Beauty all around
Several months ago, I was broken-hearted at the news that a young mother had allegedly killed her daughters and then herself inside her Texas trailer.
That sadness was triggered again at the news that a celebrity wrestler had reportedly chosen to murder his wife and child and then end his own life.
These tragedies that pit family member against family member happen too frequently and I often wonder if anybody around the perpetrators had reached out to these troubled souls to offer help and hope.
Of course I don’t think anyone, even in their wildest imaginings, can fathom the darkness that has apparently overtaken these families as these situations unfold.
Hindsight is 20/20 and I want to think that people who might have had any inkling about such problems would have done all they could to prevent the loss of life.
One thing these incidents have done is help me remember that everyone, at one time or another, could use encouragement, a helping hand, a listening ear and, sometimes, a shoulder to cry on.
I’m trying to remember to take the time to say a kind word or perform a kind deed — without thought of repayment or praise. The urge to encourage and give aid is something that I believe came from my family — call it a generational blessing — a great family trait that has been passed down from one generation of my folks to another.
It’s easy to set all that aside especially as my days get busier and busier.
I was reminded of this as I walked along The Oklahoman’s walking trails the other day. I was power-walking and determined to get in several laps when a co-worker and I met up along the pathway.
She asked me if I had seen the beautiful swan.
Swan? What swan?
I looked over and just a few yards away did indeed sit a glorious swan.
I had seen plenty of geese as I walked and never noticed the swan among them.
I had been too busy, too focused on accomplishing yet another task in my busy day and had almost missed the majesty of the moment.
As I walked on I thought how blessed I was that someone pointed out the beautiful bird.
I promised myself I’d do the same for someone else: Point out the beauty, the small miracles that lift the spirit, even for a little while.
Who knows but that gesture may be just what they need to brighten a less than hopeful situation or circumstance?
Thou Shalt Laugh Out Loud
I’m a gusher … that’s probably why I’ll never be a professional movie reviewer.
If I like something I gush. If I don’t like something I rant. Since it’s rare that I don’t like something about a movie, I’d be perpetually in gush mode.
So I liked “Evan The Almighty.” Actually I loved this movie.
I saw it yesterday and it was a pleasant end to a long, long day.
I’m not necessarily a fan of actor Steve Carell, who portrays freshman Congressman, Evan. What I mean is I haven’t seen his other movies and I watched one episode of his TV show, “The Office,” and disliked it.
He’s hilarious — laugh out loud hilarious — in “Evan The Almighty.” He’s perfect as the idealistic, workaholic and straight-laced Evan who has plans to change the world from Capitol Hill.
Ah, another world changer. Just what the world needs.
Apparently that’s what God (portrayed by actor Morgan Freeman) thinks because that’s why he calls upon the young Congressman to build an ark.
“You said you wanted to change the world, right?,” He says.
But Evan tells God that he has other plans … he can’t possibly build a huge boat in his suburban neighborhood.
God laughs at this.
“You had plans! That’s funny. YOU had plans!” He says.
And so goes “Evan The Almighty.”
I liked it because it was an entertaining reminder that God is ultimately in control. So what about our plans? I bet God does get a good laugh sometimes about our so-called plans, especially when we try to carry them out.
In the film, as I believe in real life, God prefers that we make His plan our plan and that’s the one that succeeds.
Poor Evan. God tries to make it plain.
He sends delivery trucks full of wood to Evan’s house. He tells animals to show up wherever Evan happens to be.
Evan finally realizes the numbers 6 14 keep popping up. Eventually, after God appears and speaks to him in person, Evan figures out that the numbers must mean something.
He finds a Bible and turns to Genesis 6:14: “Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.”
Don’t want to spoil the movie for people who haven’t seen it yet, so I’ll stop here.
It’s a good movie. I predict the faith community will love it.
There are a lot of lessons in the film — some hidden so that you might have to think a bit — and some come at you like a flock of birds flying through the window.
Hope we all take heed.
Billy and Ruth Graham: ‘Til death do us part’
“Til death do us part.”
The familiar phrase uttered in many wedding ceremonies may not mean what it used to, but for some couples it is still a verbal commitment to a lasting bond of wedded love.
