The Narrow Gate: Day 246

The Narrow Gate

Welcome to the continuation of my blog, post-seminary. Ministry and evangelism have brought me back home to Chattanooga. I welcome your company on my journey.

The original blog, Down In Mississippi, shared stories from 2008 and 2009 of the hope and determination of people in the face of disaster wrought by the hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005, of work done primarily by volunteers from churches across America and with financial support of many aid agencies and private donations and the Church. My Mississippi posts really ended with the post of August 16, 2009. Much work, especially for the neediest, remained undone after the denominational church pulled out. Such is the nature of institutions. The world still needs your hands for a hand up. I commend to you my seven stories, Down in Mississippi I -VII, at the bottom of this page and the blog posts. They describe an experience of grace.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Day 246 - Good Gifts

The last week has been one for gifts.

We had a new truck to pick up in Louisville, the first “gift.” It is needed to pull some equipment to Texas. I flew up to Louisville and drove it back, stopping in Chattanooga on the way back to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with my mother, brother & wife and my sons, the second gift. I opened a lot of old mail including some quarterly statements on my IRA showing that there are only two positions to hold in the market right now, cash and fetal. Then the fourth gift came over two days. It turned out that somewhere in all that lurked a cold virus and it slowly picked off my eldest son early Thursday, them my youngest son early Friday, then his mother late Friday, and finally on Friday night it got me.

That virus was an interesting gift. It slowed me down so much I spent most of Friday evening, all day Saturday completing some seminary applications I’ve been working on, the fifth gift. Like a lot of things, it keeps going and going. I still have a lot of congestion. I was able to attend the service at Northside and saw a lot of old friends, and listened to one of JoeB’s last sermons at Northside.

On the way down in Mississippi I picked up the seventh gift, a religious FM station and listened to most of the complete performance of Handel’s Messiah (the soprano wasn’t as good as some I’ve heard). When I arrived back in Gulfport early Sunday evening I looked in the mail and found the next gift, a package from our church team in Uniontown, PA – a Pittsburgh Tee-shirt with all the colloquial tidbits that make it such a nice town: aht, babushka, blitzburgh, chipped ham, chitchat, dahntahn, hans, iron (as in city beer), jaggers, jumbo, jynt igle (the local supermarket), keller, nebby, pensivania, picksburgh (a favorite learned by my eldest son in his formative years), pop, sammitch, E’sliberty, spicket, stillers, stillmill, telepole, the burgh, the mon, the point, worsh, yins(or youns).

I got a call from some friends in Atlanta, the ninth, always a nice gift, and upon opening my e-mail, a tenth gift, a reply to one of my missives from a good friend, we’ll call her “H.”

Who says all gifts have to be exotic or munificent to be good? I had a nice conversation about new strategies in Mississippi while in Louisville, it was interesting to drive a Ford diesel, the virus slowed me down, a good thing (and makes me appreciate good health). I got to visit with my family. Seeing the state of my savings made me think hard about letting today’s troubles be enough. I had the pleasure to listen to Handel, a gift jogged some nice old memories about Pittsburgh, and I heard from a friend.

And this Thursday, though I have to make the drive again, I’ll hear my eldest son’s recital in the evening, then turn around the following weekend and do it again to see him graduate, giving me my twelve gifts before Christmas. So, from where do all good gifts come?

Be thankful for what you receive.

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Gates

The gate pervades the Good News. Peter entered the temple gate after the Jesus’ arrest to deny him. Poor Lazarus lay at the rich man's gate, longing for the crumb's from the table, while dogs licked his sores. The blind, lame and paralyzed lay at the Sheep Gate at the Jerusalem temple waiting at the pool with five porticoes for healing water. Jesus warned of the easy road and wide gate to material ease and spiritual destruction and calls us to the hard road and narrow gate to the waters of life.

necessary disclaimer

This blog is created solely to communicate to my brothers and sisters how one person sees adversity bringing out the greater character of humanity. It's early part relating connection to the volunteer relief effort in Mississippi after Katrina and later work with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Program and the Presbyterian Church(USA) is solely through my participation in them; this blog does not carry any sponsorship from these fine organizations or purport to speak for them. All original content is that of the writer who holds the copyright to all original writings and art or other works (See Creative Commons License above). Every effort is made to identify content from other sources which have been obtained from open internet sources. It's more recent content contains sermons and lessons used in preaching and teaching. The url to scripture are obtained via http://bible.oremus.org unless otherwise indicated.

Texts quoted from oremus bible viewer are from "New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved." and "New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved."