Vacation Fun 4: I Finally Go to Hell

Friday, we came home. Looking at our itinerary, we sought some place to visit briefly that would match our excursion into moth man territory. 

"What way should we take home?" I asked.

"Lets go to Hell," Joy said sweetly. 

By Hell,  she meant  Hell, Michigan.  It's a little town on the map,  south of Pinckney and west of Ann Arbor.  I saw it on the map a couple of years ago,  and looked it up on the internet.  Then I wrote a blog about it called "A Trip to Hell" '

Why not?  It was only ten minutes out of the way.  Besides,  so many people over the years have suggested that I go there, I figured it was time to pay Hell a visit, so we could claim to have been "to Hell and back." 

Hell is located on Darwin Road--no joke, it actually is.  The road to Hell is clearly marked and is paved with asphalt, not intentions.  Hell is tiny. There are really only three buildings there--a  cheesy little store  called Hell in a  Handbasket,  Screams Ice Cream parlor, and a restaurant overlooking an artificial lake called the Dam Site Inn.  There is also a wedding chapel, called the Church of Hell. The theory is that if a marriage begins in Hell, it is bound to get better.  There was Hell's playground for the kiddies.  The lake has a dam,  which I guess contained the floodgates of Hell.   There was a camping area,  where a hearse festival was held once a year, I think on Halloween.  There is a post office, where you can send postcards  that say "Wish you were here."  My favorite tee shirt said "Hell--it's still safer than Detroit."   We got our picture taken, bought a coffee mug saying   "Coffee from Hell"   and left. 

Seriously,  though,  it was all not as fun as I thought.  It was a cheap tourist attraction based on a single joke.  The people we saw who lived  there were sad looking, and reminded me of carneys. With the cartoon devils and skeletons everywhere,  the whole place gave the impression of a  bad  Halloween display. 

It's all great fun,  unless you believe in hell, which I do.  Hell is a real place.  It is one thing to capitalize on an unusual name, but this went beyond it. Real hell is no joke.  

Looking at this little place,  I remember we treat the name of Hell as an obscenity. An obscene word is not one that should never be mentions, but one that should be mentioned only when it is appropriate, and respectfully hidden otherwise.   When you talk about hell and Satan too often, or laugh about them too loudly,   it loses its power to shock and frighten.   This  little town tries to make a year round joke over the accidental name, and in doing so have reduced hell to a cheap joke.  

I must admit,  the thought of going through this little town was amusing, and we had a good laugh.  It amused waitresses on our way home when we showed off our pictures.  But I felt sorry for the people who were there. I would much rather see them more heavenly minded than hell-minded.   I would like to see Hell become a little less tawdry and forlorn place. 

Vacation Fun 3: A Magical Fourth

We left Michigan Friday July 5, but I have to tell you about the night of the 4th.

Joy and I went to our hotel early that evening, being exhausted by relatives and eating.  Then about ten o-clock  we heard distant, muffled explosions outside our fifth story motel window.  We pulled back the shades and looked out over the city of Grand Rapids.  Grand Rapids is not a skyscraper town.  It is a low-lying sprawl of commercial buildings houses, and churches.  A shopping mall and a movie theater was right in front of window.   The sun had faded and night had just begun. 

In our line of sight, from one side of the window to the others, were no less than seven fireworks displays going off at the same time. They were timed at different intervals,  so they lasted more than forty-five minutes. 

It was a magical sight. Though they would have looked more spectacular if they were closer,  the  horizon to horizon show more than made up for our distance. 

Some of the displays were small and close-either private or small displays from churches or businesses.  Others were massive, well-planned and elegant.  To the north,  was a magnificent show--precise, elegant bursts in carefully coordinated colors.  To the northwest bloomed a show over downtown,  the centers of government.  To the south was a  high and beautiful display which must have cost a small fortune .   The shopping mall  close by had its own display.

 It was as if the whole city came together to celebrate the Fourth.

This must have been how our founding fathers envisioned the Fourth of July--a  nation celebrating together.  Each display was independent,  but they celebrated together with common purpose and singular freedom,  like  jazz,  each instrument playing with the same chord, different notes,  creative and united,  individual, corporate, and joyous. 

Joy and I held hands as we watched.  It was like a good marriage, two coming together, yet remaining separate. I will never again see such a display in my life.

We held hands in the dark, looking out the window.  Then we went to bed, and thanked God for our three decades of harmony and improvisation.

Vacation Fun 2: Small World, Hun?

We got to Joy's family on Monday, and had a good time.  However, I noticed one odd thing about our conversations. 

