nature as he plays. He recently purchased a second home, a small condominium on a lake in a golf community, where he can get away and go enjoy a round of golf.  It was one way to invest some money, as well as to provide some needed respite.

Can you go ahead and dream without the worry about whether you’ll see the dream fulfilled? Could you allow the dream to carry you through any present difficulty you may be experiencing? Who knows, maybe dreams can come true, even in ways you never expected! And if they don’t come true, at least you have enjoyed the wonderful gift of imagination.

A Fifty-Point Edsel

 

1959.  It was a hot summer, good for porch sitting.  We didn’t have a front porch at our house, but it was just a few steps next door to Grandma Benfield’s front porch.  It was shaded by a big Chinese Elm in front and multi-blossoming roses on one end and a glider swing on the other end of the porch.  In between were metal rockers and a lawn chair or two. There was a magnolia tree in the yard, as well, and the sweet, lemony scent of its blossoms hung heavy over the porch.

On some afternoons and weekends my cousin Terry and I, and maybe a couple uncles and aunts, would do some porch sitting with Grandma.  If the adults got tired of talking about the rapture and how the dead would rise in the second coming, we’d just sit and watch the traffic on Connelly Springs Road in front of the house.  Terry and I usually had a contest.  In a thirty-minute period we could count points determined by the type car we could identify.  The first one to call the car would get the point if he was correct.  If not, the point went to the other person if he could correctly name the model and make.

Chevrolets and Fords of any make or model counted one point each.  Dodges and Plymouths were two points.  Chryslers counted three; Lincolns four; and Cadillacs five.  We didn’t have many Japanese cars back then, but I faintly recall a two or three for them.  Studebakers and Nash Ramblers were a ten, for sure, as was a Jeep.  But the biggest catch of all was an Edsel with its horse collar grill and chrome trim.  The Edsel was a fifty-pointer, with a five-point bonus if it was a pink or coral color, which we thought was rather odd, but worthy of bonus points.

I’m not sure exactly what we did with our points when we got them, other than claim bragging rights.  When dark came to the porch we’d have to stop our car-counting contest and chase a few lighting bugs.  And if we were lucky, Grandma would offer us a Grape “dope,” which was her word for a carbonated soda.  She didn’t offer the “dopes” all that often, but when she did it was even better than spotting a fifty-point Edsel with bonus points.

We eagerly received the sodas and I said a prayer that God would hold off on the rapture business until I spotted an Edsel, or at least until I finished drinking my “dope.”

 

 

When Childhood Dreams Come True

It was 1957 and Mrs. Parlier's fourth grade class was busy studying geography. We kept our books in the cubby of the desk in front of our old, fold-down seats.  It was time to spend a whole week studying South America, and I pulled out a good, used geography book in which the country of Ecuador was described with black and white photos of llamas on the hillside. As Mrs. Parlier sipped her bottle of ice-cold Coke discreetly covered by a paper napkin, the class read the next chapter on the Incans and prepared for a pop quiz at the end of the chapter and after Mrs. Parlier had finished her Coke.

The pictures in that geography book came to mind a few decades later as I lived in the Andes for a number of years.  As I sat in the living room of our Quito home just around the block from a soccer stadium named for Incan chief Atahualpa, I reflected on my daydream of someday seeing those Andean llamas grazing on the hillside.  In our years there, I became aware that my dreams of childhood had come true. I saw hundreds of llamas and as many hillsides.  I found myself somehow living into that geography book and the black and white photos which had become present and living-color realities.

In that fourth-grade year, I was also cast in a Vacation Bible School program as an “aviation missionary.” I can remember only the first line, “I am a flying missionary…”   My sister and brother laughed at that line because my ears stuck out like wings, always a physical feature about which I was self-conscious!

I thought about that type-casting when I was flying in the 1980’s over Andean mountains, often to extremely remote places, as part of my job as administrative president of the Ecuador mission of our denomination.

From my vantage now as a septuagenarian, I wonder if those fourth-grade dreams were premonitions of a future already envisioned by the Divine, or merely childhood dreams which happened to coincide with decisions I made later in life.  I wonder if those dreams and their recall affected my decisions to be who I am and go where I have gone. To what extent was Providence a part of all I have been and done?  Did those teachers really believe that the study of geography and missions might shape the future of their students?

