I will give you wasp

This photograph, from an old derelict church along Suwannee Valley Road, now torn down, shows a poorly wrought painting of Jesus, with the words above in the banner scroll, "Come Unto Me", a reference from Matthew 11:28 where Jesus says, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."
As if in a mocking manner, the dirt daubers had built a nest right over the face of Jesus. It spoke to me. In most of my spiritual life, what I have received was not rest, but wasps.
We were told this world is not our home, that we were to look for a heavenly one. Thus, by inference, anything here was of lesser value and worth. The things of this world were to be shunned, as sinful, as of the flesh, worldy, devilish.
Art, why that is idolatry, a graven image, putting something before God. Music and literature as well. If it did not fall under the narrow confines of the defined, it was to be shunned. We poked fun at the Amish and Mennonites who took this other worldliness to the extreme, but we autere Baptists and Methodists were equally to blame.
In the quest for the upper story, we learn not to appreciate the lower story in which we lived.
The fellow brothers and sisters we were called to love, when we fell out in disagreement over the color of the altar cloth, or the pew styles, we parted to form a church of the Shaker style pew, to our own liking, shunning those who remained in the pew of a lesser color.
We said that we loved God and our fellow men above ourselves, but in practice, we didn't. We loved our image. Our way. The highway was for the wanderers, the strangers, the blind, the halt, the ones who could not see our way.
Comfortable and proud in our Shaker style pews, we listened to the preacher of our own choosing, preach a sermon that spoke only to us. We could see the world out there, for we did not like stained glass, we took of our grape juice communion, for we dared not inbibe wine, we pulled all icons from our white walls, for that was idolatry, a graven image, we sang the honky tonk southern style, for the chant was boring, high churchy, and we could not get to the benediction soon enough, for how quickly the Olive Garden filled on Sundays with those fortunate to abide by the clock upon the back wall.
And so the sting of wasps was what we got.

Round and around

Will I make it around for another revolution of the mill? To crush the cane, to extract the juice, to boil down into syrup, to bottle and sit upon a shelf?
It seems I shall not even make it through this October of family birthdays, the almost weekly reminder from the cakes full of candles that life has passed by many of family, that the revolutions for others are winding down, the mill hard laboring to squeeze the remaining juice from them.
And still we circle, drawing upon some courage, some hope out there, that there shall be a good end to all the circling.
From this once tight circle we have family flung all over, scattered as the pummy pile high with the bees hovering over them. It seems almost an impossible task to recover them, once squeezed beyond recognition. We can only pray that someday, the circle will again close in upon us all and we shall again, drink of the sweet juice, gathered around the old mill.

Williston United Methodist 70's Sunday School

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh Kentucky

This time last year we were in Kentucky! How I miss those bluegrass fields with the grazing horses, the neatly painted white fences, the irratic stone slave fences, the narrow winding lanes through all this wonderful countryside.
Oh that I were a man of means and I could afford the luxury of having a place near Lexington, where I could spend the fall and winters, affording to attend a few UK basketball games, going over to Asbury in Wilmore for the revivals and campus life activities, staying a few days at Shaker Village of Mount Pleasant, etc.
But I am not a man of any means, only a man who dreams.

Misawa, Japan

We can only assume at this point that Amber and Nathaniel went to Japan to the Misawa Air Force Base with Landon. Nikki let us know today that he showed up on the Air Force World Wide Web. She said that she has his phone, email, etc.
Cannot begin to convey how our hearts sunk when we learned it was so far away, that Misawa is a family base, meaning family usually goes, and that it could be for three years.
Little Nathaniel will be six or so if we ever get to see him again. It is doubtful Meme will ever see him again. For that matter, I do not even hold out hope that I shall.

Forever Orbiting

 

Falling Creek

Early view of Falling Creek Methodist before the addition of the porch for wheelchair access on the left, the monument by the left front door, the sidewalk over to the restrooms and sunday school building off to the right. I liked it better before the "fall".
It is now called a community church, pastored by a retired Methodist ministress Cheryl Pringle, who ministered at Falling Creek when it was on the Methodist circuit of small country churches.

Go down Moses

 

 

the turning away

 

The Select Like

Recently it was pointed out to me that none of my friends from the former church we attended ever comment on anything you post on Facebook anymore. I  said that I knew that. There was a time when we were a part of that fellowship that they would. The photographs were lovely, the poems even liked at times. At what point in this process did all this cease?
It is the interesting aspect of our walk that Facebook reveals, that even though we are brothers and sisters I assume, even though we have chosen differing paths, we say through our silence that we are not. I am like the crazy Uncle Si who says things that are not always so nice or correct. Is that a reason to no longer consider me a part of the family?
It is a great sorrow that one of my own family members has totally blocked us from their lives.
The crime we committed is certainly not equal to the sentence. We cannot even ask forgiveness.
I have said many things I wish I could take back. I can only say again, forgive me.
In the future, I will make an effort to like my friends posts from former churches who still have me on their Facebook list of friends.
I would like to add that the new radio station(90.1) WPTG has been a  blessing, especially the singing of Lani. Keep up the good work. You are loved.

The sacred wind

Working from the old XP computer, I cannot get the facebook or smug mug transfer button to install. All I can do is send the photographs on this laptop to the blogspot. This is the old pump organ that was in the first church my father ministered at the Berry Methodist Church in northern Kentucky. My sister, who had her 61st birthday on the 14th, was born in Lexington while my father was a ministerial student at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore and student preaching at Berry and Boyd. She, my mother, whose birthday was October 5th, could all play the organ. My father by ear, my mother and sister by note. My father, the Rev Luther Ray Stokes of Homewood, Mississippi passed away in March of 2011. His birthday is tomorrow, October 16th.
The organ has been one of the constant furniture pieces my entire life. It now resides in my sisters living room in Lake City, where we all now live except our younger brother Lewis, who lives in Gainesville. When I was but a little toddler in Sopchoppy, I punched the red velvet covering from the plate below the keyboard.
I think it was Lewis who punched out the filigree later, my father painstakingly replacing it.
It still pumps and plays. Tomorrow perhaps I shall have to visit my sisters house and pump a low note or two, trying to replicate my fathers deep gusto singing.

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