vacation – That… Which Matters Most

Destination: Boyd’s Jig & Reel

Driving across Tennessee in mid June, Heidi and I decided we wanted to find a place that had live music, away from the typical live-music venues. She found a pub in Knoxville: Boyd’s Jig & Reel. They had a Bluegrass jam session. I’ve never sat and listened to live Bluegrass before, so it sounded exciting.

And the night was exciting.

When we got downtown, we found a parking lot a block away from the pub and started figuring out how much money we needed to pay to be in the lot.

The cloud in the following picture loomed over us.

Before we could figure out the cost, the cloud let loose. It was what I call a “gully washer.” Everything was immediately soaked, and had we not hopped back in the car, we would have been as well.

Heidi asked: “do you want to skip it?”

“No way. We’re here! Let’s go.” I wasn’t going to let a gully washer get in the way of live music, and good food.

I got her poncho out of the back of the car and about that time, the gully washer was done. We were still wet, but it didn’t matter. We headed up the street in search of the pub.

We made it just fine. The crowd was light, the music was pretty good, and the fish ‘n chips were decent.

The only drawback was that I was freezing the entire time. The AC in the place was working fine. No complaints. It was worth it.

Day Four: Sermonizing on Prayer

This morning (Friday) I decided I would spend most of the day working on my sermon for Sunday. This meant that I would also be praying a lot, since the sermon is on prayer. Reading about prayer always inspires me to pray more than usual.

I noticed this truth years ago when I was reading through John Calvin’s Institutes of Christian Religion, the section on prayer. I believe it is in the beginning of Book III. Getting through that section took me longer than any other part of the book because I kept putting the book down in order to pray. It was a wonderful lesson to learn.

The sermon I’m working on is the second one from Matthew 6, which deals with the way hypocrites corrupt the religious practices of charity, prayer, and fasting. You can listen to the sermon on charity here. The hard part is actually honing in on the definition of what a hypocrite is, according to the Bible. I think I finally got close:

But before we jump to the two ways the hypocrites make prayer an abomination, let us think through what it means to be a hypocrite?

Some would say that a hypocrite is someone who believes one thing and does another, or does the opposite. But the definition biblically is one who is pretender, or a stage-actor. The person is performing in a role, as if they were in a Greek play. This if fine for a play, but not for things of the faith.

Hypocrisy, when it comes to the faith, is a problem. The hypocrites were pretending to be godly. It wasn’t so much that they were believing one thing, and doing another. They were not believing at all, and acting as though they did believe.

It is actually worse than one who believes in Christ, but then fails in an area of our faith. In fact, when we fail, we actually affirms the truth that we profess: we are saved by grace through faith, yet, we still stumble and fall into sin.’

This reality is not hypocrisy because we do have faith. When we fail and repent, we are restored. This is typical for the Christian. I’m not trying to belittle our failures, but to show that hypocrisy is much worse.

They hypocrites didn’t believe at all. There was no faith in them. There is no belief in God at all. They were and are performing as if they are in the faith, yet they lack faith all together.

Therefore, the audience and the praise they hope to gain, becomes their god. Their praise and attention they seek, is their god. When it comes down to it, they themselves are their god.

Hopefully you can see that hypocrisy is more than just failing to do what we believe. It is the absolute absence of belief, but pretending in belief for the praise of others, instead of the honor of our Father in heaven.

Day One: Summer Vacation

Today got off to a much better start than yesterday did, which is good, because today is the actual first day of summer vacation. There are roughly 60 days to go before returning to the grind of teaching full-time.

But enough of that negative talk. Today began grandly: coffee in the morning with Heidi, then taking her car over to our local mechanic for service. Nothing exciting there, but that fact that we were together, was enough.

Dropping off the car is actually where things got interesting. Danielle, the lady who is the cashier in charge of the books at Freddie Kish’s Automotive, also rescues homeless cats. She is the reason we already have two cats, Pericope, and Synecdoche. (See below). She finds homes for strays and betrayed kittens all across the county. Our two, Pericope and Synecdoche, were found abandoned in the trunk of a tree, and rescued. This caused them to be a bit stand offish when we first got them. After a year and half, they’ve warmed up to us.

But alas, back to Danielle. She was letting Heidi hold a beautiful little black male kitten… and … well… it looks like we are going to get a third cat in about six weeks. He has to grow beyond the bottle feeding that he is going through now. I would put my foot down and say “enough! we already have two cats.” But I couldn’t do that to Epitome… did I say we already named him?

We had to name him in keeping with the literary terms, and Epitome fit. We had Grok help us, but actually came up with Epitome on our own.

Once we dropped off the car, she decided she wanted to go to Atwood’s… for a dress. They sell farm and ranch stuff, along with clothes and chickens. She saw the chickens and said she wanted about 10 of them. Nope! I stood firm. Three cats will be enough… unless… well, let’s not go there. (I think I plan on not letting her around Danielle any more.)

