Pastor Nance

I, personally, have two pastors in my life. I have the pastor I had when I was a kid, who I still think of as my pastor. And I have my pastor/friend/mentor, appropriately named Paul, who has been helping me for years to find my way and be faithful in what I do. I love them both.

Unfortunately, we found out last night that the pastor of my youth, Willard Nance, has passed away. I have to admit it’s got me feeling pretty down. It’s sad to see him go, but he was very ill, very old, and it’s good to know his suffering is over. He had a stroke a few years ago, and he was incapacitated by it. I went to visit him a few times and he became frustrated and agitated because he couldn’t communicate clearly and we couldn’t understand him. It was miserable and it made me feel bad for him, but I couldn’t do anything about it.

I could write a book with memories of this pastor. We went to church a lot in those days. Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. Plus, eventually, youth group things with our youth leader, a guy named Gary. It was a big part of my childhood and teen years. I remember standing in the baptismal pool and being dunked by Pastor Nance. I remember going to a Holloween party in the church basement, and finding a creepy person in a mask that all the kids were standing around, trying to figure out who it was. It was driving us crazy, and it ended up being the last person we would have guessed. It was our pastor.

A pastor who wears creepy Holloween masks to spook the kids. Or, just a pastor who will wear a Holloween mask in the first place. That’s my role model. And he was a great role model. We KNEW he loved us.

And there was never any doubt about how Pastor Nance loved Jesus. He loved the Gospel. He knew what the word “grace” means because he believed so much grace had been poured out on him. I don’t know the details, but we heard glimpses of stories over the years about how he had struggled with substance abuse in his younger years. We knew that when he presented the Gospel, he was sharing something that was very personal for him. It mattered to him, so it mattered to us.

He never had a mega-church. He wasn’t asked to speak at conferences. He didn’t do a lot of big, impressive things in the eyes of the world. He was a working class, working man’s pastor, and I loved him for it. He was a great man, but not for the usual reasons people might bring up. He was a great man because he had a great love for Christ and he acted on that love. He served faithfully for years until he literally couldn’t stand anymore.

He is one of my heroes, and he will be greatly missed.


Peace to the family and friends of Willard Nance.

© LW Publishing 2011

Pay Attention

 I’ve been paying attention lately to how hard it is for me to pay attention because it’s come to my attention that I’m not very good at this. And, by “this” I mean really focused attention that catches details and remembers them

Bear with me: I was recently watching Star Wars Return of the Jedi, and there is this moment where Chewbacca, the big dog like guy, is swinging on a vine with a little Ewok creature and, while they are swinging, Chewbacca (or the Ewok) makes the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan YELL. If you don’t know what that is it’s okay because that’s not the point. The point is, I’ve seen this movie more times than is reasonable in any number of universes, but this was the first time I noticed this Tarzan thing. I mean, it’s meant as a cute joke, it’s really obvious, and it stands out like a sore thumb. I have seen it countless times and I NEVER noticed it before.

It seriously, seriously makes me wonder what else I’m missing. This “event” has me thinking about this attention thing. I can be looking right at something and not really see it. I can be listening to something and not really hear it. And I think the problem is that I’m not PAYING enough attention.

When I talk to people or read books or watch movies, I often don’t get the details. I have this automatic thing going on where my mind is filtering, getting the gist of what’s communicated, and summing it up into main ideas. In the process, details are lost. I don’t do this because I don’t want to listen. I don’t do it to be mean or disrespectful. I do it automatically. I can’t remember not doing this. I sort of gather the big idea and the details float off into the ether. I think it’s why I can’t remember names and why I have to go back and get details when I need them.

Can you say, “ADD?” I knew you could.

I don’t really know that I have ADD. Or that I don’t. But it has me thinking. I’m ruminating on this in a distracted sort of way. I’m thinking that true, detailed attention costs us something. That’s why it’s called “paying” attention. It costs us time and energy and focus. To truly “pay” attention to one thing, I have to not be paying attention to something else – that’s part of the cost – and this is definitely not an easy thing for me. It’s not natural. I can’t even sleep some nights because my mind is going, going, going. When I ask someone what they’re thinking and they say, “nothing,” I hardly believe them because that has never been true for me. I’ve never personally experienced it. Unless I’m sleeping. And, even then, I dream.

So I’m practicing. I’m trying to tap into the “feeling” of detailed payment of attention. I’m trying to keep my mind from wandering while I do things. Trying to keep myself from thinking about something else. Focus. Like a laser. I am a cat. I am attention personified...

So far it’s not working, but if they find me unconscious, on the floor, with a little pool of drool under my head, you’ll know what happened.


Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2011

Chicken

When I was in university, I took some philosophy classes and I enjoyed it. A lot. Everything just clicked. And one of my philosophy profs noticed my, shall we say, “acumen,” in this area, so he took me aside and suggested I become a philosophy major. He said I was a “natural.”

Well, after the swelling in my head went down, I kept trying to picture myself as a philosopher.

“So, Dave, what do you do for a living?”

“Who me? Well, I’m a philosopher.”

“No, seriously, what do you do for a living?”

“I am being serious. I’m a philosopher!”

“No really, I want to know what you do for a liv-ing.”

I just couldn’t picture it. The only thing I could envision was, perhaps, teaching philosophy, which didn’t seem very exciting. But, later, I realized that the issue was more that I was afraid to commit to doing anything that seemed too, well, I suppose “responsible” is the right word.  I was afraid to take my abilities seriously and put them to meaningful use. I was chicken.

And I see a lot of other people struggle with this same kind of thing. We doubt ourselves. We wonder if we’re strong enough or talented enough or smart enough, even when people affirm our strengths.

Moving forward isn’t so easy for some of us. To move forward, sometimes we have to let go of things we’ve been infatuated with for one reason or another. “I always wanted to be an astronaut but, for some strange reason, they just aren’t accepting 6 foot 7 English majors with no flight experience into the program!” And, ultimately, we have to be willing to try. As trite as it sounds, Yoda was wrong: if you want to do something, you need to try to do it. Maybe you aren’t smart enough or talented enough or responsible enough for some things, but you won’t know until you try. See what happens. Who knows, maybe you’ll discover that you aren’t cut out for some things. Big deal.

Then again. Maybe you’ll find out that there’s more to you than you thought.

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
Vincent van Gogh

1 Corinthians 14:12
Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Public Service Announcement

Sure, you’ve heard of the flu. You’ve heard of West Nile Virus. But I’m here to warn you of another, much more insidious epidemic that you may not be aware of. You should know that it can take hold of you at any time, for almost no reason, and be spread to countless other people without warning. And by now, I’m sure you’ve already guessed at what I’m talking about.

Laughter.

Yes. Laughter.

This stuff is dangerous, people. And unpredictable. Doctors have no idea why it happens to us, but they know it can be very contagious. You don’t even have to hear a joke. It can just . . . happen. Spontaneously. And if you aren’t careful, it could leave you short of breath and completely out of control.

I know, I know. You think I’m making this up. Obviously you haven’t heard of the Great Laughter Epidemic of 1962. Well, if you don’t believe me, just pause the music over there on the right and look at this:

You can see how serious this is. So next time you start laughing, just consider what you’re doing to others. Consider how you are spreading this horrid little phenomenon to the people you love. Ask yourself...

Is it worth it?



Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011

Trust Issues

One year, when I was in Elementary School, there was a poster contest for a carnival in town. It was a thing the city was putting on, so they had the kids in each school make posters to promote it, and each school chose a winner for best poster. If you won, you would get free tickets to the carnival, yada yada yada. So I went home and drew up a poster. It was Donald Duck, telling the kids to go to the carnival because it was going to be so much fun. Yada yada yada. And it turned out pretty good. I won the contest.

So the posters go up on the wall of the school, in the big hallway near the office, and they did some little ceremony with me. I can’t quite remember the details, but the principal shook my hand and such. Which was all cool. But then this one lady, she was a teacher or a secretary or something, I honesty don’t remember why she was there, but she turned to me and asked me a question. She said: “The picture is really great, but why did you spell the words all wrong.”

I was a little dumbfounded because what I had done was obvious. Or, at least, it should have been. Donald Duck has his peculiar way of speaking. A kind of scratchy duckese. So I had spelled whatever it was I had him saying on the poster phonetically to reflect that. No one had questioned this, all the way to the victory circle. And that’s what I told the woman. “I just tried to spell it like it would sound if Donald Duck said it.” It was, let me say it again: obvious. But the woman seemed surprised. She said, “Oh.” Then she looked at the poster for a second and looked at me and said, “Well. I think it would have been better if you had spelled the words correctly.” She said the word “correctly” as if it was a word I would have a hard time understanding. I remember that the principal gave her a look, but he didn’t say anything. After all, she was a grown up like him. He just gave me a pat on the head and sent me back to class.

Now. I mention all this because, in a small way, it was a life changing moment. For the first time in my life I looked at an adult and thought to myself: This is a stupid person. I wasn’t thinking mean about it. I didn’t look down on her. I just realized that she didn’t get something that was simple. Something I understood, and I was just a kid.

