Welcome to the "Whistling at Snakes" page.

“Life is worth living, if you really try,” wrote the late humorist Horace Sims, “if you don’t let good things pass you by.”

A cheerful chronicler of life’s “good things” for most of his life, Sims’ writings appeared in many newspapers and magazines, including The Baptist Courier. We are pleased to republish here the best of Sims’ stories and essays from his “At Large” column, which ran in the Courier from 1996 until his death in 1999.

“We want to introduce Horace Sims to a new generation of readers, many of them young pastors,” said Courier editor Don Kirkland. “As a pastor himself, Horace touched hundreds of lives during his ministry. As a writer and storyteller, he connected with thousands more.

“New readers will learn to appreciate Horace’s easy and unaffected writing style. Longtime readers will enjoy revisiting such memorable stories as ‘Swatty Wasp,’ ‘Faulty Zipper,’ and, of course, ‘Whistling at Snakes.’”

“Whistling at Snakes,” Sims’ account of his attempt to keep (imagined and real) snakes at bay while preaching at a Lowcountry revival, later became a book by the same title. Originally published by The Baptist Courier in 1999 after Sims’ death, “Whistling at Snakes” — which contains all of Sims’ "At Large" columns previously published in The Baptist Courier, along with stories, essays and poems published elsewhere — went through two subsequent printings and sold more than 8,000 copies. Proceeds from book sales went to Sims’ wife, Jane, who still lives in Greenwood.

Some of the stories include drawings by Thomas Addison, an Upstate artist who illustrated the “Whistling at Snakes” book and who draws “Sand Dollar Cove,” a children’s page featuring the adventures of Seamore Seahorse and his friends, published in The Baptist Courier.

America’s humorist, Mark Twain, said that time is the “true test of humor.” Eight years — and counting — after his death, Horace Sims’ humor still zeroes in on the funny bone. “It’s timeless,” said Kirkland. “This is just funny stuff.”

Read Don Kirkland's introduction to "Whistling at Snakes."

Read Bryant Sims' foreword: "A Legacy of Laughter."

About Thomas Addison

Copyright page

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SECTION ONE: AT LARGE

Columns originally published in The Baptist Courier, 1996-1999

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Whistling at Snakes

Every time I go to the Lowcountry to speak, I hear a lot of stories about snakes. I am told that snakes will not hurt you. But I am one who believes snakes can make you hurt yourself.

At one church, I was told that a rattlesnake had been killed in the hall of the church. Another one had been killed in the guest bedroom of the parsonage. I really wanted to sleep in my car.

I took a minister from Maine to speak at a small membership church conference in the Lowcountry. When we got to the church, he saw a piece of rope under a tree and would not get out of the car until I picked it up.

I returned to that church to speak in revival services. I was not excited about going to “rattlesnake kingdom.” One of the deacons in my church told me to whistle a lot. He said whistling would scare away snakes.

So I got out of my car, whistling. I whistled all the way to the church. I whistled all the way to the parsonage. Everywhere I went, I whistled. I whistled hymns, I whistled marches, I whistled jazz. I whistled everything I thought a snake would not like.

The pastor finally said, “You sure do like to whistle, don’t you?”

I said, “I’m keeping snakes away.”

“Keeping snakes away?” he asked.

“Yeah, and I’m doing a good job, because I haven’t seen one yet,” I replied.

He said, “That could be, but this is not really snake season.”

Big Bubba

I had been asked to preach in revival services at a small church within driving distance from my home. I made the trip of about 60 miles each night for a week.

The pastor of the church was an old friend of many years. I enjoyed his company each night. He had told me the church could not pay an honorarium, but would take a love offering. Since money has never been a major object to me, I agreed to this arrangement.

The services went well. The music was good. The preaching wasn’t too bad. The church was faithful to its promise in taking a love offering each night. After the service, one of the ushers would empty the offering plate into my coat pocket. When I got home, I would count the offering.

The offering amount ranged from $9 to $12. One night, I received $13. To tell the truth, that was probably more than the sermons were worth.

When I arrived at the church on the last night, there was a small camper parked right out front. A hand-lettered sign read, “Little Suzy, The Gospel Singing Wonder.” She was to furnish the special music for the service. Little Suzy sang to the top of her voice. She was accompanied on guitar by her parents.

When Little Suzy completed her concert, the pastor announced a love offering for her. The offering was taken, and Little Suzy got $32.50.

I felt a rise of excitement within myself. This could be the night for a good love offering. The pastor called for a love offering for “this man of God who has been so faithful to come each evening with a message from the Lord.” When I got home and counted my offering, I had received $11.18.

I told my wife that I was going to change careers. I was going to get a guitar and a camper and call myself “Big Bubba, The Gospel Singing Marvel.”

Lightning Strikes

I was elected as a deacon in my home church when I was 23 years old and single. This caused a small stir among the people. Some said that the Bible taught that a deacon was to be the husband of one wife. Others said the Bible taught that a deacon could not have two living wives. While they quietly discussed this issue, I was elected chairman of the deacons.

The work of the deacon is very important to the church. They are to be ministers to the needs of the church family. I always enjoyed being a deacon, wife or not.

Being a deacon can be a dangerous job. I experienced my most dangerous deacons meeting after becoming a pastor. We had met to discuss the church custodian. Some felt that he was not doing the job right and should be replaced.

While we were meeting, a very strong thunderstorm came up. The wind was strong and the lightning was furious. Just as a motion was made to seek a new custodian, the lightning struck the steeple of the church.

Now, the deacons were meeting in a room directly beneath the steeple. There was a great explosion in the room. Balls of fire went in all directions. Deacons were knocked from their chairs. A light switch flew out of the wall and struck me in the back of the head. I fell from my seat on top of the chairman, who was already on the floor. He hasn’t walked exactly right since.

Our steeple was destroyed. A large hole was knocked in the roof. The fire department came to check for fire. The evening service was canceled.

Two decisions were made at the next deacons meeting. The custodian was given a raise and a new contract. Some felt that it was possible that he had better connections than the pastor and deacons did. The deacons also decided to meet in a different room each month, so as not to be such a good target for the lightning.

View from the Balcony

My home church had a balcony that went around the sanctuary. This was the place all of us boys wanted to sit. But Mama would not allow it. We sat on the Sims pew, third row from the back left.

On some Sundays, Mama had to help keep the nursery. On those mornings, Daddy would sit in the balcony. We could sit there if our dad did. There would be a long row of dads, all asleep. We boys were free in the balcony.

Things look different from the balcony. Bald heads looked like melons in a melon patch. There were all sizes and shapes. The ripest were surrounded by gray grass.

You could see how many people took their shoes off during the service. You could see how many of the ladies in the choir were reading magazines while the preacher was waxing eloquent.

The balcony was also a good place to spy on the courting couples on the back row. You could see who was holding hands with whom. You could also see if they were playing “footsie” during a good sermon on hell.

The Bible talks about a great cloud of witnesses looking down on us from heaven. I know the Lord looks down on us from the balcony of heaven. He sees us as we are—bald heads, bare feet, hand-holders and all.

Names

“A name is a name unless it is the same.” This is not a quotation from Shakespeare. It is a quotation from Sims.

My dad was Horace Bryant Sims, Sr. He named me Horace Bryant Sims, Jr. That’s where all the confusion began. I always got mistaken for my dad.

While a student at Furman University, I worked at the same plant with my father. We even worked in the same department together. We always answered the same call, so the men named me “Junior.” For several years, I was known as Junior Sims. In fact, those men still call me that when I happen to see one of them.

My dad was in the class of 1933 at Furman. I was in the class of 1962. Even though I wasn’t born until 1940, I received alumni mail for the class of ’33. Dad got the mail for ’62.

When Dad died a few years ago, I stopped getting any alumni mail. I guess Furman has me listed as being among the dead. I wish the IRS would make the same mistake.

When my son was born, I took one look at him and told my wife we would name him Horace Bryant Sims, III. We decided to call him Bryant instead of Horace. When he got to high school, he was called by his first name, Horace. He finally got people to just call him H.B.

Well, things went along all right until he got married, and we tried to change his car insurance. My daughter-in-law called the other day and told me their new policy was made out to Horace B. Sims, Jr., and wife Melanie Knowles Sims. My wife looked at our policy and it was made out to Horace B. Sims, Jr., and wife Jane B. Sims.

Now, look at the mess I’m in. If I have a wreck and they check my insurance, I could be charged with bigamy. I guess I should take the name that was on a recent letter. It was addressed to Horace B. Sin, Ellendrug Avenue.

Swatty Wasp

A wasp, according to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, is a “solitary, winged, hymenopterous insect with an often formidable sting.”

It could also be said: “An insect that adds life and excitement to an otherwise dull Sunday morning worship service.”

We boys always rushed to the sanctuary after Sunday school so we could get the funeral home fans that were not broken in the middle. These fans made great wasp swats. When a wasp flew by close enough, you could send him into a completely out-of-control flight with just one swat.

I remember hitting a wasp with a good, sound lick. He flew out of control for about three pews and into a lady’s bouffant. She jumped to her feet and ran out of the church in the middle of the choir special. I would rather have a wasp in my bouffant than what I got when I got home.

On a hot Sunday morning, one of the deacons was sitting in the middle of one of the longest pews. He suddenly jumped to his feet, clutching his pants leg, and said, “I’ve got him! I’ve got the rascal!” He crawled over everybody in the pew and then rushed to the vestibule, still clutching his pants leg. In the vestibule, he dropped his pants and set the wasp free.

Now, our music director gave us some advice. He told us to leave the wasps alone and they would leave us alone. The pastor then rose to read the morning scripture. As he read, a wasp flew between him and his Bible. The wasp made several return trips, disrupting the pastor from his reading each time. The pastor finally laid his Bible down and said, “Brother choir director, that was good advice that you gave us. The good Lord knows that I have tried to follow it, but I’m putting this wasp on notice. If he flies between me and my Bible one more time, I’m gonna belt the devil out of him right here on the pulpit.”