Columnist Bryan Painter recently wrote about such couples and I have one on my mind in particular.
I was talking to one of my best friends this morning and we were discussing Ruth Bell Graham’s death Thursday evening.
My friend and I, Liz Thomas, attend the same church and went together to the Rev. Billy Graham’s Oklahoma City Mission in June 2003 at the Ford Center.
Of course I sat in an area reserved for members of the media and she sat with several other members of church. We both saw and heard similar things at the event and we both came away with different viewpoints too.
And yet this morning our phone conversation revolved around a comment that Billy Graham made during the mission’s first evening session.
As I recall a hush came over the crowd as he described being bedridden at the Mayo Clinic where he had gone for some testing. At that time, he said, doctors were trying to find out exactly what ailed the renowned evangelist.
Here is an excerpt from my story that ran the next day, June 13, 2003:
“I spoke to the Lord and the Lord spoke to me,” Graham said as he stood at a podium on the Ford Center stage.
“All my sins came back to me, dating from childhood,” he said in a sermon that lasted about 40 minutes.
Graham said he realized Jesus had died for the sins that arose to confront him.
“I knew from that moment on that I made my peace with God when I thought I was on my death bed — and I still have it.”
This morning, both Liz and I remarked on his comments, remembering something else he said as he spoke to the silent crowd. I think that his talk of death, him being 80-something, had quickly captured the audience’s attention.
Graham said he and his beloved wife had talked about what a joy it would be to “go together” to meet the Lord they had both spent a lifetime telling others about.
Obviously that did not happen, but his sentiment made an impression upon us — so much so that all these years later it stuck out as a beautiful tribute to a love that stood the test of time.
I know that others remember the preacher’s loving remarks. It was an unforgettable moment in an unforgettable place in the city’s history. As we listened to the evangelist, many of us wondered if it was the last time he would preach in our city.
It is wonderful to recall that bygone time and Graham’s inspirational words. They certainly struck home to many people, particularly married lovebirds in the room — and those who hoped one day to experience such marital joy.
Her beloved husband’s thoughtful words and undoubtedly, his memories of his wife, are fitting testimonies of the life of Ruth Bell Graham.
Leaving Spurs Land
The annual meeting is over and I’ll soon be off to the airport to catch a flight back to Oklahoma City.
Typically I meet other Oklahomans who are also making their way back from the meeting.
I have one personal regret: I didn’t get to tour the Alamo.
I visited San Antonio a few years ago with my children and tried to talk them into going to the Alamo. Seaworld, the River Walk and River Center Mall captured their attention and we never did make it to the historic site.
I’ve lived in Oklahoma City most of my life, but from fourth grade through mid-way of the eighth grade my family and I lived in Euless, Arlington and Fort Worth, Texas. I got a Texas-sized dose of Lone Star state history.
Therefore the Alamo has great significance for me as a semi-Texan.
The good news is I’ll be headed back to San Antonio in the fall for the annual Religion News Writers Conference.
It’s a four-day event just for religion writers so surely, somewhere between the workshops and activities, I’ll be able to get a tour of the Alamo in.
Here’s looking forward to fall … and Go Spurs!
Tongue tied
Southern Baptists concerned about the issue of speaking in tongues will not be silenced.
The subject has came up numerous times during this year’s annual meeting and it may be explored even further next year.
Messenger Lee Saunders of Texas asked that consideration be given to the development of a convention policy regarding the gift of tongues.
The elephant in the room was officially exposed.
Saunder’s request was referred to the convention’s executive committee for report back to the convention at next year’s annual meeting in Indianapolis.
This could very well mean that Baptists will spell out exactly what they do or don’t believe about glossolalia or private prayer language.
The issue has certainly been bandied about during these last two days. Of course Oklahomans like the Rev. Wade Burleson (Enid) and the Rev. Robin Foster (Perkins) have been discussing it for some time now.
Next year in Indy Southern Baptists may come to some consensus about whether or not their missionaries and seminary professors can ascribe to the practice of speaking in tongues.
Some Baptists have stayed mum on the issue, but after this gathering, I doubt any Southern Baptist leader will have that luxury forever.
Meanwhile Burleson says he believes the issue is nobody’s business — what someone does in private prayer is their business.
