By way of introduction….
Greg Roberts is a student of life, a seeker of truth, and a believer in God’s love for humanity. A college dropout, his only degree was conferred by the School of Hard Knocks. He finds humor is the best way to deal with frustration and writing is the medium that gives him a voice in the ongoing conversation of what it means to be fully human. Having taken the scenic route through life ( he has been everything from a used car salesman to a Local Pastor in the United Methodist Church), his experiences provide a fertile soil for his array of topics. He welcomes your comments at gregroberts5000@yahoo.com.     

NOTE: A collection of archived writings from Greg can be found at the following link:

JUST THINKING ARCHIVES


LIVING BY THE LAW

"The Book is clear. We live by the book for the book is the Law."

Yosef looked at the elder in disbelief. "Did you not hear her testimony? Did you listen to what she said?"

"Yosef, your love blinds you. Yes, we listened to her story and if you were thinking rationally you would see, as we do, that it is clearly a lie. She is trying to save herself from the punishment she deserves. Try to understand that she has not only dishonored you but the whole community. What would the goya think if we allowed such a thing to go unpunished? If we do nothing, her sin paves the way for more girls to stray from the sacred teachings. This cannot be. The elders have met, and we have agreed. We are people of the Book."

"Does her family mean nothing to you? Do you not see that this girl, whom you seem determined to punish, is descended from the patriarchs?"

"Of course we know her family! But nobody is above the Law, do you understand? Nobody! Yosef, you may be a carpenter but you have been trained in the Law. So tell us, what does it say about women who are unfaithful to their husbands? We want to hear it from your own lips."

Yosef bows his head and quietly recites, "A woman who commits adultery shall be taken outside the city gates and stoned."

"Precisely. There are no conditions that negate the Law, certainly not some incredible yarn about still being a virgin when everybody with eyes can see what is developing inside her. We are people of the Law, given to us by God himself. Now go home Yosef, and we will do what needs to be done. We know our duty. You need not be present. We are sorry for your loss but her blood is on her own head. You are young and strong; you'll find another wife, one who is faithful. Now go."

Yosef looks each of them in the eye, searching for an inkling of mercy. There is none to be found. The Law will be upheld. Broken-hearted, head and shoulders drooping, he makes his way slowly home. His mother and father rush out of the house to greet him. "Well", his mother asks "What did the elders say? Will they spare her?"

"No Mother, they will not. Mary is to be stoned. We are people of the Law."

- - - - - - -

Fred Craddock, internationally recognized preacher and accomplished teacher inspired these few lines of mine with a sermon from his anthology entitled "The Cherry Log Sermons". Reverend Craddock says in that sermon, "I get sick and tired of people thumping the Bible and thinking you can just open it up and turn to a passage that clears everything up." No doubt some of Joseph's friends attempted to get him to divorce Mary. No doubt some of the religious zealots sincerely wanted to take her outside the city gates and stone her. Every generation has its zealots. They call themselves The Moral Majority or The Religious Right and they gather under some high-sounding banner and they're the first to cry out for blood when they're certain somebody has violated God's Law. Sadly, many of them never take to heart the words of the prophet: Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God." Sometimes mercy wins out over justice, especially justice as it's administered by those whose hearts are filled with hate.

What many people call The Good Book is not a book at all but a portable library of sixty-six tracts, letters, historical documents, poetry, and love stories. Each writer had his own agenda, his own intended audience (and it wasn't you or me), and his own purpose in writing. Not one of them ever sat down and said, "Okay Lord, here I am with my pen in hand and a blank parchment. Inspire me." Does that mean that none of them are spiritually inspired? No, it doesn't. But inspiration and purpose are not to be confused. Even as I write these words, I have a purpose: to enlighten somebody who is still attempting to find the path that God had in mind when mankind was created. Efforts to impose archaic rules and mores of people who lived thousands of years ago onto modern society makes as much sense as scrapping our automobiles and going back to riding horses to work. (Hmmmm. Let me think about that for a minute. Nope. A bale of hay and a gallon of gas both cost over three dollars and you can get about equal distance out of each.)

It was John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Movement, which later became the basis for The Methodist Church, who postulated something one of his biographers later named The Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Simply put, Wesley believed in the authority of Scripture (The Bible) but he also believed in reason, tradition, and experience as tools for discerning God's will for humanity. You have a rational mind. You have the history of the human race for at least the past two thousand years. You have the traditions of the Church and of societies. You have permission (I think from God) to think for yourself. You do not have to believe everything the preacher shouted at you when you were a child. "It's right here, in the Book! Read it for yourself! It's in the Book!" Right on preacher. If the people who live by the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law had their way, Jesus would never have been born. How would that have affected your Book?

 - By Greg Roberts (published 2/12/2012)



RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

I was just thinking about the imperative, “Run for your life!”

If those words don’t send a wave of fear over you and a rush of adrenaline, you are either (1) hearing impaired or (2) exceptionally brave or (3) conditioned to doubt the trustworthiness of warnings, due to so many false alarms.  But for those who hear and heed the warning, their immediate thought process might well be, “Feet, don’t fail me now!”

The images of tsunamis bearing down relentlessly on panicked people, with the irresistible force to sweep away everything in their path, give credence to that warning, “Run for your life.”  Reality television, so popular in today’s culture, is permeated with programs that thrive on situations where disaster threatens people’s lives.  Whether it is explosions or automobiles out of control or government forces firing weapons on unarmed protestors, viewers seem enamored with scenes of people fleeing from what appears to be certain death.

Personally, I can’t recall a time when I had to run for my life.  For that, I am truly grateful.  There was, however, a time when my wife Diane had to run for hers.  We were piling up dead brush on a parcel of land we had just purchased with intentions of someday building a house.  She was at the back of the lot when she called out my name “Greg!” and I could tell by the urgency and tone of her voice and the way she was running toward me that something was terribly wrong.  As she neared, I could see the swarm of yellow jackets attacking and stinging her.  I began mashing the bees as best I could while she continued her retreat to our car.  Had a passerby seen us, he would have sworn in court that I was beating my wife as she attempted to escape a crazed and angry husband. She had long (and quite beautiful) hair at that time and when we got into the safety of our Volkswagen, she still had bees in her hair.  So I continued to ‘beat her’.  I don’t know how many stings she had, but it was numerous.  I was afraid she would suffer a life-threatening reaction to their venom but thankfully, that didn’t happen.  How come God didn’t create flies to pollinate plants?  Bees are just nasty!

Then there was the time we were standing of the roof of our front porch in Highland, painting the overhang of the upper roof.  We didn’t even need a ladder to get there; just climbed out the hallway window and began to paint.  Suddenly Diane let out a cry, stumbled backward a step and grabbed at her face.  A bumblebee had stung her on the chin!  Soon more of them came out of a hole in the eave.  We didn’t stop to talk over our options.  We both left the paint cans and brushes lying there on the porch roof and literally dived through the open hallway window!  Poor Diane!  Her jaw swelled up till she looked like a character from a Lil Abner comic strip.  I hate bees.