At last, the pastor was on our side, and we boys were saying under our breath, “Go, man, go.”

Chrome Dome

I’ve heard it all:

“God only made so many perfect heads—all the rest he covered with hair.”

“Hair and brains don’t mix. Which did you lose first?”

“Hey, Chrome Dome, is that you?”

One advertising jingle read, “‘I use it, too,’ the bald man said. ‘It keeps my face just like my head. Burma Shave!’”

It may surprise you to know that I once had a full head of kinky hair. Mama would get the comb caught in the kinks while getting me ready for school. I used to say, “I wish God had made me baldheaded.” No one had told me that God listened to children. I can imagine God saying to me, “All right, big boy, is there anything else you wish I had done differently?”

You may not believe this, either: I did have to go to the barbershop when I was young. It was old-fashioned; you had to sit and wait your turn. Daddy always took us on Saturday. That was the most interesting day of the week. The men from the mills would come by to get all spruced up for the weekend. They would bring a change of clothes so they could take a shower. They would also get a shave, a haircut, and a shoeshine.

The old shop smelled of lilac water aftershave, talcum powder, and cigars. The talk was about hunting, fishing, and whatever had taken place in the mill that week. There was always a game of checkers, using bottle caps, being played in the corner. Someone was always waiting to play the winner.

The older barber was the one who cut my hair. On the wall behind his chair was a little sign painted with glitter, which read: “Only one life will soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”

That little sign in that old-fashioned barbershop became the driving force in my life and in my ministry.

It is true. Little things do count.

Holy Laughter

When I was a boy, we didn’t own a motor vehicle of any kind. We rode the electric trolley or the bus. We also did a lot of walking.

When we went to my aunt’s home in the summer, we would ride the trolley to West Greenville and then catch the bus that ran from Greenville to Clemson. We went through many small towns until we arrived in Central. My uncle would be waiting there to take us to their home near Six Mile.

My aunt and uncle lived in a large, two-story house on top of a hill. My uncle was a stone mason and built his own house.

We were city boys, and a visit to the country was always exciting to us. We were also straight-laced Southern Baptist boys. There was nothing charismatic about our church. We only sang songs out of the Broadman Hymnal. Our music was played on a piano and an organ. We did not know anything about canned music.

Now, my aunt and uncle belonged to a different denomination. They were not Baptist. Their church was charismatic. Their worship was completely different from ours back home. The preacher ran up and down the aisle, preaching and shouting. The people shouted in response.

We straight-laced Southern Baptist boys were petrified. Out of sheer fear, we began to laugh. My aunt would take us outside and tell us to stay there until we quit laughing. I pointed out that some of the men in the church were laughing. My aunt said that was a holy laugh.

It took me a long time to understand that. Psychologists tell us that we laugh at the ludicrous, the incongruous, the ridiculous, the contradictory, and in response to the comedic in life. They never mention holy laughter.

Well, it’s like this. When God does an absolutely stupendous miracle in your life, and you are so overwhelmed with joy that you want to run out into the field and lift your head heavenward, and burst into a laugh of joy and thanksgiving, my aunt would have called that a holy laugh.

And I wouldn’t want to miss that for anything in the world.

Faulty Zipper

I grew up on the mill-village side of town. I attended a large church, but it was not a big downtown church. My first job was delivering the afternoon newspaper downtown. To get there, I had to ride the electric trolley. On the way, I would pass one of the big downtown churches.

This church had some great preachers. I would listen to them on their Sunday afternoon radio broadcasts. I always wondered what it would be like to attend worship services in that big church. I even wondered what it would be like to preach there.

Well, as time went on, I felt called to the ministry myself. My first church was a small-size church in the mid-state. My second church was a medium-size church. I have been pastor there for over 25 years. I have never been pastor of a big downtown church.

A few years ago, the pastor of that big downtown church I had passed on the trolley invited me to preach on a Sunday morning. I was totally excited. I called my mama. She said, “Act like you have got good sense.” My wife said I should get a new suit. I went to the local discount outlet clothing store to get a new suit. I bought a ninety-nine-dollar, navy blue, polyester suit. I even bought a four-dollar tie to match. I was ready to make my appearance at the downtown church.

The big day came. I marched onto the platform with the pastor. The pipe organ was at full throttle. The choir sang a glorious anthem. The buttons on my shirt were stressed by the prideful swell of my chest. I could just imagine the next day’s headlines, “Mill Village Boy Preaches at Big Downtown Church.”

After the prayer, I took my seat on the platform pew. It was then I experienced the platform speaker’s nightmare. There was a popping sound and a rush of cold air. The zipper on the fly of my new, ninety-nine-dollar, navy blue, polyester suit had burst open.

Sweat popped out on my head. My heart felt faint. My breathing became labored. Then I had a calming thought. I wondered how many of the great preachers who had preached from that pulpit had done so with their flies standing open. I may have made history that day. But I was glad that I didn’t make the headlines.

Crown of Flowers

In “Canterbury Tales,” Chaucer described the son of the knight as “embroidered like a meadow bright and full of freshest flowers, red and white. Singing he was, or fluting all the day.”

Now, you have to understand this classical stuff from your own native environment. Chaucer came to life in a Sunday morning worship service back home.

My home church was one of the first in our part of town to air-condition the sanctuary. It was a great and historic day when the air was turned on for the first time. People came from all around just to sit in a church with air-conditioning.

Our sanctuary was always decorated with a metal, fan-shaped basket of fresh-cut gladiolus. These were always placed on the window sill of the baptistry, just above the choir.

When the air conditioner came on, it drew the drapes back into the baptistry. When it shut off, the drapes returned to their normal position. In returning, they nudged the flower basket off of the window sill. The basket capped one of the men in the choir just like a baseball cap. There he stood in his choir robe, “embroidered like a meadow bright and full of freshest flowers, red and white.” He pulled the flowers from in front of his face and asked, “Pastor, may I be excused?” He left the choir with his new floral crown still in place.

I tell you, Chaucer was never more real or exciting.

Missing Old Times

I guess I am from the old school. There are just some things I miss in the church services. I miss a sanctuary with a wrap-around balcony. We boys loved to launch a paper airplane attack from there at the end of the morning service.

I miss the old hymns accompanied by a piano and an organ. I just don’t relate to a lot of modern music.

I miss funeral home fans. They added a certain swaying motion to the congregation. Not only were they good for swatting wasps, you could also swat your brother if he sat too close to you on the pew.

And I miss women’s hats. I think I’ll start a movement to encourage women to wear hats to church. My mama never looked better than when she wore her Sunday hat.

Back at my home church, we had a lady who wore a hat with a brim that was at least three feet in diameter. She was always five minutes late for service. She would sashay down the aisle to the second pew from the front. The brim of the hat would rise and fall with each step. To us boys, it looked like a flying saucer coming in for a landing.

My favorite hat was worn by a lady in the choir. It was covered with peacock feathers. As she sang, she kept beat to the music by shaking her head. The feathers looked like a hundred eyeballs above the choir.

Come on, ladies, wear the hats again.

Stage Fright

Stage fright is that nervousness felt at appearing before an audience. Its symptoms are shortness of breath, sweating of the palms, and perspiration that runs down the back of your legs and puddles in your shoes.

I remember that the purpose of Baptist Training Union was to train us to stand up before a group and speak. Well, I went to BTU for years, and I still get stage fright. I pace back and forth in the hall each Sunday morning, getting ready to go to the pulpit.

It started in high school. I played in the band. There were about 150 of us. We all dressed in the same uniforms and wore white shoes. The first time we marched onto the football field, I could hardly get enough breath to play my clarinet. I just knew every eye was on me.

At my home church, the deacon chairman conducted the business conference. My first time, I stopped at the water fountain for some water. I caught my tie tack on the fountain and broke my clip-on tie. I had to go tie-less to the conference. I felt like I was falling backward and pulling the pulpit over on me.

My speech teacher in college said it was all right for your knees to knock. It was when they missed that you should sit down quickly. After speaking to groups of all kinds and sizes for more than 30 years, my knees still knock. Once or twice, I believe they came close to missing.

WMU Fireworks

I grew up in a poor family by today’s standards. Our house was a typical mill community house. It did not have sub-flooring or underpinning. The cold winter winds would blow through the cracks in the floor and make the linoleum rug hum around the edges. All of the rooms, except the dining room, were heated by open fireplaces. The dining room had a Warm Morning heater.

We did have electricity. Each room had one electric cord hanging from the ceiling, with a socket and a light bulb at the end. The living room and the dining room each had one wall plug-in.

When company came, Mama had a table lamp she would use for light. This was fancier than the ceiling cord.

Well, Mama’s WMU circle gathered in the dining room for a meeting. Mama had removed the light bulb from the ceiling socket to put in her table lamp. The ladies were discussing missions, among other things. The pound cake was ready for refreshments. Coffee and tea were on the table. The ladies’ minds were not on the boys playing in the bedroom across the hall.

My younger brother was always mechanically inclined. He took a box of paper clips and hooked them together end to end and made a chain.

While the WMU ladies were in deep prayer and meditation, he slipped across the hall to the dining room. He climbed up on the dining room table and inserted the paper clips in the open light socket.

Great balls of fire filled the dining room. The WMU ladies, including Mama, ran screaming from the house. My brother was doing a fancy version of the jitterbug on top of the table. My aunt took the broom and knocked him from the table on her way out of the house.

The WMU ladies never came back to our house. Mama was humiliated. She told Daddy all about it when he got home.

My brother and I could never convince Daddy that paper clips, light sockets, and great balls of fire had anything at all to do with the study of missions.

He did, however, convince us that we shouldn’t ever try to mix the two again.

Taxi Ride

I love to travel. I like staying in big hotels and riding in taxicabs. We flew to Los Angeles to attend the Southern Baptist Convention. We stayed at the big Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. This hotel consists of five tall glass towers. A lot of movies and television shows are filmed there. We South Carolina preachers were in high cotton.

On our last day there, the travel host gave me $25 for taxi fare. He told me to take five of my friends and meet him at the Biltmore Hotel, where we would board a bus for the airport.

