Amen, er, Goodbye

Another priceless phone message from Chandler Brown. He and Tammy had taken my cell phone with them to the store...

Read it over again to me

If you follow more than one blog I hope you are using Google Reader or something similar to bring order from the chaos and prevent yourself from missing anything important. I guess you can consider this picture a shout out to the folks I'm reading right now.

Is that me?

My mom and her husband Ken are in town for a few days and our friend (and my business partner) Terri Russell kindly hosted a little get-together at her home for some church friends who have missed Mom since she moved to Tx.

I don't know who the gray-headed guy is with my family but I intend to find out. Also, you'll see Cameron sitting on the knee of our new pastor. All three kids have completely fallen for Pastor Randy and tonight as they were leaving, Cameron had actually climbed up in the vehicle to go home with them and was very upset to be eventually left behind.

IntroChurchSpection

I've been thinking a lot recently about my church (local and denomination) and contemplating whether there is anything unique or different that we bring to the table that would make it matter whether a sinner walks through our door or into the church down the street. I joke with a friend that we are "W.I.N.O.s" "Wesleyans In Name Only."

Anyway I just ran across this article that I will be printing and rereading regularly for a while because it hits so close to what is going on in the church today in many or most denominations, and specifically things that trouble me. It happens to specifically address the Wesleyan Church, but if you are of another variety, just stick that "label" in there and see if this doesn't convict a little.

The Church as Redemptive Agent, by Dr. Tom McCall

It just happens that Tom and I were Assistant Deans together in the Men's Dorm at H.S.B.C. in the early `90's. Needless to say, I'm extremely proud of what Tom has accomplished to this point in his life.

We're So Proud

Yes! So proud that our little China Grove in Southern Rowan County has made the national news and even the Drudge Report!

While I'm covering China Grove, here is a picture of the illustrious town council. The councilman third from the right is our current youth/associate pastor, Rev. Blair Lyseski.

Father's Day Pix

Amazing Grace - Wintley Phipps

Heart Warming

Catch and Release

I saw this little guy crossing the main road in our subdivision on my way home today. I put it in a bucket to bring for the kids to see. We let it loose in their kiddie pool for a few moments inspection and then released it into our woods.

Peter and the "Woot"

Our kid's, especially Cameron (age 2) love this CD. It is the classic symphony, Peter and the Wolf, but it also includes a "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" that introduces each instrument and tells what animal or character each instrument represents.

Cameron has gotten to where he recognizes all the instrument/characters and when the wolf instument begins to play, he exclaims, "the Woot!

The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc

The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc

President Ronald Reagan

(June 6, 1984 Normandy, France)

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here, in Normandy, the rescue began. Here, the Allies stood and fought against tyranny, in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them here. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life and left the vivid air singed with your honor."

I think I know what you may be thinking right now -- thinking "we were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day." Well, everyone was. You remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren't. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of bullets into the ground around him.

Lord Lovat was with him -- Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, "Sorry, I'm a few minutes late," as if he'd been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he'd just come form the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.

There was the impossible valor of the Poles who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold, and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.

All of these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore; The Royal Winniped Rifles, Poland's 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England's armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard's "Matchbox Fleet," and you, the American Rangers.

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought -- or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 am., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do. Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together. There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the Atlantic alliance -- a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.

In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They're still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost forty years after the war. Because of this, allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.

It's fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II: 20 million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.

We will pray forever that someday that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We're bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their valor and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

Mike Huckabee on Evolution and the GOP Debate 6/5/2007

Monster Trucks

DSCN1351
Originally uploaded by w2wkb

Chandler has checked out a library video about monster trucks a number of times. This monster was parked in front of the Firestone tire store so we stopped in on the way to take Grandma home from church. (Pastor Randy Addison's first Sunday at our church. Yeah!)

Sunday Ritual

DSCN1347
Originally uploaded by w2wkb

This is where Cameron wants to be every Sunday after church (on Papaw's lap.) We attend a different church than Dad and Lois so we typically meet at their house for lunch.

Cameron and Dad will eventually end up in the recliner watching Veggietales' "Lord of the Beans." The Oreo residue on Cameron's face is a familiar sight at Grandpa's as well.

btw, That's Playdoh on the bottom of Cameron's shoe, just discovered today.