Seriously. I thought about it all that day, and again and again over the years. Grown ups CAN be stupid. Grown ups CAN be wrong. Some grown ups MIGHT not know more than kids, let alone other grown ups.

Can you see how this could change one’s world view? Can you see how this one little incident could undermine a kids trust in the adult world?

I’d like to say that the adults of the world have regained my trust. You know, in general.

I’d really like to.


Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Small Things

Years ago, I worked at a factory making tubing for auto parts. Those weren’t the best of times.

It was a loud, depressing place, full of machines. Some were automatic, others you had to manually operate, bending different tubes into shapes that would somehow fit in the engine compartment of one car or another. It was hot, grueling work. The only real plus was the pay check, which wasn’t much of a plus.

But there were a few of us who became friends because we were stuck together on one of the machines. This machines was huge. And by huge I mean HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE. It was practically as big as a small house. A team of operators would sit at different parts of the machine and do their piece, then send it along to the next part, assembly line fashion, until the part finally fell off the end into some big wooden box. Talk about being cogs in the machine. We were cogs.

But we were singing cogs.

Right about that time, the song “We Are the World,” came out. It was on the radio constantly, blaring through the factory. And this one group of us who were on the big machine, learned all the parts and began impersonating the different singers as we lip synched to the song. We did this and we laughed so hard. It was really funny. I mean, I suppose it was funnier because of where we were and all that, but it was funny. It was a relief in the day.

One of the guys was named John. He did the Joe Cocker bit. And it was a perfect fit. He really looked like Joe Cocker, but even funnier than Joe Cocker looks. It was hysterical.

And out of that little experience, we struck up a conversation. Then we started to hang out a little. Not a lot, but a little, here and there. And eventually I thought of him as a good friend. And we stayed friends over the years, long after I left the machine shop, mostly because of John. He would always call me to keep in touch, which. I wasn’t very good at. In my past, too many people had left and never looked back, so I kind of got used to the next thing being the next thing. I didn’t do a lot of looking back. I still don’t. It’s not easy for me. But John kept in touch, so we kept in touch. We’d talk now and then. We went out to eat a few times. We started going to a comic convention together every year. It was a blast seeing him.

We were friends up until his death a few years ago. He had a stroke. He was in his early forties and it was a great tragedy. But we had a good friendship. We shared life in common. He came to share my faith. And it taught me to appreciate the small things, the goofy little experiences that we share together in life. Laughing and singing and sharing things in common. These things are seeds for friendships and connections that can be meaningful and lasting.

Today, I thought of him, and I was missing my friend.

Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Grow Up Already

Over the years I’ve become a much more serious person. I suppose it needed to happen, but I kind of miss the old me who would do and say really dumb things and laugh at whatever and not take everything so seriously. But growing up happens. And it should.

I found growing up a challenging thing from an emotional standpoint. I simply didn’t want to do it. Partly because it scared me, and partly because our culture encourages us to not grow up. It’s apparently something we’re supposed to avoid.

The commercials said, “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid.”

Walt Disney said, “Too many people grow up. That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up.”

The Ramones sang, “I don’t want to grow up.”

Simple Plan sang it at the top of their lungs, "I don't want to be told to grow up."

And there’s plenty more where that came from. It’s a theme of living in the western world that growing up is about loss. Losing innocence. Losing freedom. Losing imagination and wonder.

But I think, in reality, what people are afraid of is losing our selfishness. After all, childhood is a massive exercise in selfishness. And we accept it from children, to a point, because they’re trying to figure out who they are and what their life should be about. But when this selfish, self focus, drags on year after year, decade after decade, keeping a person from growing and maturing, it gets plain ugly to see.

Growing up doesn’t mean giving up comic books or giving up dreaming about the future or losing your sense of wonder. At least it shouldn’t be about things like that. Growing up means realizing that the world doesn’t revolve around you, and being at peace with that reality. It means living for others sometimes instead of living every moment for yourself. It means learning to live out grace with contentment. It means learning to cope with the harshness of life without letting it eat you alive.

I love children. I adore my own kids. They are wonderful. There is much to be said for childhood. I miss my childhood in some ways. But here’s the truth: Apart from a very few child savants, children have not produced great art or films or accomplished great scientific discoveries. Children have not created medicines and vaccinations. Children have not built great cities or uncovered profound spiritual truths. They just don’t have it in them yet.

We should be like children. We can be child-like. But we should not be children forever. It’s okay to grow up. It’s healthy. And it should be expected.


1 Corinthians 13:11
Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011