We crowded ourselves into a cab and were soon speeding over the streets of Los Angeles. The driver turned into the Third Street tunnel. He was going the wrong way on a one-way street. I was seated in the front. All I could get out was, “One way, one way.”

The driver smiled and said in very bad English, “Yes, I go one way.”

I shouted back, “Wrong way, wrong way.”

He repeated, “Yes, I go one way.”

We came out of the tunnel alive only by the grace of God. The other five men were so quiet, I thought they had died of heart failure.

We raced up and down the back streets of Los Angeles. The driver stopped at a hotel that men of God had no business being at. He said, “This is Baltimore Hotel.”

I said, “We want the Biltmore Hotel.” He raced off again.

He brought us to the Baltimore Hotel four times. I saw a policeman looking at us with great concern. I asked the driver to ask him the way to the Biltmore. He gave the driver directions, and we soon arrived. We had been in the cab a little over an hour.

We grabbed our bags and rushed through the Biltmore Hotel to the waiting bus. As we reached the bus, we were stopped in our tracks. Directly across the street from the Biltmore Hotel was the Bonaventure Hotel that we had left over an hour before.

The ride to the airport was not nearly as exciting.

Orange Slice Candy

There are some things I have a deep love for. I love orange slice candy. I can resist all other candies except orange slice candy. My love for orange slice candy goes back to my childhood. We rode the trolley from the mill village to downtown every Friday night. We spent most of our time in the dime stores. Each one of them had a candy counter. Mama bought the same thing every Friday night. She bought Fig Newtons, Spanish peanuts, chocolate drops and orange slice candy.

We knew Mama had a special use for orange slice candy. She would put it up and give us two slices after each dose of castor oil. I don’t remember what the castor oil was for, but I do remember how sweet the orange slice candy tasted after a dose of it.

Every time I pass a candy counter, I have to get a bag of orange slice candy. It always reminds me of the castor oil. It also reminds me that the good comes after the bad.

There is something better than orange slice candy. It is the love and forgiveness of our Lord when we’ve done wrong. He takes the bitterness out of life and fills it with sweetness.

Try his remedy; you’ll like it.

Stranded Missionary

We were excited to have a well-known Baptist missionary visit our church. He was to come on a Wednesday night. I had invited him to spend the night with us. He said he could not because of a speaking engagement the next day.

He arrived on time. He talked to us about Baptist missions work in Nigeria, Africa. The people were very attentive to his talk. He used some artifacts from Africa to make his talk even more interesting.

While he was talking, I could hear a light rain striking the windows. The sound grew louder. It began to sound like sleet. The weather man had not predicted any freezing weather for that night. When we went outside, the ground was covered with ice, and snow had begun to fall.

The missionary took one look and said, “I think I will spend the night.” He reminded us that he had been in Africa for over 25 years and had not driven in much snow and ice. He carried one change of clothes for just such an emergency.

By morning we had over a foot of snow. Our guest was stranded. We were just a young couple and were not used to having overnight guests, especially a missionary from Africa.

The snow froze solid. The roads were closed. Our missionary was worried about getting home. He called and canceled his next speaking engagement. We were worried about running out of food. I think our missionary was thinking about the same thing.

He looked out the window and noticed that our neighbor still had collards in his garden. They were sticking up through the snow. Our missionary said he sure would like to have some fresh collards. I called our neighbor and explained our position to him. He said we could have all the collards we wanted, only we would have to go to the garden and cut them. We had several meals of fresh collards.

By Saturday afternoon, the snow was melting and our missionary was able to leave for home. He waved over the top of his car as he rounded the corner.

An unexpected snowstorm brought us a real blessing. I don’t think we have had such an interesting house guest since. And besides, we learned a whole lot about Nigeria, Africa.

Baptismal Shower Cap

A baptismal service can always be an exciting time. Our baptistry consists of a copper tub built over a wooden frame. The steps leading down into the baptistry are also wooden. The very first time I used it, the bottom step came loose and floated to the top of the water. I thought it was some kind of animal and almost yelled, “Every man for himself! I’m going over the glass!”

I had one candidate who asked to be allowed to wear a shower cap. She had a strange hair condition of some kind. After some thought, I consented to let her wear the cap. My wife says what happened after that was my fault. She said that I did not know the difference between a shower cap and a swimming cap.

I took my place in the baptistry. I was dressed in my white robe and waders. I stood in front of the baptistry window with my hands folded across my chest in the proper ministerial position.

I looked to my deacon assistant at the top of the steps for the next candidate. He looked to his left and looked back at me with a terrible expression on his face. I thought he was having a heart attack. He looked left once again and grimaced in pain.

The deacon stretched his hand out to his left and brought the next candidate to the entrance of the baptistry. This time, I grimaced in pain. She had on a shower cap that looked like the bonnet of a portable hair dryer. It was white with bright orange roses on it. It rose to a point above her head. As I brought her before the baptistry window, a wave of laughter went over the congregation.

When I tried to baptize her, the cap changed its function. It was filled with air and became a life preserver. The further I took her under water, the more her head came to her chest. Realizing the possibility of breaking her neck, I never put her head all the way under.

Looking back over the whole experience, I think I can understand why she never came back.

Flying Dog

Have you ever seen a flying dog? Well, I have—once.

It happened just this way. My home church had a beautiful old sanctuary. The pews were in a semi-circle around the pulpit area. It had a balcony that completely circled the sanctuary. There were exposed beams in the ceiling. The steps to the balcony went up from the vestibule. With the doors to the sanctuary shut, no one could see who was in the vestibule.

Now, on a Sunday night, the pastor was all involved in the preaching of his sermon. A little boy had taken his seat on the front pew to the left of the pulpit. Unknown to those in the sanctuary, the boy’s dog entered the vestibule. Unable to get to the sanctuary, he went to the balcony. He looked through the balcony rail and saw the boy on the front seat.

The dog leaped to the top rail and over he came. His flight took him from the balcony rail to the pulpit, just behind the pastor. The dog howled; the preacher yelled, “Git, git, git that dog outta here!” The old ladies lost their teeth; the old men flipped their wigs; and we kids rolled in the aisles with “holy laughter.”

After all, a worship service should be exciting.

Arrested

It was a beautiful day. The air was filled with excitement. The giant Boeing 747 Air France plane was approaching the Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel-Aviv, Israel. The blue Mediterranean Sea lay beneath us. The pilot announced that we would soon be in Israel.

It was a trip of a lifetime for a preacher. I was soon to be in the land of the Bible. I was going to walk where Jesus walked. I was going to see the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee. I was going to stand at the top of the Mount of Olives and look down on the old, walled city of Jerusalem.

Well, our plane was soon on the ground in Israel. I had never been so far from home. We were told to remain in our seats until we had been cleared to get off the plane. Israeli military men came on board and looked us over. There was a group of priests from some eastern cult on board. The military guard said they could not get off in Israel. The rest of us were cleared to deplane. I was filled with excitement as I descended the ramp.

Large buses had arrived to take us to the terminal. As I started to get on the bus, a female soldier asked me to follow her. I thought she meant to the back door of the bus. I was met there by a male soldier who nudged me in the back with a machine gun and pointed me toward a small van parked beside the plane. I knew that at any minute I could have more holes in me than a salt shaker. So I went to the van.

I got into the van, where I met another military man seated at a small desk. He had two large stacks of notebooks on the desk. He began to interrogate me. He wanted to know what I had brought to Israel. He wanted to know who I had come to see. I assured him my church had given me the trip as a gift.

After a short time, he stood and smiled, and told the soldier to take me back to the bus. No one ever gave me an explanation. When I got home, one of my friends said it was simple. He said, “They looked at you and said, ‘Yessir, you-ara-fat.’”

Revival Sermons

The preaching of a sermon takes careful planning. It should not be directed at any one person, nor should it be changed because of any one person. Above all, the preacher should know his scripture well enough to get his facts straight.

A friend of mine was preaching a sermon from the account of Noah and the Ark. In the midst of the fury of his preaching, he could not think of the name of Noah. In desperation, he asked, “And who was it that built the ark?”

A little boy sitting near the front said, “Noah.”

“That’s right, praise God. Even this child knows that it was Noah,” said the preacher.

I was speaking in revival services and preached a sermon on Ahab and Jezebel. I titled the sermon “The Danger of Illegitimate Desire.”

I said that Ahab and Jezebel were two of the most evil people in the Bible. Their very names brought to mind the thought of evil. The only other person named Ahab that I could think of was the evil captain of Moby Dick. I told the congregation that parents would not name children such despicable names.

After the service, an elderly gentleman came to me and said he really enjoyed the sermon. “My name is Will Jones,” he said.

“Thank you for your words of encouragement,” I said.

“My name is Will A. Jones,” he said.

“I guess that ‘A’ stands for Ahab,” I replied.

“One of those despicable names,” he said.

Well, I retired that sermon that night, never to be preached again.

Highway to Heaven

Someone has said that a sermon is “something that a preacher will cross the country to deliver, but won’t cross the street to hear.” I have heard one or two that I would cross the street to hear again. One of those is as follows:

The preacher titled his sermon, “The Highway to Heaven.” He began: “Last night I was reading a book on astronomy. I read where it said that there is a vacuum above the North Pole. They ain’t no stars, or planets, or anything there. It’s just a vacuum. Then I remembered reading that when Satan went up before God, that God’s throne was on the side of the North. I put two and two together. That vacuum is the ‘Highway to Heaven.’

“Now, I figure that it works like this. It don’t matter where a soul dies. It can die in America, or Africa, or Japan, or China, or Australia, or at the South Pole. When that soul dies, it circles the earth till it comes to the North Pole, and there it zooms off to heaven. Now, brothers, I didn’t git this sermon out of no book like the rest of these preachers. I figgered this one out for myself.”

Well, I have often thought I would go across the street to hear this sermon one more time if I could, but the soul of the preacher has already taken its journey on the “Highway to Heaven.”