Almost all of our conversations revolved around proving over and over again the same  point.  Our conversation can be summarized in one sentence. 

'It’s a small, world, huh!' 

Most of the conversation was about hooking together people, places and things  in unrelated places, and then being amazed at the connection, however tenuous.

Witness the following conversation:

'I met a man a the store last night.  He told me that he used to live in Charlotte, North Carolina,  where you guys live.  His name is Bob. Maybe you know him.   Small world, huh?"

'No, but Bob was my brother's nephew's middle  name.  Never met him, though,  I had heard  of him. Small world, huh?"

"Say, I had a brother, too.  He was named Wally.   He was  Presbyterian.    Small world, huh?"

"Really?  I once lived next to a Presbyterian church.  The pastor's name was  Sheider or Shnieider,  something like that.

Maybe you know him.  Small world, huh?"

"Can't say that I have. But I wonder if he's part of the family that makes  Shneider's Pretzels. I love those things.  I used to date a girl who ate Schneider pretzels. If you're interested in pretzels, I can get you her number.  Small world, huh?"

"Pretzels are German, I think.  One of our ancestors was German, too.  Small world, huh?"

"Really,  I once owned a German shepherd.   Small world, huh?"

. . . And so it goes. 

Oh, the pleasant days we have spent  proving over and over that it is a small, small world, finding connections between people over the smallest things.   

But really, the world is not so small. It's big and wide and full of strange, unrelated things.  Whenever I travel, I am not struck by the connections of life, but the infinite differences. No one person is completely like another.    No one sees the world the same as another.  We are as unique as snowflakes. 

Travel gives us the chance to see the endless variety of the world. No two barns are the same, no two trees are precisely alike.  We  can spend eternity describing the beauty of each leaf on a single tree.

We enjoy connections,  but even more the disconnections.  The more we know about the wonderful differences, the larger the world becomes.

Vacation Fun 1: The Moth Man Museum

My wife and I just returned from a long, short trip to visit Joy's relatives in Michigan--"short" in time, but  not distance.  It was sixteen hundred miles  for five days.   There's not much time for sightseeing on those fourteen hour drives.  So we try to break up the monotony however we can. 

On our northerly trip,  about midway was Point Pleasant, W. Va., on the Ohio River.  Now, Point Pleasant is a sleepy little river town on the Ohio River, with only one claim to fame--it is the home of the moth man.  The moth man is a local legend,  who  allegedly scared some people in 1969.  The moth man is over six feet tall with glowing  red eyes and great bat wings  (Think of Batman with a three day flu).  The next year, a local bridge collapsed--an event which was somehow predicted by  the arrival of the  moth man.  There have been at least two movies made on the moth man,  and he regularly shows up on those paranormal programs they show on the History Channel. There's  big silver statue of him in an intersection  downtown, and a small storefront museum. 

We had already seen the statue, but this time Joy and I decided to lunch in Point Pleasant and take in the moth man museum. Admission was three dollars each.  The whole thing could have fit in an old drug store--in fact, I think it did.  It was run by a bored-looking guy with a ponytail and a moth man tee shirt.   

Inside, among the tee shirts,  feed caps, and bumper stickers were mostly mannequin exhibits, dressed-up figures salvaged from an old  department store.  There was a mannequin in a gorilla suit with a  Halloween mask, bat cape and long fingernails, which represented the mysterious moth man; a mannequin dressed in a black suit,  sunglasses and hat,  one of the "Men in Black" who were supposed to have called on the witnesses later to threaten them into silences; and a  state trooper who was thrown in for no apparent reason. There were original handwritten testimonies by witnesses, props from one of the movies and autographs from the stars.  There were comic books and paintings of the beast, and cardboard cutouts used to disprove the moth man on  of the better History Channel shows.  There was also (again, for no good reason) an account of the first battle of the Revolutionary War fought there in 1774. Since the rest of the world believed the revolution began two years later, this did nothing to lend credence to the moth man. 

Joy and I toured it all in uncomprehending wonder.  What was the moth man? What could it be?  Could we get our three dollars back?  What were we doing here?

Let's answer the questions in reverse order.  We had no idea what we were doing there.  No, we could not get our three dollars back.  But as for the identity of the moth man, that remains a mystery for the ages. 

 After examining the evidence, we can see several possibilities. It may have been a cryptoid--an undiscovered animal like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster.  However, since we were in a heavily populated rural area, close to the original Bob Evans Country Restaurant, it seems unlikely - as unlikely as bumping into Sasquatch at the local Cracker Barrel Country Store.

Perhaps he was an alien from a UFO.  But why would such an alien choose to live at Point Pleasant, when he could go to Las Vegas or Los  Angeles and blend right in?  Here, he would stick out like an elephant in a cabbage patch. 

Of course, the museum offered an explanation as to why no one sees the moth man--mind control.  According to one theory, the moth man transmits a mind beam through his glowing eyes that makes people think of something else while they are looking straight at  him!  So, if you are not thinking of the moth man right now,  you may be under his evil mind controlling spell.

There is another explanation, that seems more likely.  They saw a hoot owl. It would explain the wings,  and the giant glowing eyes.   I believe that a hoot owl,  when magnified through the empty bottom of an empty Jack Daniels bottle,  would account for most of the scant actual evidence. 

Come to think of it, that empty bottle could explain a lot of unexplained phenomena. 
 

Pictures of my father

My father died last night,  after ninety years of life.  I will miss him,  but I will always carry pieces of him deep inside me.  It was not until his death,  that I realized what some of those pieces were. 

Five months ago on his ninetieth birthday,  my sister sent me a computer file of pictures of my father to incorporate into a slide show.  A few months later  I realized I had missed several folders of those files,  including pictures of his college and army years. 

It was an eye-opener. Dad was thirty when I was born.  Mostly I remembered him as a grey-haired and serious; world-weary and strong; honest, quiet, and upright.  I never saw him young until I looked through those pictures. 

They revealed a different side of my father--a goofy looking kid standing next to his uncle in worn, sepia photo, polishing a college car with his schoolmates,  and making hee-haw faces.  slouching outside a tent in World-War II next to his mess mates, looking young and small next to his bigger buddies,  looking like he had just stepped off the tractor--which he had.

There was one picture that particularly caught my eye. He was in his uniform,  arm on his knee, staring off into the distance, smiling confidently.  There was something arresting about his smile. He looked as though he was getting ready to take over the world--a strong, confident smile on his lips,  his low-lidded eyes staring off into the distance like a mariner about to sail around the world, full of hopes and dreams.  It was then I realized how much like my father I was s at that age, loaded with dreams, curiosity, and hope.

Dad served in the war, but he never saw combat.  He was training troops in Europe as a prelude to D-Day when he stepped on a stray bazooka shell, leaving him with shrapnel in his legs for the rest of his life, and two years  of his life spent in a hospital in England.  At one point they wanted to cut off his legs, but he fought back and went on to live a full, non-handicapped life. 

Dad came home to Hartwell Georgia, where he won the heart of the prettiest girl in town, his wife of sixty-three years.  They had two children, Debbie, and of course myself, Junior.  He gave us a stable home, paying our way through college, and providing us with  the best life we could ever want,  with great effort and expense.   Then,  when we got married and had children,  he lived in committed passion for his wife, his children, and his grandchildren. He was happiest when he was with us. He was saddest when any one of us had the least bit of trouble.  He lived his life for us, and we loved him for it. 

But these old pictures revealed something more,  particularly in that picture of him staring off into the distance. 

All his life, I believe Dad  wanted more.  He had the mind of a thinker, the heart of an explorer, the passion of a painter, and the soul of a hero.  He was a quiet,  powerful man, living an unnoticed life of quiet bravery.  But he wanted something more, for himself and his family.

Dad was a sharecroppers son, the first of his family to  go to college.  He  become a textile engineer.  Then,  taking an opportunity for advancement, he left Hartwell for a succession of better jobs--first in Williamston SC, then in Knoxville, Nashville,  Memphis, Birmingham, and Atlanta.  He went into the insurance business, then into sales, and finally in sales management. 

We hated moving. Being uprooted hurts, but it made us, in many ways. It helped us to see that following our dreams meant sacrificing our comfort for something else.  He taught us not to settle for the ordinary, but to look higher and better. He taught us by showing us.   

Dad was not a teacher. We learned by watching him and what he did.  He did not teach us much about God, but he lived for God.  He did not teach us to work hard, he just worked hard in front of us, and we learned to follow him.

I do not think that Dad achieved all he dreamed of in his youth (no one does), but  for a good reason. He gave himself so we could be who we are. 

Dad was not a teacher--but his daughter and granddaughters are.  He was not a preacher, but I am. I preach because of what he taught.  He was not a writer, but his son and grandchildren write books. He was not scientist, but his grandson is studying for it. 

