Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Years ago, when my oldest brother and his wife left for almost 20 years of mission work in Malawi, Africa, I was barely a pup. I was too small then to remember now much of the early time of their service there, but I well remember that then and always, whenever our family gathered, we sang. (I know. Tell that to most modern families and you might as well tell them you grew up on Mars.) I learned many good, and even great, songs at church as I was growing up. Many were...
At first, the quotation I’m about to share may sound a bit cynical. But when you have a little time to think about it, I think you’ll agree with me that it is not only realistic and true, it is filled with hope. You see, when God came into this world “in the flesh,” he was laid in a manger, a feed trough, in a stable surrounded by everything anyone in first century Palestine would expect to find in such a place — including the very thing you can find in ample supply in almost...
“The true light that gives light to everyone,” writes the Apostle John, “was coming into the world.” -- John 1:9 And so each year at this time, we drape our trees, our homes, our churches, our cities and towns and villages, with innumerable lights. Every one of them, even if it’s nothing more than a glowing red light on Rudolph’s nose, is silent testimony to the bright truth that “the light shines” even “in the darkness.” Not only has the darkness “failed to put it o...
For 16 years now, during the second and third weeks of Advent (the word has to do with “coming”), a centuries-old traditional time of “preparing our hearts” before Christmas, I’ve led some brief morning devotions with readings and prayers for a little group gathering briefly to bow in our little church sanctuary. It’s not a large thing and certainly not a large crowd, but that’s one of Advent’s main lessons: little and quiet can accompany the most magnificent meaning, and meek...
“I’m pretty sure I can wire around that.” Right. That’s the sort of statement that fits in very well with other Famous Last Word pronouncements of the Tim “the Toolman” Taylor variety. “Nah, don’t flip the breaker; I’ll work it hot.” “The can says it’s flammable, but this stuff almost never explodes.” “Forget the extra jack; I’ll just crawl in under there.” “Just put in a bigger fuse.” I’ll admit that a light in my head flipped from green to yellow when I heard myself say tho...
“O most gracious God,” wrote the eloquent sufferer, “on this sickbed I feel under your correction, and I taste of humiliation, but let me taste of consolation, too.” John Donne, poet and priest, so wrote in one of his “devotions” in 1623. In “Christianity Today” over twenty years ago, Philip Yancey shared a brief edited, somewhat modernized, excerpt of Donne’s “Devotions.” As Yancey explains, Donne had fallen seriously ill. Not unreasonably, he assumed he had contracted the...
We can be safe, or we can be truly alive. Not both. Opting for “safety” is an illusion both unsafe and pathetic, a gag gift all wrapped up with three bedraggled ribbons: fear, arrogance, and control. When safety is our highest goal, we betray a fear of life and, deeper still, a lack of trust in the God of life. Then we're well on our way to becoming our own gods. Why? So we can control our own lives and the lives of those around us. (Note: I'm talking about life in gen...
Well, here we go again. It’s a normal Monday morning. At least, as close to normal as anything gets in 2020. Our clock just chimed 9 a.m. I know that because it chimed nine times in the key of G, ante meridiem, and not D, post meridiem. Not really. Well, nine times, really. Different morning and evening keys? No. But I really am three hours away from my column deadline for a couple or three newspapers (a “hard” deadline) and a blog (a “soft” deadline). Aided by coffee (a...
Here we go. Election Day 2020. Tomorrow, as I write. I’m not sure I remember ever dreading one, an election day, more (though the 2016 experience was very close). It’s not the day I dread so much as the very real possibility of an Election Month or months or, maybe worse still, an “election in the courts.” Maybe as you’re reading this you’ll know a good deal more than I possibly can (as I’m writing) about the outcome. Maybe it’s done and decided. Maybe really decided. Maybe...
Fair warning this is, given to protect your eyes and general psyche from sudden and perhaps overwhelming shock: If you open the door at our house that leads five steps down into the garage, you will find bodies everywhere. You will have literally stepped into a killing zone. So, there. You have been warned. A couple or three years ago, a dear friend gave me for Christmas one of the best gifts I have ever received: it’s an a-salt gun. I didn’t say “an assault rifle.” This parti...
Death. There seems to have been a lot of it lately, at least in my experience. Funerals have been the order of the day. I know. Your first thought will likely be of COVID-19 deaths. According to Johns Hopkins University, the United States, as I write this, has suffered 219,282 deaths because of that virus. Of course, we’re awash in numbers as we try to get a perspective on this mess. I found some particularly interesting. (But check me on them. Statistics are slippery.) On a...
Tolerance. I find myself wondering if the word, these days a sickly, anemic, anorexic wraith of a word barely staggering around on its wobbly feet — and yet incredibly loud despite its weakness — has always carried with it a genetic predisposition toward infirmity and decay, or if the present-day virulence of political correctness has fed its malignant bone rot. “Just give tolerance a chance.” Let’s hold our candles high and sway to the music as we stand in front of our unive...
I wonder what would happen ... Well, it probably wouldn’t happen, at least, not with the folks I’m thinking of, though I think there’s a pretty good chance it could happen, would happen, and does happen with you or me or anybody you really want to spend much time around, folks who don’t suck the air out of any room they enter, people you can honestly say that you like, but I wonder ... I wonder what would happen if the loud politicians (and most of them are loud) presently enj...