Words

We live in a world of words. This is how we communicate. This newspaper is a collection of words. I make my living by speaking and writing words. Public speakers should practice using “right words.” Preachers are among those who should make sure they use “right words.”

I recently heard a preacher say that Jesus was the personification of his Father. A person can only personify an abstract quality such as love, kindness, gentleness, or goodness. You cannot personify another person. God the Father is a person.

Another word heard a lot is the word “pastored.” A preacher said, “I pastored my church for 20 years.” The word “pastor” is a noun, not a verb. The correct sentence would be, “I served as pastor of my church for 20 years.”

Now, how about the word “borned”? There is no such word. We are born again. We are not borned again. I hear more and more preachers using the word “borned.”

It seems to me we need to return to our blackboards and diagram sentences and conjugate verbs. The teacher in my high school English class asked one of my mill hill friends to conjugate the verb “throw.” He stood and said, “Throw, threw, throwed.”

After turning several shades of red, she asked another of my friends what was wrong with the word “throwed.”

He stood and said, “They ain’t no sech word as ‘throwed’.”

That’s a true story, ’cause I was there and seen him when he done it.

Welcome, Senior Citizen

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was really minding my own business. I went to a local fast-food restaurant to get my morning biscuit and coffee. The waitress filled my order and then asked “You do get the senior citizen discount, don’t you?”

My first reaction was to ask, “Are you crazy?” Then I saw the new, little sign on the wall which read, “Senior citizen discounts begin at 55 years old.” Hey, I was two years beyond that.

My biscuit was not quite as good that morning. I guess it was the sudden news that I qualified for a discount. I thought you became a senior citizen when you reached 80 years old, not 55. Who changed the rules? Who had given this young waitress the right to tell me I was now a senior citizen?

I should have taken notice of the signs. Those brown spots on the back of my hands. I had heard my mother and friends talk about those age spots. I did order my new glasses with progressive ground lenses so the trifocals would not show.

I have noticed that I get winded on long walks. I do try to miss as many steps as possible. I wear special insoles in my shoes. And I can’t remember things too well. Lately, I have been given the handicapped room at White Oak Conference Center. I was introduced to a group the other day as one of South Carolina Baptists’ senior pastors. But did this give this young waitress the right to hit me so hard with her question?

Well, I went back home and sat down in my favorite recliner and mulled all this over in my mind. I thought about how fast life had gone by. I seemed to have dozed off as I meditated on these things. When I awoke, I decided to put all of this out of my mind.

I went to the mailbox to get the mail. And there it was, lying right on top of the mail—my membership card to the AARP.

Overflowing Baptistry

We decided to build a social hall at the church. There are a lot of plans that have to be made for such an undertaking. Blueprints have to be drawn. Power and water supplies have to be studied. The site has to be prepared and a foundation laid.

It was determined that our water supply was not good enough to supply a new building adequately. The size of our water pipeline needed to be enlarged. We decided to increase the entire line so that we would have better pressure in each of our buildings.

We now had plenty of water. Since the pressure was greater, there had to be some adjustments made at certain outlets. This was a lesson that I was soon to learn.

I turned the water on to fill the baptistry. It usually took about three-and-a-half hours. I went downtown to take care of some business. I made sure to keep close watch on the time.

When I returned to the church, I could hear a splashing in the baptistry. I thought an animal of some kind must have fallen in. I rushed to the sanctuary to find the water coming over the baptistry glass in waves. The new water line had cut the fill time by 45 minutes.

I had baptized the entire choir loft, carpet, seats and all. I worked the rest of the day, trying to get it dry before the next day.

Some Sundays, sitting on the platform, I still seem to catch the odor of wet, musty carpet.

First Funeral

Some things you just learn as you go along. There are no classes on how to baptize or on how to conduct a funeral. You can practice baptism on your friends, but not many of them will let you practice burying them.

My first funeral took place on the second day of my first pastorate. I didn’t know the deceased. All of her family were from out of state. She was not a member of the church, but had attended there some before going to a nursing home.

The funeral was to be at a country cemetery a few miles out of town. One of the men in the church had volunteered to drive me to the cemetery, since I had no idea where it was.

Just as we arrived at the cemetery, I noticed some commotion in one of the family cars. One of the women said, “You can’t bury her there, that’s my grave.” It seems there had been a mix-up in initials and the funeral home had opened the wrong grave.

The mortician came to me and asked, “Reverend, what are we going to do?” I replied, “This is my first funeral.” I had only been a pallbearer once. I had never conducted a funeral, and at that moment I thought I might never do this again.

I saw the backhoe parked in the woods behind the cemetery. I asked the mortician how long it would take to open the right grave. He said, “About 45 minutes.” I suggested that we have the graveside service at the place already prepared. He could then ride the people around in the family car while he buried the woman in the right grave. This seemed to suit everybody.

As soon as the graveside service was completed, my driver and I made a beeline home. I spent the next day pondering my decision to preach and bury the dead.

That was 29 years ago. I have preached hundreds of sermons and buried a lot of the dead. And sometimes today, when things haven’t gone right, I’m tempted to ponder it all over again.

Traveling Music

Music is the greatest mover of emotions. Music either calms and soothes, or it excites and moves. A good church music director knows this and can effectively use music to set the tone of the worship service.

Some songs just don’t fit the situation. “In the Hour of Trial” just doesn’t seem like a good offertory hymn. Nor does “The Fight is On” go well at a wedding. Or how about “Rise Up O Men of God” at a funeral?

My family has long ago selected some songs as riding songs. We sing them when we are making a trip in the car. They are good old gospel songs that help keep everyone awake.

We like to sing “I’ll Fly Away,” “A New Name in Glory” and “Kneel at the Cross.” I suppose our favorite riding song is Albert E. Brumley’s great old gospel song, “I’ll Fly Away.” It’s a real good traveling song.

We were driving back from Calabash, North Carolina, to Sunset Beach by way of a back road. The old station wagon was packed full of family and our children’s friends. We were all singing “I’ll Fly Away.” The road made a 90-degree turn to the left. I could see a red, blinking light just ahead.

I suddenly realized we had missed the turn and were looking at a channel marker in the Intracoastal Waterway.

The old wagon screeched to a stop about a foot from the water. There was absolute silence. Then, one small voice said, “Boy, we almost did fly away.”

Preacher's Special

My doctor says I need to lose weight. He said that I was a little overweight. I always told people that I was just big boned. My doctor says bones don’t come that big.

I thought the dry cleaners had shrunk my suit and my blazer. I knew that they stopped meeting. I started wearing wide ties so no one would notice the gap.

I owe a lot of my size to senior citizens. I speak to senior citizen groups just about every week. The pay is not much, but the food is great. They season their food the old way. Nobody can make better fried apple pies and coconut cakes. It is just like at home with Mama.

I was speaking in revival services at a lowcountry church. They announced the church-wide supper on Wednesday night would be “preacher’s special.” I asked the guest music director if he had ordered us two preacher’s specials for Wednesday night. He said he had already taken care of that.

When we arrived at the social hall, they set before us two whole, deep-fried chickens. After a good laugh, they took them away and brought us a regular meal.

After the service, we got in our car to go back to the inn where we were staying. There was a brown bag in the front floor of the car. You guessed it: two whole, deep-fried chickens. We spent half the night eating chicken.

Welcome to L.A.

Attending the Southern Baptist Convention meetings has always produced some fun experiences. Such was the case in Los Angeles, California.

I saw an advertisement on television which proclaimed that the best Mexican food in Los Angeles was to be found at the El Pasero Restaurant on Olvera Street. I put that on my list of things to do while in L.A.

I got together a group of Baptist preachers from South Carolina to go with me to El Pasero. We took a cab from our hotel in downtown Los Angeles to Olvera Street.

Now, a cab ride in Greenwood, South Carolina, and a cab ride in Los Angeles, California, are two different things entirely. By the time we got to Olvera Street, there were five Baptist preachers from South Carolina who were prayed up for three weeks in advance.

It didn’t take us long to locate the restaurant once we got to Olvera Street. The advertisement on the television was not wrong. We had a Mexican feast. Even the one man who vowed not to eat Mexican food enjoyed it.

When we were ready to leave, the cashier told us to walk to the end of the street, where we would find a bus stop. There would be a shuttle bus to take us back to our hotel.

As we waited for the shuttle, a man seated on the curb got up and came to us. He was highly inebriated.

“May I welcome you good gentlemen to Los Angeles,” he said. He looked at me and asked, “What do you do, my good man?”

“I’m a Baptist preacher,” I told him.

He asked each one of us the same question and got the same answer. He looked us over very slowly while straightening his coat and cocking his hat to one side. “You might say I have got myself in a most revolting situation,” he said. He returned to his seat on the curb.

As we boarded the shuttle for downtown, I wasn’t sure we were welcome in Los Angeles.

A Lot of Water

I had been invited to speak for three nights at the Martha Franks Retirement Home. They were having a mini-version of the state senior adult convention.

A visit to Martha Franks is like a visit to the “Who’s Who” of Baptists. There are former missionaries from around the world. There are retired pastors and state workers. It is a humbling experience just to be there.

It was warm that night. The room in which I spoke was very warm. My wife was seated with a little lady from our church who had gone to live there. She could see the problem I was having with perspiration running from my head into my eyes.

My wife said to her, “It is really warm in here, isn’t it?” The little lady replied, “Yes, it is just wonderful how warm they keep it for us older folks.” By the time I finished my talk, I was damp from perspiration.

Just as we got to the door to leave, a cloudburst came. Rain came down in sheets. I told my wife to go to the covered entrance and I would get the car and meet her there. I was already damp and a little rain couldn’t hurt.

Since my running days are over, I decided to take a shortcut across the lawn that separated the parking lot from the building. Just as I stepped on the lawn, the timer on the lawn watering system turned on. Water was now coming up as heavy as it was coming down. My shoes filled with water. My pockets filled with water. I did not have a dry thread on me.

I was grateful that I had felt so humbled to be there. If I had had any pride left in me, it would have been washed away before I got to my car.