Somehow I think it is going to become everybody’s business — soon.
Interestingly enough, a resolution concerning glossolalia did not make it out of committee.
Gerald Harris, the resolution committee chairman, said the committee had good reason not to wade into the debate.
“We didn’t feel like the resolution committee was the Supreme Court, so to speak, to interpret theology for the convention.”
All things Narnia
Calling Bob Green …
The Rev. Bob Green brought up an interesting issue Tuesday but my attempts to track him down have proved fruitless.
Green is pastor of a Broken Arrow church and a former president of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.
During an annual meeting session on Tuesday he made a motion to direct Lifeway Christian Resources to review its policy regarding the distribution of fables and allegories. Lifeway, one of 12 convention entities and agencies,is a church enrichment ministry and literature publication venue for the denomination.
Green told messengers he wanted the agency to be directed to stop the sale and promotion of fables and allegories such as “The Chronicles of Narnia.”
Say what?
Pastor Green disappeared into a sea of his fellow Baptists before I could reach him. Efforts to send notes to him through other pastors were unsuccessful as well.
So I am stumped as to what Green meant by his motion and why.
As it turned out, the convention’s Committee on the Order of Business said Green’s motion was not in order because it sought to direct rather than request a convention entity to take action.
Messengers, my annual meeting agenda informed me, may offer motions which request but not direct, that an entity take action.
Therefore Green’s motion was squashed, but my interest was not.
“The Chronicles of Narnia,” C.S. Lewis’ beloved fiction series has been heralded for years as a Christian allegory. True, it is a great good vs. evil classic, but there is no question that many Christians have seen the series as wholesome for children and an evangelistic tool.
In the book, the characters Lucy and Susan, Edmund and Peter, are called “Daughters of Eve” and “Sons of Adam” respectively. Some see Aslan, the great lion, as a symbol of Christ — the “Lion of Judah.” And I would venture to say that the White Witch, another series character, with her wicked and deadly quest for power, is a symbol for Satan.
The Narnia series recently came to the forefront when one of the books in the series, “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe,” was made into a motion picture film through a partnership between Disney and Walden Media.
I know that many Oklahoma churches touted the film as an evangelistic tool, particularly for youths.
I’m hoping Rev. Green and I can connect soon so I can find out more about his concerns.
I know others are curious as well
Surrounded by Spurs fans …
I’ve been accused of being single-minded in my various pursuits, but this was a no-brainer even for me.
I had just settled in at my hotel in downtown San Antonio’s Market Square when I heard noises coming from the street. I’m talking honking car horns, people yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs. What in the world was going on?
I stood on the hotel balcony for a few minutes wondering if I was a missing an important story. Surely the Southern Baptists weren’t making this ruckus. I knew most of them were probably in their beds, like me, trying to get some sleep for the next day’s slew of convention activities.
Nevermind that I had just read my complimentary copy of USA Today … and skipped the Sports section. OK, I did look at the cover but only to get a good look at Tony Parker — Tony Parker, the star point guard for the San Antonio Spurs NBA team.
Even when I called my kids and heard my sons shouting in the background, it didn’t dawn on me that they were watching folks who regularly shoot hoops just a few miles down the road from me at the Alamodome.
I asked my daughter what all the fuss was about. “Are they watching a game?,” I asked knowingly.
“Yup,” she said.
This morning another reporter mentioned hearing loud noises coming from the street outside her hotel. She clued me in about the big NBA game, but it was in Cleveland not San Antonio. She confessed that she had been clueless about all the fuss herself.
Apparently we were surrounded by Spurs fans who were elated at their team’s win last night against the Cavaliers (so sorry LeBron).
Who knows what they will be like Thursday night?
Meanwhile, I’m afraid to root for the Cavaliers while I’m here so … Go Spurs!
Mystery solved
Lots of folks scrambled to the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center this morning to find out the vote on Rick Garner’s motion that was essentially a call to reaffirm the “suffiency” of the Baptist Faith and Message of 2007 as the Southern Baptist Convention’s statement of doctrinal beliefs.
Convention leaders announced that the motion was approved.
What does all this mean? Maybe nothing to people outside the denomination, but plenty to those who call themselves Southern Baptists.