I hear this comment made fairly often: “Wow! That person really knows the Bible!” I always wonder what the speaker means. Usually they mean that someone is quite familiar with the words of the Bible, its many facts and wonderful stories, etc. On one level, that’s great, since most studies these days show that the general level of factual Bible knowledge among even Christians is appalling. But then I wonder, how much does that person whose Bible knowledge is being touted reall...
Two or three folders stuffed with little pieces of paper covered in scrawled notes. A computer file folder named “ColumnSeed” with files named “ColSeed0001” and on up, presently, to “ColSeed0334.” What each of those folders holds, of course, are ideas for newspaper columns/blogs and, now, podcasts. The column-starter ideas submerged in them (though most are relatively benevolent) are a bit like the nuclear missiles resting in submarines and silos: they are usually out of sigh...
Some wrecks you simply cannot see coming; others, well, it’s almost criminal negligence not to see them heading your way. The latter can and should be avoided. If you are busy minding your own business as a good citizen when you are suddenly dispatched (tragically, for sure) by falling space junk, or perhaps by a less flashy but nonetheless spectacular, garden-variety meteorite, I don’t see how anyone could rationally criticize you for not seeing the danger coming. Of cou...
I might as well just admit it: I am not a good door-knocker. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Probably not me, or you’d not have heard the clatter. I don’t like to make noise. I like peace and quiet and assume that others do, too, so I tend to knock too quietly. Nor do I enjoy having to stand outside a door as I realize that I knocked too tentatively and that it’s probably my own fault that I’m standing there, waiting, wondering if anyone is home, if anybody heard my wimpy kno...
When my first grandchild, a beautiful little girl, was born, I was surprised to learn that grandchildren are born with an integrated GPS. All of mine have come thus equipped. The Grandpa Positioning System can be initiated with a simple smile aimed at the old guy, a pudgy little finger pointing PawPaw in a specific direction, or a cute giggle triggering Granddaddy Gymnastics (which — let grandpas beware — may lead to lumbar consequences). At one point a few years into my gra...
I’ve been thinking about ordering some hats. Caps, really. Baseball-style caps. Something like those famous red ones that are emblazoned “MAGA.” But those won’t work for me. Oh, we can discuss the message, but I don’t plan to. Not here. I’m just talking about the style. The fact is, I’m not a big hat person. I sometimes wish I was. Nothing looks better than a nice cowboy hat on a guy who was made for a nice cowboy hat. But I just can’t seem to pull that look off. I’ve recen...
Well, here we are again. Monday morning. At least, in my corner of the universe. I mean, of course, as I’m writing this. I don’t know when you’re reading it. Whenever it is, I do very much appreciate your discerning and impeccable literary tastes. (And, I beg you, please give me at least one more chance after you read this particular column. I’m thinking it will be a little thin.) But onward ... This is probably not news to you, upon reflection, but most barbers and a good ma...
Lazarus was dead. Of that sad fact everyone was now absolutely sure. He had been barely breathing when Mary and Martha, his sisters, had sent the urgent message to Jesus to beg the Lord to return to help the desperate friends. They needed Jesus badly, and quickly. Yesterday, if possible, and it wasn’t possible. Even for the Lord. But the odd truth is that after he’d received the message from these dearly loved friends, Jesus had not hurried. When he finally arrived back nea...
“I think I made a mistake.” Those, I’m told, were the words on a note a dying 20-something-year-old wrote to his nurse before he expired. He was referring to his, as it turns out, suicidal decision to attend a “COVID party.” I’m tempted to write, “Duh.” But it’s bad form to “duh” a guy who admits his own unforced error and pays such a high price for his own idiocy. And it’s not like the rest of us are immune to occasional stupidity and subsequent pain. I write those words wit...
Wow, it’s a good thing nobody can hear what I’m thinking right now. An “open mic” transmitting from my brain might show how incredibly jumbled it is today. I’m sure the funeral directors’ and, of course, the families’ minds are every bit as jumbled. It’s been a flood. But it’s never easy. And multiple services this week. I’m thinkin’ ... The trick with anybody’s job, I guess, is that, if you do it right, it looks simple, and even if it’s “game on” in your head, thoughts are ca...
The drips and the crickets. My brother Jim has long said that those are the sorts of things that finally drive you “over the edge” when you’re already under stress. Along the same line, we might recall an agricultural metaphor: “Well, that was just the straw that broke it!” The old wagon or cart or trailer or pickup was handling the load of straw pretty well, maybe just showing a little stress as the weight was piled on, and then someone dropped on one more straw. Just one....
Well, I guess the turtle was right, and rain was on the way. If you can’t trust a turtle, the epitome of slow, faithful plodding, who can you trust? Not flighty or flitting, manic or depressive, just one step at a time dependability — that’s the ticket, turtle! But I’m getting ahead of myself. A couple of days ago, I looked through a window at the back of our house and spied, trudging across the property in a generally southerly direction, a fine example of Terrapene ornata,...