Hello, Mary Blaine

It was a lovely Sunday afternoon when my daughter, my son and I visited the old Presbyterian church just north of town. The old building was still open from the morning service. The custodian gave us a tour and a book of the church’s history. The tombstones in the church cemetery date back to the 1700s. One of them is inscribed in English, French and Arabic.

We located this stone and then looked at many of the others there. One stone was inscribed: Mary Blaine, Consort of William G. Blaine. William was buried in the adjoining grave. My son asked the meaning of the word “consort.” I said it must mean “mistress.” I was later to learn that it was an old word for “wife.”

I stepped on the grave to get a good look as I copied the word down. The grave suddenly collapsed. I sank down to my waist. I had just dropped in on Mary Blaine, unannounced. She wasn’t much to look at after 200 years.

My daughter ran for the car. My son fell to the ground in laughter. I had to pull myself from the grave without any help. My Sunday suit had mud on it from the waist down.

As we drove back to town, my son was rolling in laughter. I asked him if he really thought it was that funny.

“It will be when it is run in the newspaper,” he said.

I asked him if it would be funny news to report that I had fallen in a grave.

“Oh, no,” he said. “But when those reporters get through with it, it will read, ‘Rev. Horace Sims Buried With Consort.’”

Doughnuts

My exercise program is a little different from that of most of my friends. I begin every morning up and down, up and down, ten times. Then I exercise the other eyelid. After that, I put one foot on the floor, and if it is not too cold, I put the other foot out and get up. I then head for the shower with thoughts of doughnuts on my mind.

When I was in high school, I delivered a morning paper route. One Saturday morning, I met my Sunday school teacher pushing his car down the street. I asked him if he was having car trouble. He said he was just pushing the car down the street before he cranked it so he would not wake up his wife.

It seems she had put him on a diet. He said he had been lying in bed awake for several hours, watching doughnuts float around the ceiling. He was on his way to the doughnut shop for an early morning snack. I always liked that trait in my Sunday school teacher.

My love for doughnuts just seemed to come naturally. I always liked the smell of those yeast-raised, homemade doughnuts on the hearth at home. Mama would deep-fry them for our dessert. I can still smell them.

Well, it was following the evening session of the state convention that a group of us pastors went to a doughnut shop for a good bedtime snack. The doughnuts were still hot, and the coffee was fresh. We were having a great time before retiring for the night.

Then, a group of women came into the shop. One was on a diet. Why she came, I’ll never know. She was dead set against doughnuts. She soon became obnoxious. It seems her doctor had told her doughnuts were very fattening. He said they were coated in pure sugar and were bad for your health. She seemed to look right at me when she said that.

I said, “Ma’am, your doctor doesn’t know what he’s talking about. That’s not sugar on those doughnuts. That’s artificially-sweetened paraffin wax.”

She said, “I know what my doctor said.”

I replied, “I know from experience. Look at me, I eat two doughnuts every night.”

She gave me a thorough stare. I could tell from her look that I had not convinced her at all.

Here Comes Santa Claus

Christmas is an exciting time of year. It’s a time for great music and pageants. It’s a time to be in church and listen to the great story of Jesus’ birth.

Christmas has its secular side also. It’s a time of parades and beautifully decorated trees. It’s a time of gift-buying and of crowded stores and malls. And, whether in the spirit of the season or in person himself, it’s a time for Santa Claus.

Children have different responses to the old fellow. I like to sit and watch them as they are brought to see him. Some run to him, others run crying back to Mama.

I’ve been accused of being Santa Claus. As I left the mall one day, a little boy and his granddaddy were sitting in their truck. The little boy shook his dozing granddad and said, “There he is, Papa.”

Papa asked him who he saw. The boy replied, “That’s Santy Claus, that’s him right there.” I told the boy that I was not Santa, but that he could see him in the mall.

The next day, in a different store, a man said, “You’re the man who plays Santa Claus at the mall.”

“Do I look like Santa Claus?” I asked.

He replied, “I don’t know if Santa has hair under that cap or not. And the beard is false.”

I told my wife that these two false identifications did not make me Santa Claus. So, we went on to supper in one of our favorite restaurants. As we opened the door, a music box began to play, “Here Comes Santa Claus.”

Bursting Out All Over

My son and I have always enjoyed attending the annual meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. We strolled into the big Carolina Coliseum on the campus of the University of South Carolina. We were met immediately by a man who asked if I still lived in Laurens.

“No, I now live in Greenwood,” I said.

“How long have you lived there?” he asked.

“Oh, about 23 years,” I replied.

“You never did live in Laurens, did you?” he asked.

“Not that I remember,” I said.

We left this bewildered man staring at us and entered the main hall. As we started down the steps, one of the brass buttons popped off of my son’s blazer. He thought we should return to the motel right then. I convinced him to leave his coat unbuttoned and no one would notice.

For lunch, we went to a small hot dog restaurant on the university campus. My son got a booth while I got the hot dogs. The booths were made for little college people. They were not made for fully-developed Baptist preachers. As I slid across the seat, my pants leg inseam ripped open from the crotch to the cuff.

I always keep the safety pins from the dry-cleaning tags in my pants waist. I slowly made my way across the restaurant to the restroom. It seemed that everybody in the place knew me. They all had to speak. They all smiled at the funny way I was walking.

Once back at the hotel, my wife asked what had happened to us. My son replied, “That thing broke out in the worst fight you have ever seen. Daddy and I were just lucky to get out with our clothes torn.”

Come on down to the convention. You really can have a lot of fun.

Orange Chair

I bought my son a student desk when he entered junior high school. I picked up a desk chair at the flea market. It was a swivel chair with chrome legs and a bright orange seat and back.

My wife didn’t like it to start with. She said the color was tacky. I soon found it in the garage with a lot of other junk. I took it back to the flea market, but he would not take it back. He said he could not resell that color. That’s not what he said when he sold it to me.

Well, my wife put it in a yard sale for $5. After the sale, the chair was back in the garage. At the next yard sale, it was priced for $3. Back to the garage it went. And at the last yard sale, the chair was offered as a bargain for $1.

This time, my wife refused to put it back in the garage. She sat the chair at the end of the driveway by the trash cart. She even placed a bag of trash in it so the trash collectors would be sure to see it.

I watched as the trash truck came. They emptied the cart and took the bag from the chair. They looked at the chair and drove off without it.

We sat the chair beside the street, with a sign taped to it which read, “Free chair.” This morning, I took the orange chair to the Salvation Army. They took my chair away.

That old chair reminds me of the sins we let get into our lives. And, try as best we can, we cannot get rid of them. That is, until we come to the Savior, who takes away all our sins and sets us free.

Duet with a Bird

A young minister can find a lot of help from some of our retired ministers. These men have already done what the young ministers are facing for the first time.

I remember the first time I was asked to conduct a graveside service. I had never done this, so I called a retired minister friend for advice. I told him I had also been asked to sing at the graveside. He said he could not help me with the song. But he did give me some pointers for the service.

I followed his pointers, and that part of the service went fine. I had decided to sing just before the closing prayer.

The song had to be a cappella, since there was no way to get a musical instrument to the graveside. I had been asked to sing the beautiful hymn, “How Great Thou Art.”

When I sang the words, and feel the gentle breeze, a cold wind blew through the tent. I could see the people shudder in the cold wind.

When I sang the words, and hear the bird sing gently in the trees, a little bird came out of a bush right at my shoulder and began to sing along with me. It was the first time I had ever sung with a bird.

A minister friend sitting with the family said that if anything else had happened, he was going to go to his car.

“You would have had to be right behind me,” I replied.

Wedding Mistakes

Preachers are called on to do a lot of tough jobs. One of those tough jobs for me is officiating at weddings. It is one of those times when no one wants anything to go wrong, especially the bride’s mother.

There was the time the soloist was to be the signal for the groom and me to make our entrance. The organist played and played. The ushers and bridesmaids took their places. The bride and her father started down the aisle. The groom and I hurried to meet them at the altar. The soloist had forgotten to sing. People said they had never seen a wedding like that. I hadn’t either.

And there was the wedding I sweated out. Just before time to take the groom out, my office phone rang. A lady said she had put a bomb in the altar flowers. I was sure it was a hoax and went on with the wedding. If there had been one popping sound, I would have been the first one out the door.

Well, then I was conducting a wedding in another church. The candles were high above us on the platform. The pipe organ was at full throttle. The vibration of the organ caused one of the candles to fall. It swished right by my ear and slid down my robe. I fully expected to burst into flames.

I had ragged one of my friends about one of his slips at a wedding. He told me that my day would come. Payday came at my own son’s wedding. I said to his lovely bride, “You may now put the fing on his ringer.”

Mama hasn’t forgotten. My friend feels justified. My son has begun to speak to me again. His lovely bride just laughs.

Stolen Robe

I suppose all churches have experienced some form of vandalism. We have had our share. Thieves have broken in and stolen cameras, a microphone, Cokes from the church kitchen and two pennies. The pennies were in two rice bowls on my desk.

The one big theft was that of my baptismal robe. My baptismal outfit was the gift of one of the couples in my church. I have always enjoyed using it.

Well, a city policeman came by my study one morning with my baptismal robe. He said the robe had been found in one of the streets of our community. Someone had told him that they thought it belonged to me. He said he was sure the thief was already in custody.

It was a cold, wintry night the night before. The thief had broken into the church seeking a warm place to spend the night. He sat on the pulpit platform and drank a bottle of cheap whiskey. He left the bottle behind.

Feeling the warmth of the bottled spirit, he suddenly felt called to preach. He found my baptismal robe in a closet and put it on. He then felt led to go into the community and preach to his friends.

Along the way, he gave up preaching as a bad idea. He discarded my robe in the street and fled. He was soon arrested by the police for public drunkenness.

He was brought to trial for theft and disorderly conduct. The police held my robe for evidence. At the trial, the judge asked if the robe had been identified. The officer stated that it had.

He said, “The robe belongs to the Rev. Horace Sims of Abney Memorial Baptist Church.”

“Is Rev. Sims’ name in the robe?” asked the judge.