I am not sure of the answer to those questions, and I don’t really need to know.  What I do know is that I am grateful to Mrs. Parlier and to those VBS teachers who might have seen in me something more than a skinny fourth grader with protruding ears.

Lordy, Lordy, Yonder Comes A Cloud

 

The clouds sneak up quickly here in the Hominy Valley.  The sky can be blue dotted with cumulus clouds, then in an instant the dark clouds and showers can roll over the peaks of Cold Mountain and Mount Pisgah like an invading army of water with loud artillery blasts. The shower and distant thunder are beginning their march right now. The clouds darken and I am transported in time to the 1950’s when we lived next door to Grandmas.

The fear of thunderstorms runs deep on my mother’s side of the family.  When the clouds began gathering, Mama would announce, “Lordy, Lordy, yonder comes a cloud,” and grab me by the hand fleeing next door to Grandma’s big house, where supposedly we would be safer in the coming storm.  Maybe it was because Grandma’s house had an upstairs to run to in case the floods came (which never happened on Cajah’s Mountain, where I grew up). Mama said you can’t hear the thunder as much in a two-story house. I wonder if it was because being with Grandma gave her a sense of security. 

Grandma always seemed glad to see us when the storms came. It’s as if she enjoyed the excitement of a thunderstorm with company.  “It won’t hurt you, Denny, if you don’t get in a draft or go outside!” So we sheltered safely in a stuffy room with doors and windows well closed and lights turned off to avoid the lightening “running in.”

“This one’s about to pass over,” I can hear her saying. 

Just as we thought we were safe, Grandma, the unofficial meteorologist of the family, would announce that this one was “a circular storm.”   That meant the cloud was not finished with us yet.  It was, according to Grandma, “circling for a second storm,” as if it were an invading army surrounding the innocents of the village below with repeated attacks. So, it appeared we were destined to stay another while in the hot, stuffy room that smelled of Ben Gay and Grandma’s chihuahau, Judy.

Finally, after what seemed years of incarceration, I became excited by rays of light coming past the edges of the closed shades.  “Look! The sun is out,” I shouted, “We can go home now!”   Grandma rose gingerly from her rocker and opened the shade just enough to peer outside.

With all her meteorological authority she announced, “Lordy, Lordy, yonder comes another cloud.  This is going to be big ‘un!”

 

Muffins to Cry Over

My wife is the most gracious person I know.  Really, I am not saying that to get back into her good graces, although I probably need to. She is the type person who takes in stray dogs and nurses them to health.  One time at our home in Quito we could count ten adopted strays.  Actually, there were only two to begin with, Blanca and Laddie, then Blanca and Laddie parented a litter of eight! It was great fun for our four-year-old daughter as she dressed the puppies in crocheted sweaters and hats intended for her dolls. Those dogs were well cared for and became great pets for some folks in Quito, all thanks to my wife’s gracious spirit and willingness to care. But, that’s another story for another day.

Today she baked some delicious muffins.  I grabbed one quickly because I knew that the two dozen muffins would probably be destined for the door of a new neighbor, or a mother who had given birth, or to someone who needed a word of encouragement. 

When she starts baking in mass I usually ask, "who died?" We have a deep freezer that creaks like the lid of an old coffin when opened. There we normally keep our death stash of frozen baked items for such sad occasions, but we had used up most of it during the recent pandemic. To be fair, the freezer also stores food for happy occasions, like births and baptisms and such. This time those delicious cranberry nut muffins were for a neighbor we had yet to meet as she had just moved across the street yesterday. “Do you really need to give away a whole dozen?” I selfishly asked.

Betsy returned after about half an hour with tears in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” imagining that she might have encountered some rudeness or misunderstanding.  You never know when you are making a cold call at the door what you will find.

  “Our new neighbor saw me at the door and immediately started crying,” she said with tears in her own eyes.  It seems that this neighbor’s husband had died unexpectedly just a few weeks ago and this was her first day alone in her new residence. Her children all lived out of the area and she was obviously in the throes of grief.

After hearing this story, I felt some pangs of guilt at having complained about watching so many muffins disappear from our house. I wish I hadn’t eaten the one muffin I did (but it was delicious, even with the guilt).

 I also felt a sense of pride in my wife who merely wanted to welcome a new neighbor and became a caring friend offering muffins and tears of sympathy.