Dad got to visit many parts of the world, but thanks to him, his children and grandchildren have stood upon every continent on earth.  He achieved a good life for himself and mother,  but his example and their sacrifice opened the door for their children to do more, be better, and rise higher than he did.  In the end,  I know that this is what Dad the proudest.

So how do we remember a man like Dad?  If we want to remember our father,  we don't do it by looking back at him, but by looking out into the distance,  looking forward.  My father never wanted to be an idol to be worshiped, but a foundation stone for all our lives.

We come from our parents--but we live for God. We come from our past--but we live for the future.  We remember my father  by living out his dreams, the way he lived out his,  in the choices we make, In the ideals we follow, and in the dreams which carry us on.

The Dangers of Thinking Big

Recently, I got a mailing from another church saying they were "transforming Charlotte for Christ."   I say "another" because it seems that I get something every other  week from one Christian group or another planning to transform Charlotte for Christ.  It would seem by now that one of them would have already transformed it.  No matter,  God bless their efforts--they are welcome to try.

Even so,  I can't think of a single city, large or small in the developed world where it could be said that a single church or group of churches have transformed it for Christ.  Overall, the churches today seem to have less impact on their cities than ever before.   Crusades and programs come and go,  yet the crime rate remains the same,  unwed pregnancies continue to rise,  abortion mills stay open,  porn shops and night clubs continue to flourish,  and  the total number of churchgoers remain pretty much the same,  shuffled between one megachurch or another.

I am not an expert on city transformation, but I can still speculate on some of the reasons why the churches' impact is so little felt.  

First,  there are preachers. Preachers are responsible for most church planning and promotion, and are usually the one declaring we should "transform Charlotte for Christ." But preachers (as everyone knows) are often notorious liars.  They don't lie about the Bible or the Gospel, but they do stretch the truth quite a bit about their own personal importance and influence. We make one timid convers and count it as a hundred.  We receive ten dissatisfied members from some other church which has just undergone a split, and tout it as if we had just broken the gates of hell. We forget that the world is impossibly big, and that one person or one church cannot win it alone, no matter how gifted or important we suppose ourselves to be. The only thing "city-wide" about most of us are our egos. 

Second, we forget that when the church seeks to transform the city, the city in turn will begin to transform the church.  It is a two way street.  As we gain more influential perches from which to proclaim our message,  the denizens of the city who are ever hungry for power and influence, will flock to us, hungry to use our influence for their own purposes.   Politicians visit the big churches.  Businessmen seek out networking opportunities,  promoters of causes and providers of services will flatter our egos,  worming their way onto church boards,  promising money and influence.  We kid ourselves into thinking we are exploiting these movers and shakers,  but all the time they are exploiting us.    As we grow in the city, we become like the city, indistinguishable in goals and standards from other  institutions around us.  

We preachers are susceptible to what Eugene Peterson likes to call "ecclesiastical pornography."  The dream of some ideal,  secure, and influential churches,  which is smoothly transforming people around us with our slick programs,  smooth preaching, and attractive members is just as sinful and misleading as the airbrushed babes of Playboy.   We lust after this with an unholy lust that causes us to forget the real, ordinary parishioners around us.  IN our quest for a city-transforming ministry,  we look after the big and dishonor the small.  For the sake of efficiency, we ignore the hurting in our own homes,  thinking them less important than the hurting downtown.  We speak prophetically to the big social issues, yet stay silent about the sins in our own house.  We condemn homosexuality, but encourage pride,  we condemn lust and leave gluttony alone,  we fight abortion, but keep silent about prayerlessness.  We become hollow, because we spend all our time on outer veneer, not  inner transformation.  We seek to transform the city, yet have forgotten to transform ourselves.

It's interesting to notice that while Paul--perhaps the greatest evangelist who ever lived--rarely mentioned evangelism in his letters to the churches.  He did not berate the Ephesians, for example, to go out and transform Ephesus.  Instead, he told them to seek Christ.  When they sought to be like Christ,  witnessing came with the package. Instead of making plans for world transformation, we should seek the transformation of our own souls. As we become like Jesus, we impact the world.  On the other hand, if we try to become like the world in order to reach it,  we will become less and less like Jesus. 

Again, I don't want to berate churches who feel called to impact cities for Christ.  I support their efforts.  It's just that I often feel we are spreading  grass seed when we should need to be planting oak trees.  We are making converts who, like grass, fade with the slightest heat,  when we should be establishing disciples with deep roots in the eternal Gospel, who will not fade in times of famine. It takes much longer, and is definitely less flashy to build a few praying Christians, but in the end, it is much more satisfying.