While I’ve never had to run for my life, I have run from trouble a time or two.  I recall the evening when I drove my newly acquired car (a ’56 Plymouth Belvedere with a 318 cubic inch engine and a four barrel carburetor) through Bloomingburg and didn’t slow down for a couple of pedestrians going to The Revel Room for the dance.  Yeah, they jumped for the curb even though I had no intention of actually hitting anyone.  I drove to the school, turned around and headed back out to Route 62.  A car fell in right behind me.  All I could make out was headlights but I thought, “This can’t be good.”  So I sped up.  So did the car behind me.  Where Route 238 ends at Route 62, you can see both north and south for a long ways.  I looked both ways and since there was nobody coming, I floored it and ran the stop sign.  The car behind me stopped.  I turned on the first side road, and kept the accelerator to the floor, hoping that I wouldn’t be followed.  No such luck.  Soon the headlights began to creep up on me.  I kept going, wondering how I was going to lose those guys.  I looked in the rearview mirror to see how far behind they were and to my dismay saw a red revolving light about six feet behind me.  It was the State Highway Patrol!  I immediately pulled over and of course, it had to be in front of Debbie Crabtree’s house, a classmate of mine.  The officer looked at my driver’s license and registration and then asked, “How fast will that Plymouth go, Mr. Roberts?”  I said, “That was about it.”  He smiled and said, “Well, I wouldn’t feel too bad.  I have you clocked at one hundred five in a fifty zone.”   When I got home, I handed the ticket, my license, and my car keys to my Dad without a word being spoken.  Believe me, he did not smile!

Then there was this time when two of my buddies and I decided we needed to swim in the cove at Rocky Fork Lake down the hill from Dr. Gebhart’s cottage.  My mom worked for Drs. Gebhart and Heiny as a medical secretary and Geb, as we called him, allowed me and my friends to pitch a tent and camp in his front yard.  That particular afternoon we walked the dirt path through the woods, looked around to make sure we were alone, stripped to our underwear and jumped off the wooden dock.  We were having a ball, yelling, swimming, and ducking each other when a boat coasted into the entrance to the cove.  Eddie looked up and yelled, “Lake Patrol!”  You never saw three people swim so fast.  The officer stood up in the boat and yelled, “Stop!”  Oh sure.  As he gunned his engine and came barreling down the cove, we climbed onto the dock, grabbed our clothes and began a mad dash up the dirt path to our car, mindless of the protruding roots and slapping branches.  Halfway up, I turned to Kent and breathlessly asked, “Where’s Eddie?”  Now Eddie was the heaviest of our trio and I was afraid he hadn’t been able to keep up.  Just then we heard a car horn honking insistently.  Old chubby had beaten us up the path!  We got the heck out of there, and turned onto a state route just as a park ranger in a pickup truck passed us going the other way.  After the adrenaline subsided, we laughed all the way home.

I’ve never had to run for my life, like Forrest Gump.  But I wonder if anybody reading this has ever wanted to run from his or her life.  That’s an entirely different question and one I suppose would get honest answers only if the respondent could remain anonymous.  The truth may set you free but it can also get you in a lot of trouble at home.

Think about it; depression, despair, a feeling of being trapped—any of these can lead one to ask themselves the questions, “How did I get into this?” and next, “Isn’t there some way out?”  As usual, a couple of songs -- songs that may capture the essence of the need to run, come to mind.  For the ladies, there’s You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille by Kenny Rodgers.  And for the guys?  Springsteen again.  Sing it with me: “Left a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack.  I went out for a ride and I never went back.” (Hungry Heart by Bruce Springsteen)  Those are just two examples (and there are many, many more) of frustration put to words in songs that reflect the urge to run from a life that has somehow become less than satisfying or possibly intolerable.  I’m not passing judgment, just making the observation of the sad truth that a lot of unhappy people do run from their lives.  My wife’s father ran off with another woman when Diane was in her teens.  Who knows what made him (or her) so unhappy that they walked out on their families?  All I know is that it happens -- frequently.

I heard a story recently about an elderly couple that went to their family attorney and said they wanted a divorce.  The lawyer was shocked.  “How long have you been married?” he asked.  They answered, “Sixty-seven years.”  He looked at them a long time and asked another question.  “How old are you?” The woman replied she was ninety-one and the man said he was ninety-three.  The baffled lawyer asked, “If you’re both in your nineties and you’ve been married sixty seven years, why, in God’s name, do you want a divorce at this stage of your lives?”  The woman replied, “We always said we would never divorce as long as the kids were alive.  Well, they’re all dead.”  Okay, all kidding aside, don’t you know couples that only stay (or stayed) together ‘for the children’s sake’?  As these desperately unhappy people watch each day disappear like the sand in an hourglass, knowing that their time on earth is growing shorter and shorter, don’t you think that they have at least passing thoughts of running from their lives?

It’s not always the home front where the dissatisfaction occurs either.  I know people who absolutely hate their jobs or professions but realize that they would never be able to find another one with the same pay and benefits.  They’re stuck and they’re miserable.  But what if you’re happily married, with a couple of great kids and a wonderful job and the doctor comes into the waiting room and announces grimly, “It’s cancer and it’s not good.”  Wouldn’t you want to run from your life at that point?  Who among us has such a perfect life that they never once thought, “Is this all there is?”

When I came home from Australia in 1969, the plane made a short refueling stop in the American Samoan Islands.  I still cherish the photographs I took there. The palm trees gently swayed, the air was pleasantly warm, and children played in the surf.  Beautiful, smiling, brown-skinned young girls with perfect white teeth and hibiscus flowers in their long black hair were working in a thatched roof air terminal that more closely resembled a picnic shelter house with a couple of service desks.  I can almost smell the salt air as I type this.  I wonder if the Navy would have come looking for me if I’d gone AWOL there?

The odds are astronomical; that I know for a fact.  I’m a realist.  But if somehow the right six numbers, the ones printed on the lottery ticket tucked into my wallet, popped up tomorrow night -- I wonder what I’d do.  And of course, I wonder what YOU’d do.

- By Greg Roberts (published 1/30/2012)


SIXTY YEARS OF 'TODAY' SPARKS MEMORIES

NBC's Today Show is celebrating sixty years today (Jan. 13). They've assembled nine of the former anchors and co-anchors to share memories and answer questions from the current co-hosts. Sixty years! The stroll back memory lane is anything but comforting. Each of the guests recall the moments in history that impacted them the most while clips of their time behind the news desk accompany their stories. Vietnam, Watergate, presidential scandals, assassinations, senseless killings, terror attacks, the Challenger disaster, the Iranian hostage crisis, the failed rescue attempt, Desert Storm, and the list goes on. As those moments in our nation's history flashed across the screen this morning my heart ached and the tears began to slide down my cheeks. No, I'm not ashamed to tell you that.

There was a clip of the first president ever to appear on the Today Show. He said, "This is such a great country I think each of us should try to give back all we can." Yes, it was John Kennedy and whether you consider yourself Red or Blue, whether you loved or hated the man, I hope you share my outrage in knowing that all these years later the public (you and me) still cannot have access to reams of documents surrounding his assassination. My generation will probably go to our own graves never knowing the truth. Perhaps someday the documents will be declassified when nobody gives a damn anymore about something that happened a long time ago.

We, the viewers, invite the good folks who host the program that has endured for sixty years into our homes via the television set. We want the latest news, and hope for the best. Their job is to inform us without the taint of their personal convictions or prejudices. That's a tall order. Most of us aren't even aware of how we view events through the filters of our own personal backgrounds, experiences, and teachings. If you grew up hating rock 'n roll you probably didn't feel the pain so many millions did when John Lennon was murdered. If you grew up a racist, you probably (secretly?) smiled when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated. Don't apologize. We all have our failings.