“No, sir,” replied the officer.

The judge then asked how the robe had been identified. The officer held the robe up before the entire courtroom and said, “Your honor, you see the size of the robe, and I think you know Rev. Sims.”

“I accept that as sufficient evidence,” the judge said. With that, the thief got three years in jail.

I’ve always thought that this poor, cold, drunk thief got himself in trouble because he was not man enough to fill the robe.

Ball-Ball

Have you ever thought about church without children? They are the spice that adds life to a church. It is a poor church that does not have children. They rustle the bulletin, cry, talk, laugh, and move back and forth on the pew. These are the noises of life.

My favorite time in the worship hour is the children’s sermon. They come down the aisle with wide-open eyes. They are full of excitement and expectation. They will answer questions and enter right in the discussion.

After one children’s sermon, I started back up on the platform. One little boy tugged at my coattail. I stepped back down on the floor and asked what he wanted. “Pray for my dog,” he said.

“What’s wrong with your dog?” I asked.

“He has ticks,” he replied.

I told him we would pray for his dog.

“Right now,” he demanded.

So, I prayed for a dog with ticks right then.

Our new neighbors had moved to town from one of the northern states. Their little girl was about a year old when they arrived. She was a little afraid of me. She would not let me hold her. However, she made friends with my son immediately. He would walk around the yard with her in his arms.

He would rub the top of my head and say “ball-ball.” It wasn’t long before she was repeating his words. In fact, the whole family called me “Ball-Ball.”

The family made a visit to church. They sat right in the middle. The music began. The choir took its place. The music director and I took our places on the platform. Just as the music stopped, a small voice was heard from the middle of the congregation. “It’s Ball-Ball.”

And so the title stuck.

An Unscheduled Visit

“The pastor is coming to visit,” Mama would say. She would then put us to work cleaning the house and the yards. The pastor ate Sunday lunch at our house once every year. He usually made a return visit to check on the spiritual condition of the family. There was always coffee and pound cake.

On one occasion, the pastor and one of the deacons made an unscheduled visit to our home. We were in the back yard, playing baseball with a ball of twine and a broom handle. My sister hit Daddy with the ball of twine. He began to chase her around the house with the broom handle in his hand. As they came to the front yard, there stood the pastor and the deacon on the front porch.

It took a lot of talking to convince Daddy that he could go to church again.

While in my first pastorate, I stopped by a home for an unscheduled visit. It was raining, so I went to the carport door to get out of the rain. I drew my fist back to knock on the door. Just as I came forward, the man of the house opened the door. I almost hit him on the end of the nose.

He jumped backward and said, “Good Lord, preacher, you scared the devil out of me.” I felt a strong sense of satisfaction. My mission had been accomplished.

Small Town Politics

Small town politics can be amusing. They can also pit family member against family member and church member against church member.

One of our town’s personalities was always running for the office of governor. His speeches were exciting. He said, “My worthy opponent promises free textbooks for our school children. If I’m elected, I’ll see that they get four and maybe five textbooks.”

He also promised to get rid of detours. He pronounced them “daytours.” He said, “When a man is on business, he don’t have time to take a tour through the countryside.”

You could always tell when it was election time. All of the politicians would show up at church. They would stand out front and welcome everybody as they arrived.

You knew who they were from all the posters nailed to the power poles.

Now, my dad had one of the longest memberships in my home church. His dad was one of the early deacons who signed the note with the bank to build the original building. Dad was baptized when he was nine years old. When Dad died, he had been a member of the church more than 70 years.

It was during one of these election times when our family was entering the church. As we approached the front door, one of the candidates for town mayor shook Daddy’s hand and said, “We sure are glad to have you and your fine family visiting with us today.”

Daddy thanked him as we went inside.

Once inside, Daddy said, “He’s crazy if he thinks I’m going to vote for him. I’ve been here all my life.”

Good Clear Language

Children don’t always understand adult figures of speech. They have a tendency to take things literally. They just don’t understand what we mean.

I sent my son to clean his room. He played more than he cleaned. I said to him, “Come on, boy, shake a leg.” My wife looked into his room and began to laugh. He was standing at the foot of his bed, shaking his left leg as hard as he could.

I came into the house, soaking wet from a sudden rain. I said, “Boy, it’s raining cats and dogs out there.” My daughter climbed up on the sofa and looked out the window. “I don’t see any cats and dogs in our yard,” she said.

When my son was young, he went to spend the weekend with some friends. Of course, he went to church with them. The preacher used some very colorful words to describe what he was talking about. When he returned home, my son said the preacher had seen cars with gods on the back of them.

I asked him if he had seen any cars with gods on the back of them. He said no. He had ridden to church with someone else and they did not see any gods. I asked him if he had seen any cars towing motor boats. He said he had. I told him those were the gods the preacher had seen.

There is nothing like good clear language.

Kegs and Barrels

My wife came to the door just as I was taking my latest treasure out of the trunk of the car.

“What is that?” she asked.

“A wooden nail keg,” I replied.

“And what are you going to do with a wooden nail keg?”

“Every man needs a wooden nail keg.”

When I came into the house, I told her the story of my first nail keg. My great uncle gave me a keg when I was nine years old. I thought it was the best gift I had ever gotten. I wouldn’t let anybody play with my keg.

It finally came apart. I tied two of the staves to my feet and pretended to ski. Daddy nailed one of the hoops to the chinaberry tree for a basketball goal. I later sanded two of the staves and put confederate soldier decals on them and hung them in my bedroom as plaques.

My wife said, “I hope you are not planning to do anything like that with this keg.” I told her I was going to put some of my walking canes in it and sit it in the corner of the den.

“Wrong,” she said.

I reminded her of our visit to Carl Sandburg’s house in Flat Rock, North Carolina. There was a wooden nail keg full of walking canes sitting right by the grand piano in the living room. Without changing her expression, she looked me face to face and said, “You are no Carl Sandburg.” So my nail keg is in the garage and my canes are in a ceramic churn.

Well, the other day my daughter met a pastor friend with a truck load of trash. In the truck was a large wooden barrel. She asked him what he was going to do with the barrel. “Take it to the dump,” he replied. She told him she sure would love to have it. He took it to her house and sat it right at the end of the drive.

When her husband came home, he asked what she had that big wooden barrel for. “Every woman needs a wooden barrel,” she said.

Now that’s a girl after her daddy’s own heart.

Chapel Speaker

I was a young, inexperienced pastor at my first small church. Not many important invitations come to young, inexperienced pastors. However, I received what I thought to be a very challenging invitation. The invitation came from the chaplain at the Baptist Hospital. He wanted me to speak on the closed circuit, televised chapel program. The service could be seen on every television in the hospital.

The big day came. I made sure my only suit was well pressed and my shoes shined. My wife trimmed my hair so that I would look neat. I went to the study to put the finishing touches on my message. I had no doubt that this would be one of the most important messages I had ever delivered.

I left the study in time to drive to the hospital. Just as the study door closed and locked, I remembered my car keys were still lying on the desk. Our building was constructed of cement blocks. The doors and door frames were made of steel. I beat on the door. I ran into the door and almost dislocated a shoulder. The door would not give.

I decided to go outside and try one of the study windows. Just as I got outside, a cloudburst came. The church door had locked behind me. The study windows were also locked.

Panic began to set in. I knew that I was going to miss my big chance to do something important. In desperation, I took a small rock and pecked a hole in the window glass just behind the lock. With a small stick, I pushed the lock open. I climbed over the window sill and got my keys from the desk. As I passed the men’s restroom, I saw myself in the mirror. My soaking wet suit was covered in white paint from the collar of my coat to the cuff of my pants.

I rushed home to change clothes. I put on whatever I had that was dry. Nothing matched. I looked like a clown. I made a mad dash for the hospital. I arrived at the chapel 15 seconds before the service was to begin. The chaplain asked, “Where have you been?”

I replied, “You really don’t want to know.”

With that, I stood before the television camera and delivered the most important seven-minute sermon in my young career.

Locked In

Our church has been burglarized many times. We have tried many ways to prevent this. We installed solid wooden doors. We replaced glass with shatterproof Plexiglas. We covered all windows with storm windows. We installed outdoor lighting that comes on at dark. We finally placed the best deadbolt locks on all the doors.

At last, we seemed to be successful. We made our building secure. In fact, we may have made it too secure. One member thinks this may be true.

One of the deacons had an early afternoon tee time at the Star Fort Country Club. It seems he brought his golfing clothes with him. He went into the men’s room after the service to change.

I walked down the hall and rapped on the men’s room door. “Lights out,” I yelled. When no one answered, I stuck my hand in the door and cut off the lights. I continued out the outside door and set the deadbolt.

The deacon groped in the darkness until he found the light switch. He rushed into the hall and yelled, “Wait on me.” No one heard him. We had not only locked the crooks out; we had locked a deacon in.

He went through the building until he found one small door without a deadbolt. He escaped just in time to hit the ball.

Bible Truth

How correct are the Bible stories you teach your children? I grew up wondering why Mama let us eat apples if they were so bad for Adam and Eve. I later found out that the Bible does not say they ate apples. The Bible states in Genesis 2:17 that they ate of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Now, what about Daniel and the lion’s den? The lion’s den is the habitat of the lion. He may or may not be home. The Bible states in Daniel 6:16 that he was thrown into a “den of lions.” That’s a big difference. In a “den of lions,” the lions are at home, waiting for supper to be thrown in.

As a boy, I heard an old-time evangelist talk about the time God knocked Paul off his horse on the Damascus Road. However, Acts 9:4 states that “he fell to the earth.” This was in reaction to the bright light that shone about him. There is a difference in falling and being knocked down.

When asked to name four apostles, most will say, “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.” These are the four gospels, but Mark was not an apostle. He was a fellow worker with the Apostle Peter.

I had the opportunity, with several other young preachers, to sit and talk with the great Methodist preacher Charles L. Allen. We were engaged in a lot of lighthearted talk. Dr. Allen looked at me and asked, “How many of each species of animals did Moses take on board the ark?” I said, “You are not going to catch me on that one. The Bible states in Genesis 6:19: ‘Of all flesh, two of every sort.’ The answer is two.”