The day was filled with other events:

A trip to Hobby Lobby for knobs, hooks, and paint. She wants me to add more hooks to the many we already have. A woman cannot have enough hooks!
Yard work: I cut the front yard in an attempt to thwart the local man who wonders around looking for an extra $40 by cutting my yard for me. He never does as good a job as I do.
Trying to save one of the bushes I planted two weeks ago after someone stepped on it.
Digging up grass that is in the wrong place. This is a full-time job.
And watching the first part of Band of Brothers in honor of Memorial Day.

I think this was a great first day. I pray that I have many more.

Wait, I also published two sermons on the church’s Substack, Waco Reformed Church.

The first sermon is Bless Those Who Curse You and focuses on Christ’s instructions on turning the other cheek.

The second was Do Not Sound a Trumpet, and deals with how we are to give charity to those in need, in view of the Father, and not what others think of us. The surprise in preaching this sermon is the realization that the Bible forbids giving to those who will not work. We are to give to those poor, who do not have enough. This is really quite a realization since so much of what is done in the name of charity gives to the sluggard and the lazy in our culture. That needs to stop. More on that later, perhaps.

Well… that is a great start to summer vacation.

This is Pericope, hiding from my amongst my commentaries.

Here is Synecdoche. As I looked for a picture for her, I realized I have very few of her. Pericope is obviously the family ham, or as some would say, the photo bomber.

Day Zero: Summer Vacation

Who knows if I will keep this up throughout the summer, but here goes.

Day Zero. Why Zero? Because it’s actually Memorial Day. Had school still been in session, we would have had the day off regardless. So Day 1 is tomorrow.

Day Zero started rather slowly as every Monday should, for one who is also a pastor. I’m never sharp on Mondays after preaching on Sundays. It’s an occupational hazard that I rejoice to have. But given that it was my first real day off in a while, I was full of hopeful expectations on getting started working in the yard, taking dominion of my little corner of Waco.

Hah! God had other plans. Like rain, and thunder, and lightning, and my wife asking me to go on a job with her as she shopped for one of her customers. That was actually the beginning of the redeeming of day, since I had no real energy in doing anything around the estate.

Estate? Yes, my tiny portion of Waco is my estate. It’s what the LORD has given me to take dominion over, and take care of. So I do. See the pictures of the hydrangeas.

But back to the day. The rain came and went, leaving 1.5 inches for the morning. More rain came in the afternoon, adding another 1/4 of inch, and it’s raining as I type this. I’m grateful. The estate needs the rain, and so do the ranchers and farmers in the area.

While out, Heidi bought some steaks for our dinner. Since we are on a diet that basically cuts out all carbs, we are left with veggies and protein, but protein without a lot of fat. That means: tenderloins. We’ve been exiting on them the past two week. She loves to make a marinade for them and soaks them all day, which is what you do with a marinade, so I am told. Then, she takes the marinade off the steaks, boils it down for a sauce, and we have the finest meal in the county, even though we just have baked veggies, salad, and the steak. It’s delightful.

The rest of the day was filled with reading the book: The Battle of the Labyrinth, by Rick Riordan. It is part of the Percy Jackson series, which is written for teenagers, and is the fourth book of the series. You might wonder why I am reading such a book. Let me tell you why.

I read great works of theology all the time. And great works of literature. I’m reading the Count of Monte Christo to Heidi, a habit we started years ago, where I read to her at night. As I read, she falls asleep after the first paragraph, and I have to re-read it again the next night. It started when I was reading through the Lord of the Rings again. It is one of those traditions that we love and it takes us a year or two to get through such great works.

But back to Percy Jackson. I started reading through Percy Jackson to my class back in November, and we would do it every day, working our way through the series. And yes, the students would fall asleep as I read to them. I never got on to them, since Heidi did the same. They said my voice puts them asleep, and I figured they needed the sleep. While reading it, I realized what an excellent writer Rick Riordan actually is. He’s gifted. He can tell a story. While my students didn’t get the finer points of Greek mythology, which the story is based upon, I did. I loved it.

In my class, we got through the first three books of the five. I wanted to finish the series and checked it out of our public library, with the hopes of reading it to them the last week of school. It didn’t work out. So, I’m reading it now. It’s an easy read, and what I need. As I said above, I read theology books all the time in keeping up with my studies for preaching. But that isn’t relaxing because I’m trying to learn it, digest it, and feed it back to my congregation. With Percy Jackson, there is none of that. Just read it and enjoy. So I do.

As for the rest of the day, it was filled with wonderful moments with Heidi, a wonderful dinner, a glass of Scotch in the garage while listening to the rain and thunder, and the joy of knowing I have many more days ahead of me before returning to the grind of another school year.

Our class calendar.

The important part…

Crisp Morning Air: Watauga River

I can still feel the crisp morning air as I looked out our back balcony over looking the Watauga River, and then out the front balcony, looking at the sunrise.