An hour of the show (it lasts for two) was all I could tolerate. It was just too painful. If you're one of those folks who can remain objective and dispassionate when your senses are assaulted by wave after wave of tragedy I salute your fortitude. You probably wonder what's wrong with people who get emotional over events that happened so many years ago. Perhaps part of the answer is in those words President Kennedy spoke on national television. "This is such a great country....." Yes, it could be. But is it? Do other people in other lands look at us and conclude that we are a people given to excessive violence, both at home and abroad? If more of us were concerned about making America a beacon of hope instead of demanding that the government take care of us it could be great. If the folks we elect to govern us cared more about the folks who elected them instead of their personal fortunes and their political futures it could be great. If common decency were the rule instead of the rare exception it could be great. If we could accept that we are part of a global community with global responsibilities (and no, I'm not endorsing the policy of being the world's police force) it could be great. If I cared more about you and less about me.

Outside the temperature is hovering around sixteen, it's snowing and the wind is blowing hard. The chill factor is about minus three. Still, I bundled up, put on my pullover face mask and went out to scrape the frozen seed out of the birds' tube feeders and fill them with fresh birdseed. Marty, the black Lab-mutt, was thrilled to have some company. He pranced and ran circles around me, grabbed a wind-felled branch and took off, daring me to chase after him and try to take it away. We walked back to the woods, some three hundred yards behind the house, with a bucket of apples that have sat around in the heat too long and spread them around in the woods for the deer. The woods have a calming effect on the wind. It's not so cold and the snow on the branches is quite beautiful. The ground that so recently squished under every step is now frozen. This is a beautiful world, even in the midst of winter.

Sometimes I wonder what God was thinking he created mankind and turned him loose on an unsuspecting paradise. There's a great sentence in Genesis. It says, "And the Lord was sorry that he had made man upon the earth and it grieved him to his heart." (Genesis 6:6, Revised Standard Version) Humanity, like America, has so much potential to do good and yet...well, take a look at the world. Listen to the news on the Today Show. Listen to the old people who gather in McDonald's to complain on a daily basis. Many of them were children in school when they first heard those words, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

Tomorrow, being a retired person, I'll probably sit and watch the show again. Hopefully, there will be lighter moments and less to lament. Today, I'm going to look for those small windows of opportunity to give back. I think I owe a debt of gratitude to somebody.

- By Greg Roberts (published 1/13/2012)




REJECTION...

I was just thinking, or trying to with some objectivity, about the feeling of rejection. Nobody is immune. It comes in different forms at different times, but we all have to deal with rejection. Sometimes it’s subtle; other times it’s flagrant. Always, it hurts. Rejection sends the message that somehow we are unworthy. It’s a blow to the ego, as painful as a fist to the jaw. So how do we deal with it? What’s an adult, positive response to rejection? 

Rejection can begin very early in life. (The ultimate example would be leaving a baby in a dumpster or a toilet in the girl’s restroom at the high school.) Less extreme but certainly devastating is the rejection inherent in choosing teams for sporting events. Both my wife and I have vivid memories of those occasions. We were not exactly number one draft choices. “Okay, we’ll take Larry but you have to take Roberts.” Those are not exactly words that build up self-confidence. Sure, we understand the reluctance of the team leader to choose those would-be players who lack qualifications that will bolster the team’s chances for success. After all, when the games begin the object is to win and winning is, for many people, not just the most important thing, but the only thing. (Who said that?) I really wanted to excel at sports. And I could have except I lacked just a couple of key characteristics--like strength, speed, agility, coordination, you know, things like that. Unfortunately, when you’re the last one chosen to be on the team it affects you in ways you may not even be aware of. Unworthiness in athletics may render you a virtual leper. If you’re not an athlete you probably won’t have the courage to ask a cheerleader for a date. After all, they do have their standards. Rejection in one area bleeds over into other areas. Is there Viagra for a sagging ego?

So, let’s suppose you aren’t an athlete and you feel the rejection of those who put a lot of emphasis on sports success. What do you do to compensate for your obvious failing in such an important arena? Why, you look for other ways to excel, of course. Perhaps you’ve been gifted with more brain than brawn so you find avenues of success in more intellectual pursuits. I’m guessing here, but I suspect that the president of the chess club just might get a date with a cheerleader. After all, opposites attract. You may have musical ability, lots of it, like my friend Ron Coffey. “Get yourself a used guitar, chances are you’ll go far if you get in with the right bunch of fellows.” (Bachman Turner Overdrive, Takin’ Care of Business) When I was living in New York City, one of my favorite pastimes was to stroll through Central Park on warm sunny days. You could almost always find somebody sitting on the grass with an open guitar case in front of them singing and playing their songs for whatever folks chose to toss into the guitar case. I thought, “How gratifying, how wonderfully satisfying that must be to find instant approval and acceptance from total strangers.” As an aside, that’s the first place I ever heard the song “Suzanne” which Neil Diamond later recorded with success. You know it? If not, find it and really listen to the lyrics. I encourage young people; learn to play a guitar. You’ll find that you’re a welcome asset in many situations.

When I went to work for Pike Natural Gas in Hillsboro (this was back in the 1970s) you underwent a 30-day probationary period and then the other eight or ten employees voted on whether or not you kept your job and became part of the unionized work force. At the end of my thirty days, they took a vote. Maybe it was because of my ‘smart mouth’ or because I was the only one with some college experience. All I know is that the foreman came to me and said, “Greg, the men don’t want you.” Can you imagine how that felt? Fortunately for me, the foreman overrode the vote and kept me on. At least one person thought I brought enough to the job to keep me. But my relationship with the other men was tenuous at best from that day on. Oh, we got along fine and worked side by side every day. But when you know that your peers have rejected you the pain lingers. You look at people and try to forgive but you know they voted against you. Two years later, I left Pike Gas with the residual pain of that initial rejection still lingering.

What puzzles me is how some people purposely do things to bring on rejection. Why, for instance, do some young men wear their pants below their buttocks? Surely they must know how ‘straight’ people react to that. Personally, I find so-called ‘body art’ less than artistic. If I’m in a position of hiring employees, people who will enhance my company’s image, I’m not inclined to hire people with faces full of hardware (other than braces) or tattoos over every visible inch of skin. Frankly, those folks seem scary! They may not be gang members but the tattoos shout, “I don’t care what you think!” It seems to me that those who do these things to their bodies are inviting rejection. The piercings are reversible; the tattoos aren’t. I’d counsel anybody to think long and hard about anything they’re considering doing to their body that can’t be reversed at a later date.

Any time we put ourselves out there for approval we court the possibility of rejection. It takes a brave soul to appear on American Idol. If you’re an aspiring writer and you pour yourself into a creative work only to get a rejection notice from a publisher, it can be pretty devastating. If you preach and the congregation receives your words with crossed arms and hostile stares, there are no words needed to convey the message; you’re rejected. What if you propose and the person you hope to spend the rest of your live with refuses you? Ouch! The husband or wife who has neither time nor tolerance for their spouse sends a continuous message: “I don’t want you.” Rejection hurts. It also leads to problems. Home cooking is best, but when the kitchen is never open there are still restaurants, if you know what I mean.

One of the saddest rejection stories I ever heard was from a lady who knew from early childhood that she was not a chosen child. Her conception was an accident. All her life she longed to hear her father say, “I love you” but he never uttered those words. Even as he lay dying, she pleaded to hear those words. “Daddy, I love you. Please tell me you love me.” He turned his head away from her. I sincerely hope God had some words for that man.

How do we deal with rejection? We have to come to the realization that ultimately, it is not the world, but ourselves who have the last say. Lacking superior intelligence, lacking athletic prowess, lacking physical attractiveness, we still have our individual strengths and gifts. When the world says we are without value, we need to take a personal inventory. God has given each of us gifts and talents. In order to develop our self-esteem it’s up to us to discover those gifts and talents, develop them, and use them. Every individual is unique; nobody is like us. Nobody has our fingerprints or our DNA. Nobody can ever replace us. We are one-of-a-kind, and we are special in the eyes of the One who created us. 