Hey, wait a minute. Did he say “Moses”?

Junk Food

I sat by Mama’s bed at the health care facility. We talked about all the food she used to eat. She’s now at that point in her life where she will not eat.

I asked, “Did you ever eat possum?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“How about poke salad?” I asked.

She always liked both of them together.

I asked her about rabbit, squirrel, turtle and frog legs.

“That’s all good eating,” she replied.

Then I asked, “Did you ever eat coon?”

“Did I ever eat what?” she asked.

“Coon,” I said. “You know, when your brothers went coon hunting, did you eat any of the coon they brought back?”

“No, I never ate any junk like that,” she said.

I wondered about all that other stuff if coon was junk.

Poke salad is the young leaves from the pokeberry plant. The big leaves and the berries are poison.

A possum looks like a big rat to me. I read once that when you had prepared the possum to be baked, you should slip it into your neighbor’s oven because it stinks.

I have never eaten any of these delicacies. I eat beef, pork, fish and chicken. I’m not fond of rat-looking animals.

Well, the children in Sunday school were talking about their grandparents. They each took time to brag about what their grandparents owned. My son, not to be outdone, said, “My Nanny has two possums frozen in her freezer.”

When he told Mama what he had said, she said, “Well, I’ll never come back to your church again.”

Hungry Bum

The main job of the preacher is to proclaim the gospel. It is telling the old, old story of Jesus over and over again. The old, old story must be told as fresh as today’s news.

There are many ways this can be done. It can be done through music, drama, dialogue and monologue. I was introduced to the effective use of dramatic monologue by the Rev. Earl Vaughan.

I have written several monologues on Bible characters for my own use. I usually do these in full costume. I was once asked to come to one of our local schools and read the Christmas story to the students before they left for the Christmas break. I asked the principal if I could do a costumed monologue instead. I dressed as one of the shepherds and told the story of Jesus’ birth. After my program, the principal asked the students the name of the character who had spoken to them. Several Bible names were given. One little boy said, “It wasn’t any of them, it was Preacher Sims.”

One of my favorite monologues is one about Christmas on a mill village in 1930. It was written by C.M. Bissell of Saxon Mill in 1930. I dress the part of a mill hand of that period. I have presented this monologue many places.

One invitation for this monologue was to do it at the banquet the night before the Foreign Mission Board commissioning service at Clemson University. I was told I could change into my costume in the football locker room. I was then to wait in the hall to be introduced.

Now, this hall was the same one that the catering service had parked all of the food trays and cabinets in. A waiter came out to get a tray of food and saw me standing there in my costume. He thought I was a bum from the street. Another young man came out and placed himself between me and the carts. I asked him if he would get me a glass of tea. He said, “No, you are not even supposed to be in here.”

I assured him I was a minister who was going to do a monologue. He replied, “Oh, yeah.” I opened my old mill hand’s lunch box and showed him my script and my name tag. He asked, “Do you want sweetened or unsweetened tea?”

I don’t really guess I should have been surprised to find the football locker room locked when I went back to change into my dress clothes.

I Like Ministerial Students

I like ministerial students. There is something exciting about students who have grasped great truths for the first time. Their enthusiasm is catching.

Ministerial students know the value of studying church history. They read Augustine, Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. They find inspiration as they meet these great men through their writings.

These students study Baptist history also. They know the importance of our history. Test your skills as you ask them about Keach, Bunyan, Gill, Fuller or Carey.

Ministerial students have the fire of evangelism in them. They know that Jesus Christ is the answer to the world’s problems and they want to let the whole world know. They have not given up on lost souls being saved.

Ministerial students love to preach. They are usually good preachers. They still realize their sermons must be bathed in prayer. They may not be polished speakers, but they can be powerful in their messages.

Ministerial students pray. Their prayers are sincere and fervent. They have not gotten beyond dependence on prayer. They are not so self-assured that they feel they can go it alone.

So study and pray and preach, young man. Don’t be hindered in your conquest for the Lord by us older fellows who have grown cynical and cold from battles fought and lost.

Hot Tomatoes

Senior citizens are a fun group to be around. The majority of them are still excited about life.

Senior citizens are divided into three groups. The first group is the No-Go group. They are the ones who always stay at home. The second group is the Will-Go group. They will go if you come and get them. The third group is the Go-Go group. They are standing at the door, with their bags packed, waiting for the next bus.

I have spoken to many senior groups across the state. They love a good story and will give a hearty laugh. It is also a good place to get a good home-cooked meal.

I was invited to speak at a congregate meal site in Greenville. My mother and dad ate there each day. I think that probably had something to do with the invitation. My director of missions went with me. We planned to visit another association meeting that evening.

Now, the people who eat at these sites are not supposed to bring any food with them. But they don’t seem to know that. After the trays were passed out, the ladies got plates of biscuits, jars of jam and pickles.

One little lady had a jar of pickled tomatoes. She offered me one. Now, that is not one of my favorite things, but I was the guest, so I took one. I sliced the tomato in half and popped one half into my mouth.

I had never put anything that hot in my mouth before. My director of missions said I turned pale, and my eyes set. He thought I was having a stroke or something. I felt like I was on fire from my mouth to the bottom of my feet. I gulped down several cups of cold tea in an attempt to get relief.

The little lady asked, “Are those hot?”

“Hot is not the word,” I replied.

“Well, I took the peppers out before I brought them,” she said.

I think I shall be eternally grateful that she did not bring the peppers to that lunch.

Christmas Tree Rodeo

Well, it’s time to decorate the church for Christmas. The ladies always do a good job of getting the sanctuary ready for the season.

Red poinsettias are placed on the pulpit platform and in each window. They are also placed in the vestibule. The communion table is covered with the advent wreath. Different groups light the advent candles each week until all are lit.

A beautiful crismon tree stands just to the right of the platform. The ladies hand-made all of the crismons for the tree. It is always a live tree and fills the sanctuary with a sweet smell.

Our first tree was quite an experience. It was a big tree. It completely dwarfed the truck that brought it to the church. It took several men to bring it into the church. A stand had been constructed by the men to place the tree in. Everything was ready. It was time to stand the tree upright in the new stand.

It was so large that it needed to be counterbalanced from the top. A rope was secured to the top of the tree. Mary, a lady in the church, and I were given the task of pulling the rope to help the tree stand upright.

The tree slowly rose to a standing position. The men were guiding the bottom end of the trunk into the stand. At that moment, the tree bucked out of the stand and began to fall across the sanctuary. Mary and I were holding on to the top rope.

The tree fell across the sanctuary, almost hitting the lights. Mary and I held on for dear life. We rode the tree across the sanctuary like two rodeo riders. There are a lot of things I had rather do than ride a cedar tree bareback across a church sanctuary.

Each year since, I have been busy when it’s time to raise the crismon tree in the church.

I Like Preachers

I like preachers. I have always liked preachers. My boyhood pastor was my idol. I liked the way he preached. I liked his gestures while preaching. I liked him because he liked young people.

Preachers are different. They are under a call from God. They must always be ready to speak a word for the Lord. They must always be ready to pray. They are never off work. They are on call 24 hours a day.

Preachers are a lot like magicians. They must take the gospel story and weave it into a sermon that will reach young and old alike.

They can see a sermon rejected and trampled on, and yet build a new one for next Sunday.

Preachers who are really great are humble. They do what they do for the glory of God, not for themselves. They can see someone else get credit for what they have done and join the praise themselves.

Preachers have large emotional reserves. They cry with those who cry and laugh with those who laugh. They mourn with those who hurt and celebrate with those who rejoice. And they have to change from one emotion to the other with the snap of a finger.

Preachers appreciate hearing “That was a good sermon, preacher” from one of the deacons.

And they appreciate the little lady who says, “Thank you for your prayer, pastor.”

And they are filled with joy when they feel the tug at their trousers leg and look down into the face of a smiling child who says, “Hey, p’eecher, I love you.”

Signs of the Times

Signs offer a lot of interesting reading. A sign at a car lot near my church reads, “Good, clean cars. We finance. No credit check. 24-hour wrecker service.” I believe if you buy one of these cars, you will need the wrecker service.

While visiting a hospital, I saw this sign: “Pediatric floor. No children allowed.” I guess if a child once gets off this floor, he can’t come back.

There was this sign on the gate to a motel swimming pool: “Pool open 24 hours a day. No swimming at any other time.” I suppose this was for people who liked to swim after hours.

In 1982, a banner across the front of the Spartanburg Auditorium welcomed the South Carolina Baptist Convention. Below, another banner announced a coming attraction. The two banners read, “South Carolina Baptist Convention, Ain’t Misbehaving.”

A few years earlier, the marquee on the Greenville Auditorium was in the process of being changed from the wrestling matches to the convention. It read, “South Carolina Baptist Convention, Return Grudge Match.”

Each year our convention has a theme banner. This year it is “Strengthening Churches for Kingdom Growth.”

That’s a lot better than a return grudge match.

My Resolutions

A resolution is a course of action determined to be seen through to completion. If not seen through to the end, it is worthless. Most New Year’s resolutions are worthless.

I have made some resolutions that I can see through to completion.

I resolve not to smoke, chew tobacco, or dip snuff. I never have and I don’t plan to start now.

I resolve not to go on a diet. I certainly can keep that one.

I resolve not to eat rice pudding. I made that resolution in the second grade and have kept it ever since.

What good are these resolutions? There is no challenge in them. I don’t do those things anyhow. It doesn’t take any determination to keep these resolutions.

The Apostle Paul offered us a four-part resolution in Hebrews 10:19-25. It is written in perfect parliamentary style. He offers three “whereas” statements and then the four-part resolution. He resolves to draw near to God, to hold fast to the hope we profess, to encourage one another to love and good deeds, and not to fail to meet together.

Each of these will take a lot of determination, but the rewards for doing so will be tremendous.

