Milk, bread, and eggs—if they appeared as a category in Jeopardy anyone who grew up in the South would immediately supply the winning answer, “Things to buy to be ready for a snowstorm!”  If there were any uncertainty as to the validity of the answer just make a trip to the grocery store in the LATE stage of preparedness for a snowstorm—you know, twelve hours or so before the first flake falls—and you’ll have tangible evidence—empty shelves of bread, empty cooler space where milk used to be, open shelves containing nothing more than cartons filled with cracked eggs rejected by first and second-stage-preparedness shoppers!

Faith has much to say to us about being prepared.  I had a college friend whose favorite category with regard to faith was the “readiness” topic—being ready for the Second Coming of Christ. I admit, however, that at the time it was not my favorite category.  His language of gloom and doom sent shivers down my spine and made me want to pull the covers over my head in bed so as to be totally oblivious to his end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenarios.

After all, I was a young adult.  The picture of my life that I saw in my head was one of meeting the right—Wright man (pun intended)—getting married, having children, enjoying life together, loving God, loving one another, loving people in the world around me.

Thanks be to God!  That picture became a reality for me.  And in my senior years I am learning to say, “Hey, preparedness is a good thing, and it doesn’t have to be gloom and doom!”  Instead,  preparedness can be about leaning into the plan that God has made for each one of us since the beginning of time.  It can be about that sense that as God peers into our lives He finds us loving one another, caring for one another, and enjoying the life He has provided.

I’ll keep going to the grocery store to buy milk and bread and eggs each time a snowstorm is in the forecast.  After all, I am a true southerner!  I don’t know how to prepare in any other way.  But as I prepare for end-times or for the end of my time on this earth, I will love my life, love the people around me, and, despite mistakes I have made along the way, I will relish hearing the voice of a gracious God saying, “Well, done, good and faithful servant!”  Thanks be to God I no longer have to pull the covers over my head in bed! 

My dad worked in a factory all of his life.  When it was time to buy clothes or shoes for my brother and me, my parents had to plan those purchases very carefully because money was never in abundance.  The clothes I wore were made by my mother—an effort that saved my parents tremendous amounts of money.  Often the fabric used for my outfits was left over from garments made for other people as my mother worked at home sewing for a little extra money.  Other times the fabric was recycled from sacks of flour purchased at the grocery store. 

But one dress from my childhood stands out among all the others I ever wore!  I remember it in vivid detail.  The fabric was baby blue.  It had a Peter-Pan collar with handmade lace on the edge.  All across the front was pink smocking that I thought to be the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  My grandmother had smocked the dress, and my mother did the sewing. 

That new dress made me feel like a million dollars.  Every time I wore it I marveled at the beauty of the blue fabric and the wonderful design stitched in pink across the front.  Every time I wore it I felt there was something new and something special about me as well!

In just days’ times we will be standing at the door of a new year!  It is a time that prods us to look backward in our lives, to review the year 2016.  What was there that was good, that bears repeating?  Where did we invest ourselves in good and productive ways?  What are the things we did that were pleasing to God?

Where, on the other hand, are the areas where we would desire change—something new?  Maybe we feel stuck in some ways—stuck in a job that’s unrewarding, stuck in doing the same things over and over again.  Maybe we desire some new and fulfilling relationships in our lives.  Maybe as we look backward in time we realize the miss-spent energy we invested—the same arguments, the same destructive patterns of relationships in our lives.

As we face the new year may we remember that God is there for us to strengthen us and to give us guidance and wisdom for living.  In John’s revelation—Revelation 21:5—we hear the words, “Behold, I make all things new.”

So often as we try to do things all on our own we will struggle.  We will stay stuck in negative patterns of relationship.  We will look in all the wrong directions for fulfilling jobs or for  new and positive relationships in life.  But with God’s help we can discover the “new” that He has in store for us.  Thanks be to God for a new year placed in front of us.  May we discover all the joy and promise that it can provide!

I am fascinated with wood carvers.  When I look at a piece of wood I see a piece of wood, but a master carver can look at a piece of wood and see the item that it can become.

Many of us have stopped by the side of the road on a trip to the North Georgia mountains to see the work of a carver whose tool of the trade is a chain saw.  If we are lucky we actually get to see this work in progress.

The canvas is a huge log—roughly chopped and standing on end.  The master carver pulls the cord on his high-decibel chain saw and sets to work.  Like Edward Scissorhands he maneuvers the implement of his trade, all the while shavings blowing in every direction.