I may never win a trophy for my athletic prowess (and I haven’t so far), never bring home the blue ribbon from the fair, and never achieve fame, certainly not a Pulitzer. The world may see me as a reject – an inferior specimen. I know better. And I know something more. Rejection hurts. The last thing I ever want to do is to hurt somebody by making them feel unworthy.

You got any rejection stories you want to share? I’m a pretty good listener. Or you can email me. I’d love to hear from you.

- By Greg Roberts (published 1/2/2012)


CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

Okay, here we go.  Door closed, reading glasses on, fingers on the home keys, look up…. and there it is.  The blank page, or in this case, screen.  Fear rises while the mind goes into a state of paralysis.  What do we have to say that anybody would take time to read, let alone benefit from?  The blank page, a form of writer’s block, has stymied many a writer.  But not today.  Today, I’m ready.

Christmas is coming!  Hmmmmm, not much visceral response.  I’ll say it again, only louder this time:  CHRISTMAS IS COMING!  Gee, why don’t I feel any anticipation?  Why don’t I feel joy?  Why don’t I feel excitement?  What happened to me, as I got older?  Maybe it’s not me.  Or maybe it’s partly me and partly the world in which we live. 

Diane and I have two grandchildren living with us.  Xavier will be fourteen by Christmas.  Lyric is nine.  Both of them look forward to Christmas with great anticipation.  They know that on Christmas morning they’ll tear open beautifully wrapped packages to find the treasures they’ve waited for ever since they turned in their ‘wish lists’.  By the way, Diane still wraps packages as if they were going to royalty.  The box has to sit just so on the paper before she makes the first fold.  After all, we wouldn’t want half of Sponge Bob to be on top of the package while his head was on the side, now would we?  When the last triangular flap of paper is neatly taped she patiently secures the package with ribbons and bows.  Is that just a delaying tactic to make gift-opening time last a few minutes longer?  Neither of the kids would dare try to sneak a peek into one of her wrapped packages before Christmas morning.  There’s no way they could re-wrap it recover it’s pristine appearance.

But long before Christmas morning, even before the ritual Wrapping of the Gifts, there’s so much to be done in preparation for the big day.  Just as soon as the Thanksgiving gobbler has been gobbled, the real work begins.  That’s the way it is at our house.  No so everywhere.  I’ve seen Christmas decorations since before Halloween!  I guess the merchants are eager to pass over Thanksgiving because there’s no money to be made on that holiday.  I always hope for warm weather on Black Friday, and not for those crazies who camp out in front of stores waiting for the doors to open so that they can bowl over anyone who gets in their way as they grab the ‘stuff’ that will make their Christmas merry.  No, warm weather is what I crave when I’m putting out the Nativity and stringing extension cords for the spotlight.  Warm weather keeps your fingers from freezing when you string garlands and lights on railings and hang wreaths on doors.  Let’s not forget the sleigh with the packages and bows on the seat.  Oh, and the sled that leans against the garage wall with it’s big red bow.  Please, let it be warm on Black Friday.

In the garage loft there are boxes to be handed down.  Typically, Diane goes up to the loft because she’s shorter and runs less risk of hitting her head on the roof.  She also knows what’s in each of the twenty some boxes and in what order she wants them on the garage floor.  I dutifully climb up the ladder and carry the boxes down.  Here comes the artificial tree with built-in lights.  This is our second one.  The first one, which we had for just a couple of years, developed a problem in its central nervous system and only half the lights would come on.  Out the door it went.  This new tree weighs a ton…well, maybe not that much but it’s heavy enough that it takes both of us to carry it into the house.  That’s my whole contribution in this area.  Diane waits till I leave to put it together.  For some reason, she finds it disconcerting to hear a preacher cuss.  Over the course of several days (no, I’m not exaggerating) she will open literally hundreds of tiny boxes and hang ornaments she has collected ever since we married—way back in the last century.  Most of them came from Hallmark and their collective cost would pay for a couple of nice cruises to warmer places.  I’m not invited to help hang them; I don’t have an artist’s eye.  I think I got banned the year she caught me throwing those silver tinsel icicles onto the tree.  Hey, they looked fine to me.  In all fairness, when she gets finished, the tree is indeed a thing of beauty.

Many families would be pleased to have such a beautiful Christmas tree.  Did I mention that we have to rearrange the furniture to make room for it?  But wait!  That’s only the beginning.  Pictures come down off the walls to make room for ‘stuff’ that reflects a Christmas theme.  Every room in the house gets a Christmas tree of some sort, even if it’s only a foot tall with half-inch ornaments.  Nativity sets claim squatter’s rights on tabletops and dressers.  Hand towels that are perfectly fine most of the year get replaced by red and green ones.  We go the whole route at our house.  (Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any mistletoe for years now.  Is there some significance to that conspicuous absence?)

So much for the home scene.  I look forward to worship during the Christmas season.  Whether you believe in the stories of Jesus’ birth is of no matter to me.  Matthew has his and Luke has his.  Neither seems to have heard of the other’s.  The fact is, Jesus was (and is) a gift from God, a light in a dark world.  We celebrate his birth because his light still guides those who hunger for a relationship with the God who created us.  I digress.  I walk into our little church at Sinking Spring and lo and behold..there’s a Christmas tree in the sanctuary, garlands around the pillars (it’s a really old building, built in 1844), rows of poinsettias sitting upon and in front of the altar rail, and candles with greenery in every window sill.  Gee, this decorating must really help people get into the spirit of Christmas.

Back home after worship, I turn on the boob tube and what do I see?  Commercial after commercial advertising sales.  Buy, buy, buy!  Christmas is all about gifts and parties.  I don’t know if this is true or not but I once heard that on Christmas Eve, all the Jewish merchants keep their stores open until even the most procrastinating shoppers have had a chance to shop.  Then the doors are locked and the whole family gathers around the cash register and sings, “What a Friend We Have In Jesus”.  Like I said, that’s what I heard.

Christmas is a time when families get together.  Okay, some families get together.  Mom lives in Florida, sister Carolyn (with husband Don) lives in Arizona, niece Stephanie lives in California.  Cousins live in Colorado.  Forget about it. Diane’s family is still close by but reasons I can’t explain we have trouble finding a time when most everybody can be present.  Last year we failed to gather together.  Maybe it’s got something to do with all the younger people having children of their own and new in-laws to accommodate.  At any rate, we’ll spend part of Christmas Day talking to far-flung family on the phone.

Did you ever live through a Christmas that seemed to come and go without touching you?  Did sadness or depression ever rob your Christmas joy?  It can happen.  All this ‘stuff’ that supposedly helps people celebrate can get in the way.  Actually, it can snuff out the true spirit of Christmas.  Busy-ness and commercialism can turn a season of beauty into a nightmare.  There’s a remedy.  Christmas ‘happens’ for me every year at the Christmas Eve candle lighting service. When we lived in Highland, OH our little Methodist Church and the Friends Church would combine their efforts to make a memorable Christmas Eve service.  The location alternated yearly, but regardless of what sanctuary hosted the evening, lights were dimmed at the appropriate moment and the pastor would take the Christ candle and light two candles held by congregants.  They, in turn, would use their candles to light the ones of the people next to them.  While the strains of "Silent Night" softly filled the air, the light would slowly intensify as more and more candles were lit.  This is symbolic.  You share your light with me; I share my light with somebody next to me.  The light of Jesus Christ grows and grows, chasing away the darkness of human sin, until the room is filled with, shall I say, positive karma.  There is no place for greed, for jealousy, for anger, nor anxiety in the places where the light of Jesus shines.  Christmas ‘happens’ for me at these services, whether held in Highland, Sinking Spring, Wapakoneta, or wherever I happen to be.  If you’ve been missing them, find one this year.  It doesn’t matter if you regularly attend that church or any church.  You’ll be welcomed…and you’ll be blessed.  Christmas may just find its way back into your heart.

