From the Schoolhouse
Hamid strolled into my Civic’s class at the end of the bell as if time was a foreign word. I stopped what I was doing. “Hamid, you’re late again. Really? How are you going to pass this class if you’re never here?” He just shrugged, all 250 pounds of him, his hair mussed, his dirty tee shirt torn and draped over thin jeans with several patches covering past sins.
He looked like an Appalachian mountain man out for a Saturday stroll through the foggy hollows. In reality, Hamid was from Iran. He had arrived in this country a few years ago but still seemed like he was in culture shock. He had a budding beard and an infectious smile. Nothing bothered him too much. He told me again why he was late. “My mother was sick and I had to watch my little brother and then I had to walk all the way to school.” He spoke several Iranian dialects and was clearly quite smart, but he didn’t know sentences needed periods or that time schedules meant something.
“It’s all right, Hamid. I’ll help you catch up,” I said scratching my head.
He smiled. As he sauntered off down the hall climbing some unknown ridge to somewhere I couldn’t see, I hollered at him. “Nice beard, Hamid.”
He just grinned and sashayed off to his Algebra class already thirty minutes late.
(Photo courtesy of:http://asianhistory.about.com/od/iran/fl/The-Great-Persian-Famine-1870-71.htm)
From the Pulpit
As I stood in the pulpit gazing out at the congregation last Sunday, I noticed a strange stirring in the back. It seemed at first as if a quiet wind was blowing through a weeping willow. Wisps of greenery were swaying and dipping just below the pew tops. I rubbed my eyes wondering if this vision was heaven sent or just my imagination. Then a little elbow wiggled followed by the soft footsteps of Revel rounding the corner at the back of the church hoisting a portion of some garlands that decorated the sanctuary for this Hanging of the Greens service.
He was a miniature pied-piper marching forward into a story he was living leading his followers with gusto and frivolity. I couldn’t help but chuckle and imagine what the heavenly hosts thought as they peered over heaven’s banner watching.
From the Pew
The pipes almost hypnotized me. I sat motionless, just staring and feeling a sense of awe. There’s something inspiring about organ pipes. They set a mood, they summon us to a high and lifted place where our hearts can gather and commune with the Divine. It’s not often I get to sit in the back pew, but during an interlude in a recent service, I was there in the back just gazing at the choir loft and listening to the immense, golden pipes breathe.
I have a genuine appreciation for the architecture of our sanctuary. Few churches have these treasures that adorn our worship space. The pipes, the stained glass windows, the arched ceiling–all of these icons of modern worship lead all genuine searchers forward to the throne where those seek truth can commune with God and find respite from a corybantic world.
Farewell
I bid you farewell until next time. If you like this newsletter let me challenge to forward it to a friend so he or she can sign up for this weekly, inspirational missive. Just paste this signup link http://eepurl.com/csTu5T into your email and your friend can click it and subscribe to the newsletter.
(p.s. Follow this link to my website (www.Blaktiepress.com) for more items of interest).
David R. Denny Ph.D.
Pastor of the Drummondtown Baptist Church
Accomack VA.
Blak tie press 