Observers stand nearby talking among themselves.  Sometimes they make guesses as to what will emerge from the artist’s canvas.  They look at previously created works and wonder, “Is he making another bear?  A moose?  A totem pole?”

Under the skillful touch of the artist’s hands the desired shape begins to emerge.  With wonder and delight the onlookers begin to clap.  The eagle appears to have been set free from the cumbersome log.  The shavings have flown into the wind like chaff, and in the process the eagle’s wings appear ready to take flight, to glide in the breeze and soar to the heights.

In this season of Advent the theme of carving can be tremendously important—important both in the sense of ourselves as carvers but God being a carver as well.  We are busy—so busy with all the parties and tasks of the season that it is often hard to find a moment in time for God.  Maybe today, as we move toward the fourth Sunday of Advent, we can picture ourselves—chainsaw in hand, working with relentless speed and dexterity toward carving out time for God. 

And in those quiet moments—in that time alone with God—maybe we can picture God, the Master Carver.  May we see him at work chipping away the chaff, the things in our lives that weigh us down.  May we see the picture beginning to emerge.  May we see ourselves as eagles, wings perched, ready to glide in the breeze and to soar to heights we never imagined.

As families gather together for holidays and various celebrations inevitably “treasures” come our way that we will never forget.  One of those happened this past week as my three children, their spouses, and our eleven grandchildren came for Thanksgiving.

Sleeping arrangements for Thanksgiving night were under discussion.  The six adults—children and their spouses—opted for locations OTHER THAN the high-decibel climate of the church parsonage where MaMaw, Granddaddy, and nine of the eleven grandchildren would try to settle down for rest and perhaps even a little shut-eye!

Lily Mae, our youngest, decided to protest the arrangement as soon as the announcement came that it was time for bed.  But wanting to avoid disturbing Mom and Dad and causing them to have to make a return trip to the parsonage to retrieve the youngest of the lot, the older sisters did some quick thinking.  It seemed to them in the moment that all Lily Mae needed was some logical reason why her mother was noticeably absent and some reassurance of her quick return.

“Mommy’s gone out to get doughnuts,” they said.  Lily Mae bought the explanation hook, line, and sinker.  While it may not be the best thing in the world to have Mommy out of sight, a two-year-old can console herself with the promise of a sweet reunion in the near future as well as with the promise of a favorite literal bit of sweetness!

The nodding off to sleep was a bit touch-and go, but the watching of favorite cartoons from a soft spot on the pull-out sofa nestled between two caring sisters soon lulled the two-year old into the much-needed shut-eye!  The next day Mommy returned just as promised.   Mommy—after some prompts from the grandparents of the necessity of not coming home empty-handed—arrived doughnuts in hand!

Lily Mae had resisted any encouragement toward eggs for breakfast.  Instead she held out for her doughnut!  Her eyes lighted up like high-beam headlights as Mommy brought the boxes into the house.  She gobbled the first one down, announced to her parents that it was all gone.  Then she asked for another one of the sweet convections!  Her mother hesitated and told her to ask her father—just what any thinking parent would do!

Lily Mae tried again.  “More pwease,” she said in her best pleading, two-year-old voice!  Then, as if for emphasis, she formed her two hands into circles made with the index fingers meeting the thumbs and then tapped the two circles together.  The gesture was one taught to her even before language could develop.  “More!”  said her two hands as the finger-circles tapped one another.

It's the time of year for more—more sweetness, more graciousness, more goodness, more peace, more of the sitting in the presence of a Christ Child born in a manger.  Thank God we never have to plead or to beg.  We don’t have to scream or gesture with finger circles.  Instead God is there for the asking—there to grant us infinite numbers of opportunities to encounter the Christ Child!

God calls the prophet Haggai to speak to the “remnant”—those who have been taken into captivity in Babylon but who now are able to return.  The remnant—the small band of the people of God must have been daunted by the task to which God was calling them—rebuilding the temple and restoring it to its former glory.

As a child I heard the word, “remnant” often, but it was used in connection with fabric—scraps left over from my mother’s dressmaking endeavors for sewing customers.  Some would consider them worthless—ready for the trash—but mother saw their value and crafted them into the clothes that I wore.  But even after making my clothes there were leftover remnants though smaller still.  These my mother turned over to my grandmother for use in the quilts she made.