- By Greg Roberts (published 12/18/2011)



LAKE ERIE

I was just thinking about Lake Erie.

Several years ago, before the price of gasoline skyrocketed, I was following a motor home down the highway. The bumper sticker on the back read, “The journey is the destination.” For me, that sums up life. Sit back but stay alert, enjoy each day as if it were your last….for it might well be. There are a lot of wonderful places to experience along the way.

One of my favorite retreats in all the world is Ohio’s North Coast, the shores of Lake Erie. And why not? From the Marblehead Lighthouse to Perry’s Monument on Put-In-Bay, to the wineries, and the fabulous mile-long beach at East Harbor State Park, there are places to visit, activities for the whole family, and memories to be made. May I share a few of mine?

When I was eleven years old my mother (divorced) met, dated, and married Dick Cocklin. At that time we lived in Greenfield, and yes, I attended Greenfield Elementary School one year, in the fourth grade. But Dick’s work was in Marion so we moved to nearby Richwood. That summer he took his new family (Mom, my sister, my brother and me) to Lake Erie for our first exposure to the freshwater ocean. Except for the years I was in the Navy, I’ve been back every year since then. I was immediately and eternally hooked.

One year we took a twelve-man inflatable raft to East Harbor beach. The Ransome Boys (three neighbors from down the road) and their little sister Joyce, and my siblings and I, plus Dick’s two boys from a previous marriage (Steve and Jeff) had the time of our lives. We had to repel boarders all afternoon though, as every kid at the beach wanted to get into the raft with us. Those were the days. We took our twelve-man raft into the water without so much as a second look from the lifeguard. Nowadays, you can’t take any kind of flotation device in the water; not safe you see. While the men went fishing for perch, the ladies sunned themselves on the beach and the kids got waterlogged and sunburned all at the same time. This went on summer after summer until I left home.

One year Jeff caught a huge catfish. He was about six or seven at the time and boy, was he proud of that fish. Dad helped him put it on a stringer and fasten the stringer to a metal pole sticking out of the water. Late that evening my older sister, Carolyn, wanted another look at the fish. She lifted the stringer off the pole, pulled the catfish up out of the water and just then, the fish gave a mighty lunge which scared her so much that she dropped the stringer and he swam away, trailing the stringer behind him. I’m not sure Jeff has ever forgiven her for that but I always wondered what became of the poor catfish.

There were times when the perch fishing was so good that we could catch them two at a time. In fact, it seemed like we spent more time cleaning the darned fish than we did catching them. I have nothing against fish guts but after the first fifty, they get a bit tiresome. By the way, don’t leave the lake without trying a perch sandwich or dinner. You won’t be sorry. They are delicious!

This is a bit embarrassing to tell, but you need to hear it. I was in the Navy four years. In that time I was never on a ship. The closest I came was when I had an apartment on Staten Island and rode the ferry boat across the harbor each morning on my way to work at the LCB-90. (That’s Navy code for large concrete building at 90 Church Street, lower Manhattan.) I applied for sea pay but was denied. Oh well, at that time the ferry was still a nickel each way. One year after I was back home again the men of Highland United Methodist Church booked a charter-fishing trip. Now who would expect a Navy veteran to get seasick? I certainly didn’t or I would have taken precautionary measures. You ever been seasick? I would have paid somebody to shoot me and put me out of my misery. Every so often I’d crawl to the rail and barf…or try to. Dry heaves are something you should get after a hard night on the town, not from a fishing excursion. And no, I’ve never tried it again. The other men kept right on fishing until we went back to shore in the late afternoon. By then, it was all I could do to walk down the gangplank. Then they began to clean the fish….and it was time for me to go lie down in the back seat. 

The lake has changed over the years. When Diane and I started going in the early seventies the water was horribly polluted. Where we boarded the ferry boat to Put-In-Bay, you couldn’t see the bottom even though the water was only a few feet deep. Beer cans and other litter were everywhere alongside the shoreline. It smelled badly. Lake Erie was in danger of becoming a huge swamp. But then, thanks to the work of the EPA, the lake gradually recovered. Today you can look down through eight to ten feet of clear water and see the fish swimming. Beaches are clean and the air is wonderful. 

There are two ways to get to Put-In-Bay; The Miller ferry line is comprised of about six diesel-powered boats that take about thirty minutes to make the seven-mile trip. But if you aren’t into slow boats, you can find the Jet Express in Port Clinton. It’s a catamaran that makes the trip in just about eight minutes! But either way, Put-In-Bay is a ‘must see’ destination. Rent a golf cart if your knees are as old as mine or rent bicycles if you still have the legs for it. Take your time. Visit Crystal Cave. Sample the wine. If you’re fortunate to arrive during the annual volleyball tournaments held in the park on the island, enjoy the additional scenery! You’ll find restaurants, clean restrooms, musicians, a marina full of beautiful boats, and a tourist-welcoming atmosphere.

One year Dad and Diane and I paid a pilot at the Port Clinton airport to take us for a ride over the islands. Friends, that’s the way to get things into proper perspective! We saw marshlands full of white egrets and blue herons, we saw the famous Lonz Winery, Perry’s Monument, the flotillas of sailboats…and all from the majesty of about eight hundred feet above the lake. It was fabulous.

Somewhere in the late eighties I was asked to be a delegate-at-large for the Wilmington District of the West Ohio Conference to the annual gathering at Lakeside. Although I was a bit disgusted with the political process of the Annual Conference, I went back year after year, combining my service to the District with a family vacation. More often than not, while I was sweating out the day in Hoover Auditorium (no A/C then and not now either) my family was across the harbor at Cedar Point seeing how many roller coasters they could ride in a day’s time. I attended Annual Conference as a pastor from 1995 to 2010. Last year was the first time in many years that we were able to make our annual pilgrimage to Lake Erie and do only what we chose to do. We took advantage of our renewed freedom. For the first time, we took our car on the Miller Line ferry boat to Middle Bass Island (home of Put-In-Bay), spent hours in the souvenir shops, ate ice cream every day from the Dairy Dock in Marblehead, slept in late, took walks, and would have swam at East Harbor beach but the water was too cold. (You might recall that we had a late Spring and a cool start to summer.) We contented ourselves with walking the beach and building sand castles.

It’s been about ten years now that we’ve been renting a house on Prairie Street in Marblehead the week of Annual Conference. Directly across the street is the community park, complete with playground and ball diamonds. Just beyond that is the ever-popular Dairy Dock. Behind us there are two houses separating ours from the shoreline. You can hear the waves on the rocks. From our house, it’s a mile walk to Hoover Auditorium in Lakeside, all along the waterfront. What a lovely way to start your day. And yes, even though I’m no longer required or even expected to attend Annual Conference, I will go back and spend another week in the house at Marblehead. There are old friends at Conference whom I hope to see again. There are wonderful worship services every morning with great music and inspired preaching from nationally known figures. There’s something pretty powerful when over one thousand people lend their voices to a song of praise. And there’s the lake, one of the few constants in my life, calling me back for yet another encounter. I can hardly wait.