Two Oklahoma pastors on opposite ends of the issue had much to say about it today. It turns out interpretation is everything, darrrlllliiiinnnngggg.
The Rev. Wade Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church of Enid, said it was the convention’s most significant vote in the last 10 years.
He said messengers reaffirmation of the BF&M, as they have nicknamed it, sends a clear message to convention entities and institutions that they must not make decisions based on doctrine not mentioned in the denomination’s doctrinal statement.
“In other words don’t restrict what is and isn’t Baptist beyond the BF&M,” Burleson said.
At the heart of the matter is glossolalia also called private prayer language or speaking in tongues. Burleson and many of his fellow trustees on the convention’s International Mission Board have disagreed on a policy — now “guideline” — barring people with a private prayer language from becoming missionaries.
Burleson has said he doesn’t speak in tongues. He does, however, believe that what people do in their prayer closet is their business. Period.
The Rev. Robin Foster, pastor of, Immanuel Baptist Church (Foster says the similar names of his church and Burleson “is kind of a weird twist of fate” in Perkins, disagrees with Burleson on this issue. Both men have been blogging about this issue for over a year.
Foster told me today that he agreed with the reaffirmation of the Baptist Faith and Message, but he takes issue with Burleson’s interpretation of it.
“I would disagree with the spin that’s being put on it. To say that trustees can not go beyond that — I think that’s ridiculous,” he said.
“It handcuffs our trustees from being able to fully perform their duties.”
Foster said he loves and respects Burleson and believes he has a say in the convention, “but so do I. We just have differences of opinion.”
Look for both men’s blogs — Burleson’s at www.wadeburleson.com and Foster’s at www.fromthehill@wordpress.com.
Mystery vote
I did not disappear into a black hole. I repeat: I did not disappear into a black hole.
So much happened today, the first day of the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, that I am just now finding time to blog.
The Baptist messengers, more than 8,500 of them, have left us Baptist watchers with a mystery to ponder overnight.
The Rev. Rick Garner, an Ohio pastor, made a motion tonight to reaffirm the Baptist Faith and Message of 2000 as the convention’s “instrument of doctrinal accountability.”
By doing so Garner said he was hoping to get the convention’s messengers to vote on whether or not the doctrinal statement is sufficient and preclude SBC boards and institutions from making decisions outside its parameters.
There was much discussion both for and against Garner’s motion and a vote by ballot was called.
This was shortly after 8 p.m. The convention convened at around 10:15 p.m. with no one letting us know what the final vote was.
I’m sure the ballots were still being counted, but it is a “wait and see” that is of much interest to many people.
The Rev. Wade Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, said he believes Garner’s motion was approved by the messengers.
He said the approval would be “huge” in terms of sending a message to SBC entities that he believes now seek to “narrow the parameters” of what it means to be a Southern Baptist.
Lots of folks are curious. I guess we will all know something in the morning.
Stay turned.
In Search of Oklahomans
Downtown San Antonio is teeming with Southern Baptists, most wearing their annual meeting badges.
A sign in the press room Monday night proclaimed that 6,000 had registered as of 4 p.m. Monday.
I visited the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center Monday so that I would know my way around this morning.
I’m glad I did. I heard a distinctive voice as I waited for a shuttle to my hotel. I turned around and saw the Rev. Anthony Jordan, executive director-treasurer of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, and his wife Polla. After talking to them I walked across the street and made a remark to passersby that I was not from such a big city as San Antonio (at least not one that is as busy at 10 at night).
“Where are you from?,” they asked.
“Oklahoma City,” I said.
Turns out the “passersby” were Rev. Randy Wisniewsky and his wife Peggy who live in Woodward. He is senior pastor of Crown Heights Baptist Church there and they were on their way to a late evening seminar on missional churches.
It’s a small world.
Pastor Wisniewsky said he and his wife attend the convention’s annual meetings when it’s affordable and close to home.
He said he likes the convention’s Cooperative Program which encourages churches to move in the same direction in regards to their giving and other efforts.
“We figure we can do more all being in cooperation together,” said pastor Wisniewsky. “It’s helping to grow the kingdom of God.”
OK. Southern Baptist Convention Frank Page just convened the denomination’s 2007 annual meeting.
Stay tuned.