I can remember lying in bed at night under the weight of quilts.  When I couldn’t immediately go to sleep I turned my attention to quilt squares and tried to remember the original garments from which the squares were cut.  I could label them—grandmother’s dress, granddaddy’s shirt, mother’s skirt!  It was truly amazing—these tiny scraps that were now woven into a beautiful whole.

I am thankful to a God who speaks to the remnant—to people who sometimes consider themselves as too few in number or resources—to make an impact.  I am thankful God calls us to bring who we are and what we have and to trust him to make something amazing from it all.  I am thankful to God who cherishes each one of us—a God who never throws anyone away or casts them aside—but rather loves them into the kingdom!  I am thankful for a God whose work always is toward weaving us into a beautiful whole!

Grandma Holland—my Mom’s mom—could pour the warm water over my hair with a cup in a magical way so as not to get a drop of shampoo in my eyes!  I always wanted her to be the one to perform the shampoo job after a long day of play.  Grandpa Holland could take his pocket knife and use it to form a perfect spiral of peelings as he prepared apples for my brother, me, and our cousins as we waited patiently in line.  I vowed that one day I’d be just like him!  I would be able to keep the spiral going from the apple’s top to the apple’s bottom with never a gap in the continuous peeling.  Grandma Biggerstaff—my Dad’s mom—could always manage to have the best pies and baked goods ready to serve us even though we most times showed up unannounced for visits.  She made “stickies” when my brother and I went over to spend the night.  They were delights of rolled up dough stuffed with brown sugar and butter, cut into rolls, and baked in the oven.  I vowed I would make them for my own grandchildren one day.  So far I haven’t!  Grandpa Biggerstaff was an amazingly quiet man who had the kindest, gentlest spirit you would ever want to find in a man.  I remember him for taking the daily shopping list in hand as my grandmother produced it and dutifully driving to the nearby country store to get the things needed for her to cook.  I rarely saw my mother without fabric in hand working at the sewing machine or without scissors and thread and thimble for doing hand-sewing as she sat in her rocker watching “Love of Life.”   Her life had held much tragedy, including the early death of my father; yet, she never lost her love for life.  I will always remember my step-father who came along to fill the loneliness, the void, left in my mother’s life, but more than that I will cherish the man who so readily took on two of another man’s preschool children to raise all the way to adulthood.  I will remember aunts and uncles and church members from our tiny country church, all of whom had a part in helping to encourage my brother and me and to help us become the adults we ultimately became.

We can all tell such stories—stories about people who were important to us, people who nurtured us and brought us up in the life of faith.  The Christian faith takes seriously the lived heritage in faith.  It celebrates the lives of people who have gone before us in faith, who now are residents in heaven.  And although we need to give thanks for these folks every day of our lives and celebrate their contributions to our lives and to the lives of people around us EVERY day, the church established November1 as All Saints Day.  Most churches observe the day on the first Sunday in November.  May we all spend time this week as we approach All Saints Sunday to recall specific stories of saints who have been important to us.  May we thank God for how these stories—the witness of these folks—have woven themselves into our lives much like the seamstress takes the individual pieces of fabric to form a beautiful garment!  The song, “For All the Saints” expresses well our praise and thanksgiving, “For all the saints, who from their labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed. Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.  Alleluia! Alleluia!”

Folks who visit my office catch on fairly quickly to the fact that I love giraffes.  I have a giraffe batik for the wall.  I have a giraffe from Haiti, a gift from a church member’s mission trip.  I have a cloisonné giraffe from China, a gift from my daughter’s college trip abroad.  Many are carved out of wood and come from Africa; another is made from compressed pecan shells.  I have picture frames that feature giraffes and plates with artists’ renderings of giraffes.  Perhaps my most unusual giraffe object is a drawing of a church I served.  It was their parting gift to me—a beautiful realistic view of the church featuring an inset of a rock wall that surrounded the property with actual children from the church of that day sitting on the wall.  But surprisingly, guess what shows up on the church lawn—well, giraffes, of course!

So why so many giraffes?  Why the interest in giraffes?

I love their beautiful coat.  They look as though a thoughtful, creative painter gave each his/her one-of-a-kind coat!  (Yes, that thoughtful, creative painter would be God!)  I love how their long necks enable them to reach for food all other animals might miss.  (Yes, they see the world of possibility many others might miss!)  But most of all I like the graceful way that they move about on their long, lanky legs with heads in the clouds.