- By Greg Roberts (12/11/2011)



RECONCILIATION

Just thinking about reconciliation.
I need to begin this by quoting Scripture because that’s where my thought process began. These words are attributed to Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, as written in the New International Version (NIV):
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled with your brother; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)
I’m a middle child. My older sister, Carolyn, had a wonderful high school career at Washington Court House. She was a State Homemaker, Senior Attendant to Homecoming, a member of the National Honor Society, Captain of the Cheerleading Squad, and got important roles in the school musicals. I inherited from her. Two years younger, teachers would see my name on the roll and say, “Oh, you’re Carolyn’s little brother.” And no, I did not live up to their expectations.
My younger brother also had a prestigious high school career. He was a section leader in the marching band, president of the Science Club, an accomplished trumpeter, and a terrific vocalist. Although I wasn’t there (having already joined the Navy) I learned that he entered a countywide talent contest sponsored by the Lions Club. He sang “The Impossible Dream” from The Man of La Mancha. I heard the tape; he was great! But he came in second. Seems the good folks doing the judging liked a trampoline act better. So much for culture in Fayette County. Ted was good enough that a local man who had once managed a big-name entertainer wanted to take him under his wing and promote him. But because of whispers about the promoter’s lifestyle, my mother would not allow it. (That’s putting it mildly.) I’ve often wondered how far he could have gone; the talent was there.
He had more than talent. He had a genius IQ. When he enrolled at Ohio State he qualified for the Honors Program. One of the perks was being allowed to live off campus as a freshman. Ted got into a house with four guys who were there on G.I. Bill, all of them (supposedly) Viet Nam veterans. On the rare occasions when I got to see him, his thinking and speech revealed the influence those guys had on him. They filled his head with war stories. He dropped out of college and joined the Air Force. After military police school, he went to Vietnam. I still remember seeing the stencil on his sea bag, “Kill a Commie for Christ.” Utter macho crap. He walked a perimeter fence just inside a major airbase and more than once heard a bullet ricochet off the chain link. Then he was assigned to a 50-caliber machine gun on a deuce and a half. Somewhere along the way, he realized that (at least for him) the war was immoral and that the American public was being lied to about our objectives, our methods and our losses. He went to his commanding officer and turned in his weapons. That’s when they put him in prison and that’s where he got hooked on drugs.
After his dishonorable discharge he came back to Ohio and lived with Diane and me for a short time but then moved to California where he lived for the next ten years. Those rare times when we saw one another we were as distant in our thinking as we were geographically. I was part of ‘The Establishment’ and he was part of the counterculture. I refused pot; he used it daily. I believed in my childhood religion. He had tried it and found it lacking. Instead, he turned to the occult, especially his Tarot cards. But somewhere along his journey he learned to play the twelve-string guitar----beautifully. His musical ability evolved and for a while, I thought he might make his living playing and singing. Instead, he became a truck driver who brought fresh produce into the ghettos of Los Angeles and sold it for next to nothing so that impoverished people could eat better. He went by the name of One Song.
Some years ago, while I was pastoring a church in Wapakoneta, Ted surfaced without advance notice, as was his custom. We spent the day driving around Wapak, taking in the local sights and catching up on each other’s lives. Here is where the pain comes in. He said, “You know, I might move here.” And I replied (without taking the time to weigh my words), “Ted, you have to understand that I’ve got my hands full with a struggling church and a family. It’s not like I could take days off like this whenever I want to.” You could see the pain of rejection in his eyes. He replied, ”I understand.” But he didn’t. I wasn’t trying to drive him away; I was trying to let him know that I didn’t have the freedom he did. I might as well have slapped him. He left town later that day and that’s the last time I saw my brother, who is now sixty-one. Nobody in the family hears from him. We don’t know where he is. My mother has gone so far as to hire a private detective to try to locate him but with no results. “Oh Brother, where art thou?”
So why am I telling you all this? I’m not looking for sympathy. What I long for is reconciliation, a chance to apologize for those few hurtful words and to ask, “What can I do for you?” I know that he’s living on SSI and that he suffers greatly from fibromyalgia. But my deeper fear is that his greater suffering is not physical but emotional and that it comes from the rejection he feels, not just from me, but from his whole family.
So here’s what I’ve been thinking. If somebody in your family feels estranged, regardless of the reason(s), and you have the knowledge of their whereabouts, and if you carry any sense of remorse or even guilt because of their estrangement---don’t delay. “Be reconciled to your brother.” Leave judgment to a higher power. Lighten your own burden by getting rid of anything that makes you feel bad. But do it now.
Ted, if you ever stumble onto coffeyweb.com I hope you find this. It’s my official apology, offered in the only forum available to me. I am your brother, still.
- By Greg Roberts (published 11/22/2011)


WHY AM I HERE?

I was just thinking about a classic question: why am I here?
Okay, it can be as deep as quantum physics or as shallow as barroom humor. The answers to that question will vary depending on one’s worldview, religious training, and personal experiences. Of course, the very question carries within it an integral assumption that not everyone agrees with; we are here for a purpose.
In recent years I’ve come to gravitate toward that little book in the Bible called Ecclesiastes. Supposedly written by Solomon, it’s tucked away between Proverbs and the first of the Major Prophets, Isaiah. Keep in mind that Solomon was (again, supposedly) the wisest man that ever lived. How are modern readers supposed to revere the wisdom of a man who takes hundreds of wives and hundreds more concubines? Questions about authorship and credentials aside, Ecclesiastes resonates with me because it strips away the commonly held manifestations of success and questions not only the beliefs that many unthinkingly cling to, but also the fairness of life itself. “Everything is vanity; a chasing after the wind. What does a man gain from all his labor?” In so questioning, the writer (Solomon?) subtly but undeniably points a finger at God and asks, “Why?”
Humor me for a moment, even if you’re not a person who regularly reads or puts much stock in the Bible. The writer asks: What does man gain by all his toil? All is vanity and chasing after the wind. The wise man and the fool meet a common fate. More than once in the course of his writing, he concludes that there is nothing better for a person to do that eat, drink, and enjoy the toil that God has given him for the brief period of his meaningless life. Sound’s depressing, doesn’t it? Or maybe not. Just maybe he’s onto something: we take ourselves far too seriously. A glass of wine (or two) to accompany your spaghetti and hot garlic bread at the end of a good day’s work..is that so bad? A good night’s sleep with a clear conscience is nothing to be scoffed at, especially for those who have to get up at least once during the night to answer nature’s insistent call.
While a student at Ohio Northern University (many years ago) we were required by our psychology professor, Dr. Alfred Coho, to read a book entitled The Struggle for Significance. The Myth of Sisyphus just happened to be a parallel reading. You know about Sisyphus, don’t you? In the last chapter, the author Camus outlines the legend of Sisyphus who defied the gods and put Death in chains so that no human needed to die. When Death was eventually liberated and it came time for Sisyphus himself to die, he concocted a deceit which let him escape from the underworld. Finally captured, the gods decided on his punishment: for all eternity, he would have to push a rock up a mountain; on the top, the rock rolls down again and Sisyphus has to start over. Camus sees Sisyphus as the absurd hero who lives life to the fullest, hates death and is condemned to a meaningless task. (Wikipedia.com) We struggle to make our lives meaningful, to make a difference in the world, to leave a mark somehow…but are we successful? Or are we just pushing that rock up the mountain until we shuck off this mortal coil?
There are, of course, resounding success stories. Throughout recorded history men and women have left indelible marks along the march of civilization. We recently lost one of them: Steven Jobs. We can add his name to a list that includes Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Bill Gates…you know them. We learned all about them in the classroom or watched their meteoric rise in our own lifetimes. But among the many millions who have spent a brief duration on this rock we call Earth, how many leave an impression that lasts more than a few years? Wealth stays behind when we check out at the end. Somebody undeserving will probably inherit it and then blow it in less time than you can say, “Thanks Dad!” Fame is a flickering candle in the wind (love that song by Elton John!). Anybody who spends a lot of money on a tombstone is kidding themselves. People have neither the time nor inclination to spend their Memorial Day visiting cemeteries. That expensive tombstone is merely an item of intrigue for those doing genealogical research.
And yet, when I read Ecclesiastes, I find solace. There is a time for every activity under the sun. There’s a time for dreaming, a time to work toward those dreams, and a time to sit back and look at the big picture. We are here for a purpose but it takes many of us a long, long time to discover it. The Presbyterian Catechism says, “The chief purpose of man is to love God and enjoy him forever.” Maybe. Or could it be that the chief purpose of man is to daily look for ways to make life better for someone else? There was this guy who lived a long time ago who spent his whole life going around making things better for other people. Sadly, he pissed off a lot of powerful people, mostly religious folks who thought they had a lock on ultimate truth. You may have heard of him. Maybe we’re supposed to be like that. Maybe we’re supposed to step back from partisan politics, hedonistic consumerism, and all the other ‘isms’ that claim our allegiance long enough to look around and rediscover what the world needs more than anything else.
You probably think I’m fixated; I keep coming back to similar themes in these pages I write. You may be right. But speaking just for me, I want no better euology than this: “Here was a man who accepted his mortality yet enjoyed life, loved God, and tried to help others with those pursuits. By my standards, I’d call that successful.
- By Greg Roberts (published 11/7/2011)


TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION & SOMETIMES MORE DANGEROUS THAN A GOOD LIE!

I was just thinking about the typical wedding vows that most people take when they stand before the altar. As a pastor, I had the privilege of performing a number of marriage ceremonies. In the premarital counseling sessions, lots of topics were covered, depending on the couples and their particular needs. But one thing that we always covered in detail was the vows. When we marry, we make promises…to our spouses, to the assembled friends and families, to God, and to the one we marry….to be faithful, to honor and cherish that person in sickness and in health “till death do us part.” (Love that King James touch, don’t you?)
Over the years those vows are often forgotten, pushed aside, or flat out rejected. The divorce rate is not the only indicator of people who have broken their vows. I suspect that infidelity (and there’s no way I can prove this) is more common than faithfulness. Please understand; I’m not judging, just observing. Hey, people change. Needs often go unfulfilled. Circumstances change. And love does one of two things: it grows or it dies. While many people find it more advantageous to stay in a marriage that is less than fulfilling, the absence of love can send them outside the boundaries they self-imposed at the altar in search of whatever they think is missing. While the risk of getting caught always looms large, the desire to satisfy unfulfilled needs can be even greater. Bruce Springstein lyrics come to mind. “I’m not looking for prayers or pity. Do you think that I’m asking too much? All I want is someone to talk to…and a little of that human touch. Just a little of that human touch.”
I’ve often enjoyed posing this question to an unsuspecting congregation: “How do most romantic fairy tales end?” Correct answer: “And they got married and lived happily ever after.”  I then ask, “Okay, which was it? Did they get married or did they live happily ever after because it sure as heck wasn’t both!” Please forgive the cynicism. I only wish I could share some of the sad stories sobbed to me (and there have been plenty!) during pastoral counseling sessions. But I can’t. Just take my word for it – there are a lot of unhappy people out there.
You ever hear the story about the couple that was celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary? The lady, now wrinkled and gray haired, was asked the secret of their long marriage. She replied, “We made a pact right from the beginning that we would still have fun. One night a week we would go out to dinner, a movie, or a dance. He went on Tuesdays, I went on Wednesdays.” You smiled, didn’t you? Maybe it’s naïve to think that one person can fulfill all the needs of another over a long period of years. People in this country are living longer than ever before. Serial polygamy is on the rise. Oh dear!
I love to introduce my wife in ways that are a bit unusual. I may say, “And this is my first wife, Diane.” Boy, that causes some astonished looks. Or maybe, “We’ve had thirty wonderful years together…..and the other ten weren’t all that bad.” But all kidding aside, we’ve been pretty fortunate. We knew each other only about six months before we got married. She was a registered nurse employed in a private practice and I was a recently discharged sailor with all the bad habits accumulated over four years.  Many people have lauded Diane with praise because she’s been such a model PW (preacher’s wife). She has often reminded her admirers, “Well, you need to understand that I didn’t marry a preacher. I married a drunken sailor!” True, but we never know what path God might have in store for us. And yes, people can (and will) change.
I recently flew to Florida to visit my 84-year-old mother. She had recently strapped a guilt trip on me by saying, “If people can’t come see my while I’m alive, they sure as Hell don’t need to come to my funeral.” Message received. We had a nice visit for four days and then it was time to come home and get back to work. The flight home from Orlando involved a change of planes and a layover in Baltimore. We were scheduled to touch down in Columbus around 1:40 p.m. and Diane would be there to pick me up and shuttle me back down to Highland County.
When I got on the plane in Orlando, many seats were already filled. Oh, in case you haven’t flown on Southwest, they have a modified ‘festival seating’ procedure where they let people board in groups and find their own preferred seats. I noticed a young lady sitting by a window with two empty seats beside her. I asked, “Are you saving these for somebody?” She smiled and said no, so I sat down in the aisle seat. Only then did I notice she was wearing the uniform of a Southwest flight attendant. She was flying to Baltimore to start her working day there. I got a book out and tried to read but couldn’t help but watch as she attempted to make sense of three knitting needles and a book full of diagrams. After awhile, she rolled up the string or twine or whatever you call that, and closed the book in disgust. She was trying to learn to knit, but it just wasn’t going well. So we began to converse.
By the time we got to Baltimore, we knew more about each other than many people do in a year’s time. As the plane prepared for landing, she told me that if I wanted a good breakfast, the Silver Diner in the airport was a good place to eat. I thanked her and watched her leave. I had lots of time. I let everybody else struggle with their carry on baggage before I got up and retrieved mine. I was about the last person to exit. I asked a ticket agent for directions to the Silver Diner, which was but a short walk away. As I approached the entrance, who should appear but my seat companion! I asked her if she would like to have breakfast with me. We picked up our conversation where we had left off before the plane landed.
She, like me, grew up in a home that was pretty strict….even repressive…with their religious rules. Everything, it seemed, was a sin. Dancing was a sin. Card playing was a sin. Drinking was a horrible sin. Swimming was public bathing, and therefore a sin. There were only certain movies you could watch. Boy, I recalled all that in a flash….and felt again the resentment of misguided religious zeal. She told me she had been married for two and a half years to a pilot who flew for another airline. She, like me, was a college dropout. For awhile, she had been studying for the nursing field, then mortuary science but never really did figure out what she wanted to do. Then she went to flight attendant school and loved what she was doing. Just before she left, we introduced ourselves. “By the way, I’m Greg and I’ve truly enjoyed our time together.” She replied, “I’m Brandy and it’s been great talking with you.” With that, we parted.
As I approached gate B3, where Flight 396 was supposed to depart for Columbus, I was puzzled by the lack of passengers waiting. I took my boarding pass to the ticket agent and she looked at it with surprise. “Your flight left twenty minutes ago.” WHAT!? I had misread my itinerary. I thought the flight left at 12:40. No, it was supposed to arrive in Columbus at 12:40! While I was sitting in the Silver Diner having a wonderful conversation with a pretty young flight attendant, my wife was driving to Columbus meet the flight that I had missed.
I asked when the next flight to Columbus left. “Tomorrow afternoon.” How about a connecting flight, maybe to Chicago and then back to Columbus? How about Louisville? Nothing available. The best I could do was fly to Cleveland and that flight was nearly full. I’d be on standby. Naturally, the girls at the ticket desk thought it was hilarious that I had missed my flight while dining with some sweet young thing while my loving wife was making her way to Columbus. I didn’t find it all that humorous, especially when I had to call Diane on her cell phone. Forty-one years of marriage. Would we make it to forty-two?
“Hi Honey, it’s me. Where are you?” She replied, “Almost to Columbus.” I swallowed hard. “How would you feel about driving a little further…like to Cleveland?” Silence. I launched into the saga and pleaded for understanding. “When you’re in the restaurant and their music is playing you can’t hear the flight announcements. Honest.”  She asked, “How much farther is it to Cleveland?” And where is their airport?” Oh, thank the Lord she was going to come pick me up! But I could tell she wasn’t about to nominate me for Husband of the Year Award just then. I’ve shared this story with a couple of people. One woman’s response was, “I’d have left you in Baltimore.” Boy, I’m glad I didn’t marry her!
When we repeat those vows, “For better or for worse” we never really know what we’re signing up for, do we? Let alone, “In sickness and in health.” Just today I learned that a former colleague from Greenfield Printing days is now in a wheelchair and on oxygen all the time. Her husband has become her primary caregiver. And yes, they’re about my age. As of right now I’m fortunate to be very healthy. That could change in a heartbeat (or, as we note at the funeral home, a lack thereof). I suspect that my health would be endangered if I missed another connecting flight for a similar reason.
Marriage is like so many other living things. Abuse and/or neglect will kill a marriage as surely as it will kill a plant. So here’s some advice for you guys: if you decide to sit with a pretty young flight attendant and then take her to breakfast….pay attention to your itinerary! And be sure to take your wife a gift. Maybe two.
- By Greg Roberts (published 10/24/2011)


RETIREMENT RUMINATIONS

I was just thinking about retirement and the multiple meanings that word has for different people. Talk about it, dream about it, plan and save for it, and hope you live long enough and remain healthy enough to enjoy it, but what if it never happens? What if you never have enough money? Recently a television newscaster said that a poll revealed (notice this is hearsay) some sixty percent of the American public believes they’ll never be well enough off financially to retire. Is this part of the demise of the American Dream?
There was a time, long ago, when a workingman would pick up his metal lunch bucket (packed by a loving wife, of course) and walk to the factory where he would put in his eight or ten hours and then walk back to his modest home on a block of row houses. After thirty years he could expect a gold watch and a pension. By the way, the movie Invincible portrays this beautifully. It wasn’t a glamorous life, but barring any long-term union strikes or crippling illness, a man could count on something day to day and at the end of his working career. What happened?
A friend of mine from church shared with me recently the good news that he finally landed a job. True, he has to drive to Cincinnati every day, but after being unemployed for nearly two years, he is overjoyed to begin receiving a paycheck again. You have to wonder how he and his wife have survived this financial drought. She’s been working in a fast food restaurant, but only a few hours a week. It seems that employers are very careful to keep hours down so they don’t have to offer benefits. Do you think this couple is thinking about and planning for retirement? They are by no means an exception to the rule.
Is it possible that we, as a nation and a culture, will be compelled to re-think the courses of our lives? Possibly, the very notion of retirement will disappear in the future. Incidentally, that’s a word that doesn’t appear once in the Bible. (Nor does the word ‘vacation’ but that’s another topic altogether.) In Jesus’ day there was no middle class. There were the very well off and the rest of the population. A workingman would go to the marketplace of his village early in the morning and hope to be hired by a wealthy landowner so he could feed his family. He would work hard all day and get his denarius, the Roman coin worth a day’s labor, at the end of the day. He had no health insurance, no retirement plan and no Social Security. If he were injured on the job, well that was just too bad. If he suffered a catastrophic illness and couldn’t work, his wife and children would have to turn to prostitution or begging just to survive.
Please understand that I’m not lifting that scenario up as a model. That’s simply the way things were before social safety nets, collective bargaining, child labor laws and the rise of the middle class. In the Bible we find story after story of blind, crippled and disabled people begging. In every case, Jesus has compassion for them. It is this very compassion for the underprivileged that seems to be lacking in America’s post-industrial society. In our current political environment there seems to be a struggle between those at one end of the spectrum who wish to maintain their wealth and power and those at the other end who want something for nothing---a welfare state. Somebody once said that if all the money in America were redistributed evenly among every citizen, at the end of six months it would be right back in the hands of those who previously held it. There may be some truth in that. But my, how the poor would like to have a chance to spend it just once!
Speaking of poor, there is a growing class all around us called the working poor. These are the folks who are honestly trying to earn their own way but gradually slipping into economic distress. People who work two part-time jobs with no benefits, people who take whatever they can get through temp services, people who are underemployed according to their educational levels and previous experience fill these ranks. Does retirement ever cross their minds?
Just down the road from me is a wonderful couple in their eighties. They have farmed for many years and continue to farm as best they can. Dale can be seen driving the tractor and equipment up and down our road on a regular basis as he plows, tills, plants and harvests. Ruby still cooks meals, and helps as best as she can with her limited physical capabilities. Recently, I had the opportunity to ask him if he ever thought about retirement. He said he never wants to end up like all those sad people in a nursing home and hopes he dies on the tractor seat. Retirement for him is a foreign word.
Financial planners will tell you how much money you need to save for retirement, depending on your plans and dreams when you leave the workforce. The amount needed will vary depending on whether you want to go sailing around the world or just play golf every day. In any case, you should have a considerable pile of money and enough life insurance to insure that when you expire your loved ones will be ‘well taken care of’. Unfortunately, financial planners can only help you get to that preferred financial plateau if you have a good-paying, secure job, never get sick, and never get ‘downsized’. There are no certainties in life other than death, taxes, and broken political promises.
I am, in theory, retired. But because I didn’t plan ahead well enough, our budget requires continued income. (In my own defense, I didn’t expect to be raising two grandchildren at this time in life either, but they are an unexpected blessing, not a curse.) For income, I mow yards, work at the funeral home, and make occasional deliveries for The Mason Company. Last winter when I broke my leg, we sold gold jewelry to stay afloat financially. Quite honestly, I love retirement because it allows me the variety of different tasks. I could never be the guy who goes to the factory every day for thirty years. There are breaks in the action too. Sometimes, Diane and I have three or four days in a row with no work opportunities. I’m not much enthralled with television and while there is a rocker on the front porch, it doesn’t appeal to me. It’s there for looks. I’d like to think that my continued work ethic sets a good example for the grandkids. Time will tell.
Enough about me. What about you? What does retirement look like for you? Are you prepared to be a full-time caregiver for a spouse who can’t take care of him or herself? What if you’re that disabled spouse? Will you be disappointed and bitter if you don’t have the financial resources to go and do as you please? If you attend your fifty-year class reunion, what will you say about your current status? I hope you can say, “Life is good.” In most cases, it sure beats the alternative, retired or not. 
- By Greg Roberts (published 10/13/2011)


NOTE: A collection of archived writings from Greg Roberts can be found at the following link:
www.coffeyweb.com/just_thinking_archives.htm