               It’s not always easy to move about in graceful—or grace-filled—lives with heads in the clouds!  As human beings we are far more apt to get bogged down.  We get caught up in what someone says about us, and we allow those comments to destroy our day!  We allow criticism to determine how we feel about ourselves!  We are likely to take negative words and to wallow in the feelings they create for days—even months on end.

            By having one’s head in the clouds I don’t mean to suggest that we live our lives removed from reality and certainly not removed from the world of relationships.  Relationships give our lives meaning and purpose!  Neither do we need to be totally removed from criticism offered by others, for CONSTRUCTIVE criticism—criticism that is honest, fair, and offered in the right spirit—provides tremendous potential for us to learn and to grow.  But when we leave the world of CONSTRUCTIVE criticism and move into comments designed to hurt, to demoralize, and to destruct then we need to allow the giraffe to be our model.

            Our starting point can be the picture of the giraffe moving gracefully above the fray, its head stuck in the clouds seeing parts of life that others might miss.  Our starting point can be in prayer asking God for an experience of the grace-filled life that surely he intends for each one of us!

As I lay down to sleep I thought of each person and where each had sat on the bus on our trip to and from the North Georgia mountains.  I called each by name and prayed a prayer for each one.

When I awoke this morning I made coffee, sat down at the kitchen table, prepared to drink a cup, and in my hands were two books—my Bible and a book by an author that I know well.  It’s called, Mindful Morning, by David Dillard Wright.

David, my second son, is a Professor of Religion and Philosophy at University of South Carolina, Aiken.  He is concerned about “mindful” approaches to life, about our escaping from the stressors of everyday life even if only a few minutes a day.  He wants us to value and live into the full joy that God intends for each one of us. 

And so I read today a segment called “Exercise Your Mind.”  Exercise is not what you might think—not stretching and straining, not trying to solve a deep-rooted problem in the world or in personal life.  Instead “exercising the mind” insofar as this segment is concerned is about savoring moments, about recalling the beauty in nature experienced at another point in time and about allowing those moments—now past—to refresh and prepare for the day with a different sort of attitude and outlook than might otherwise be possible.

I recalled patches of sunflowers that stretched on in the fields for what seemed FOREVER!  I recalled blue mountains that popped up out of nowhere at the edge of the sky.  I felt the cool breeze as I gazed out at mountain peaks now at my fingertips.  I experienced the rush of the water off the mountain’s edge and marveled at its power and grandeur.  I reveled in the sounds of conversation and of laughter as friends enjoyed each other’s company.

I read Proverbs 3, verses 13-18:

            Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding,

           for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold. 

           She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her.

          Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor.

          Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

         She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her;

         those who hold her fast are called happy.

I had wrestled with myself about making the trip, gave myself those messages all of us give ourselves from time to time—“Too busy!  Too much to do!  Got to stay in the office and do agenda items!”  But sometimes wisdom teaches us to slow our paths, to feel the breeze, to hear the waterfall, to smell the flowers, to enjoy each other’s company, and at bedtime to pray for those with whom we’ve shared life during the day! 

            I grew up in Western North Carolina before the days of global warming.  By this time in September there were signs of fall everywhere!  The leaves were changing colors. The cool breezes were beginning to blow.  Our fall clothes were out of storage and hanging in our closets.  We went to Friday night high school football games with hats and gloves and coats, and if you were lucky a mug of Russian tea in hand to sip on and help provide warmth!

            I loved every ounce of change that we experienced!  Although summer had been fun and carefree I looked forward to all that fall encompassed—most especially the cool breezes.  They felt invigorating.  They created in me an energy that I did not feel all summer long in the midst of muggy heat.

            The Christian faith has much to say about the Holy Spirit within our lives.  It often uses imagery of wind or of breezes blowing to convey that activity.

            I love the imagery, and I love it when the people of God do not shy away from but rather welcome the movement of the spirit in our lives.  The spirit leads and guides and directs.  It speaks to us the still small messages that God most wants to convey.  It takes us down paths of service we would never have designed or perhaps even imagined for ourselves; yet, those paths are the ones that are the most fulfilling, that help us to grow to greater depths of faith, and that help us to be blessings to others.

            As the gentle breezes of fall begin to blow, I hope you will welcome them, enjoy the refreshment from summer’s heat.  I also hope that you will think about the wind of the Holy Spirit and that you will welcome it into your life, that you will follow its leading, and celebrate the good things that it brings to your life and to your ministry with others.