The Way I Am

“What makes you the way you are?” someone asked me the other day. “You seem to be able to laugh with ease,” he said.

“Well, I grew up so poor you either laughed or cried,” I replied.

Since laughter is easier than crying, I chose to laugh. I guess I also learned to laugh in the school of hard knocks.

I walked about three miles to grammar school each day. One day, a friend’s dad gave me a ride in his pickup truck. As we rounded a curve, the door flew open and I fell out. I rolled down the side of the road, hitting my head on several rocks. I got back into the truck, laughing so my friend would not see me crying.

Well, walking home from high school, I stumbled over a rock and fell head first into a rock wall that surrounded a neighbor’s front yard. I knocked a hole in my head.

Now, my dad was a great inventor. He made most of our toys. We had things that could not be bought in the store. Somewhere Dad came across a large spring. He tied one end of it to a limb on the chinaberry tree. He hung another piece of rope from the other end of the spring. He tied it around a broomstick at about two feet from the ground. You could stand on the broomstick, hold onto the rope, and bounce up and down.

I was taking a good ride on this contraption when the rope around the tree limb broke. The spring hit me on top of my head. I woke up in my uncle’s Model A on the way to the doctor and his needle. My crying soon gave way to laughter.

Proverbs 17:22 reads, “A merry heart does good like a medicine.” It may be that a merry heart can even make an old sorehead laugh.

The Glowing Crucifix

There is something about the darkness that is both exciting and foreboding. I like to sit by the ocean and watch the sun set and the moon rise. The moon shining over the ocean is a beautiful sight.

But I don’t like to be by the ocean on a real dark night. There is a feeling of danger there without the moon and the stars. The pounding of the waves is an uneasy sound in the dark. I guess I just like to be able to see in the dark.

When I was a boy, I spent a lot of time at my aunt’s home in the country. They did not have street lights like we did in the city. It was really dark at night there when the moon did not shine.

One night, my cousin asked me to spend the night at her house. I wasn’t used to having a bedroom all to myself. My brothers and I shared a bedroom at home.

After the lights were turned out, I saw a figure glowing in the dark. Trying hard to breathe, I found the light switch and turned on the light. There was nothing there. I repeated this several times. I finally realized the glow was coming from a crucifix on the wall. I kept my eye on it the rest of the night.

As the years have gone by, I have thought a lot about the message of that glowing crucifix. It lets me know that no matter how dark the journey of life may be, Jesus is always there to light the way.

A Stopping Place

How long should a sermon be? I suppose that would have to be answered by the preacher and the listener.

The preacher wants to be sure he has said it all. The listener says, “You have said enough.”

Those who teach preaching among Southern Baptists have suggested that a sermon be made of three points. A poem could be added to the end for special effect.

One of the best British preachers always used seven points. He usually quoted a couple of poems or hymns also. His sermons were expositional.

During one of the interim periods at our church, the preacher had been preaching for about 45 minutes.

One of the ladies said, “That was a long sermon today, preacher.”

He replied, “I couldn’t find a stopping place.”

“You didn’t ask me. I could have shown you at least three good places,” she said.

One Sunday, I guess I had passed a good stopping place. I gave an emphasis to the sermon by asking, “Are you ready to go?” I meant, are you ready to stand before God.

One little fellow stood up on the pew and said very plainly, “I’m ready to go home!”

I thought that was a very good idea. So we stood, had prayer and went home. We had found a stopping place for my sermon.

My Nativity Set

It was a cold and windy day as we drove the winding road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. A light snow was falling as we arrived in the little village.

We quickly walked across the courtyard to the Church of the Nativity. We entered the church by crawling through a very small door. Our guide led us down a staircase to a cave below the church. Here, in this grotto, we were told, was the birthplace of Jesus. The church had been built over the site some centuries later.

God had chosen to enter human history in this little village of common people. It was a village of simple shepherds. God came to a people who lived with faith in the promise of a coming Messiah. God always comes to those who live by simple faith.

As we left Bethlehem, we stopped at an olivewood shop. The craftsmen here made gifts out of the wood of the ancient olive trees. I purchased a beautiful nativity set made completely out of olivewood. The shopkeeper put it in a large, purple box and tied it with twine.

He asked me what I was going to do with the nativity set when I got home. I told him I would use it as part of my Christmas decorations. “Why only at Christmas?” he asked. “Does it not mean anything the rest of the year?”

I took my nativity set back to my hotel in Jerusalem. I had been told that it would fold to fit in my suitcase. But the wood was glued together and could not be folded.

The only way to get my nativity set home was to carry it in the big, purple box tied with twine. I could not check the box as luggage. The box would not fit in the overhead luggage rack on the plane.

So, I flew from Tel-Aviv to Athens, Greece, with the purple box in my lap. I flew from Athens to New York to Atlanta to Greenville-Spartanburg with the purple box in my lap.

All the way home, I thought of the shopkeeper’s question: “Why only at Christmas?” God’s gift of salvation is a life-changing gift for all of eternity.

Have a very meaningful Christmas as you celebrate the unspeakable gift that God has given you.

In the Name of Progress

The definition of the word “progress” is “to develop to a higher, better, or more advanced stage.” Sometimes you wonder if everything that is called progress really fits this description.

I remember when a church that had a piano and an organ was a progressive church. It took someone with a lot of talent to play these instruments. Now, in the name of progress, we play tapes for our music.

I remember when my pastor preached that the Bible was literally true. He preached that hell was a real place of eternal punishment and that heaven was the home of the redeemed.

Now, in the name of theological progress, we are told some of the Bible is true, and some of the Bible is myth and legend. One progressive preacher said hell was simply the loss of self-esteem.

When I was a boy, Mama would wash the clothes in a tin tub on the wash bench in the back yard. After she finished with the clothes, we boys would strip off and take a bath right out there in the yard. We later got an indoor tub where we could take our baths in private.

Now, my neighbor has put his tub out on his deck. He gets in it right there before the whole community, and, in the name of progress, he calls it a spa.

Just Pondering

To ponder means “to weigh mentally.” It also means “to meditate on” or “to consider carefully.” Some things take a lot of pondering. You should practice that ancient art from time to time.

In the past few weeks, I have had time to ponder some of the issues of life. These may not have been great issues, but I pondered them anyhow.

I pondered why my hair grows thicker on the left side of my head than on the right. My hairstylist brought this to my attention. I don’t think it really means I am a half-wit.

I pondered why my right foot is larger than my left. My left shoe slips on while the right one requires a shoe horn. I guess the large right foot offsets the weight of the thicker hair on the left side of my head.

I like to ponder nature also. Why doesn’t the quack of a duck have an echo? A duck can stand on the mountain all day quacking, but never an echo. And ponder this: Would thunder sound the same if there were no one to hear it?

A little theological pondering is needed also. When Peter saw the sheet let down from heaven, was it full, queen or king-size? Was it flat, or fitted?

I seem to be getting a headache from all of this pondering. It could be that the college advertisement is right: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

Getting Things Right

Getting things right is important. After all these years, I still have to rely on the Sunday bulletin to get the order of worship right. It seems that I always get something out of place or just forget something.

A music minister friend of mine had some of this kind of trouble. Their morning service was broadcast live over radio. Now, there is no room for mistakes on a live broadcast.

The choir came out for the call to worship. The pianist began to play a hymn while the organist began to play a different hymn. The choir was singing yet a third hymn. Much to my friend’s embarrassment, he stopped the music and got everybody on the same song. They finally got it right.

I had been inviting a friend to church for some time. I never really expected him to come. He said, “I’m going to show up some Sunday and surprise you.”

Well, one Sunday I was singing a solo when my friend came into the vestibule, smiled and waved at me. I forgot the words to the song I was singing. I couldn’t even hear the piano.

Years later, I noticed in the newspaper that my friend had died. The obituary said he was a member of a Baptist church. It reported that he was the teacher of the men’s Bible class. I had messed up the song, but … I guess I got it right after all.

Hospital Thrill Ride

I don’t like thrill rides at carnivals or amusement parks. They seem to send my stomach spinning in a disturbing way.

You can get a thrill ride outside the amusement parks. They can take place in what may seem like an ordinary daily activity.

I was being moved from test room to test room on a flat cart. I was lying flat on my back, covered with a white sheet. I’m sure that I looked like a Sherman tank coming down the crowded hallway.

Two young men were in charge of my cart. We left the second floor by elevator to go to the fifth floor. When the elevator opened, one of the young men said, “What are we doing in the basement?”

The other young man said, “Sorry about that, sir.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “I would not have seen the basement any other way.”

They returned me to the fifth floor. When we rolled off the elevator this time, we rammed a cart parked in front of the nurses station.

“How long have you boys had your drivers’ licenses?” I inquired.

“Are you a highway patrolman?” one of them asked.

“No, I’m a Baptist preacher,” I replied.

“That’s just as bad,” he said.

With that, they delivered me to my room and helped me get into my bed.

“We hope everything goes well with you,” one of them said as they left the room.

“Take care of the cart!” I exclaimed.

Hit It

It was a clear, hot day. We planned a trip to the Baptist Book Store in Greenville. We ate lunch at a fast-food restaurant before we left. We really did that to keep the children from saying “I’m hungry” all the way there.

As we left the restaurant, I waited for a chance to get into the traffic. When the break came, my son, who had just gotten his driver’s license, leaned over the seat and said, “Hit it.” Just to let him know I wasn’t too old to know what that meant, I stepped down hard on the accelerator.

The car jumped and then backfired. It began to skip and knock. Black smoke boiled from the exhaust pipe. I tried to get it to settle down, but it got worse. We would have to have a mechanic to check it out.

Our mechanic was about four miles away. We knocked, skipped and smoked all the way there. Just before we got there, the tail pipe and muffler came apart and began dragging the road.

The mechanic asked what had happened. “I hit it,” I said with my head down.

“I believe you knocked it out,” he replied. The car would not be ready until the next day. The trip to the Baptist Book Store was off.

Since we lived five blocks away, we decided to walk home. It was at least 100 degrees. Several church members passed by and honked. They thought we were walking for our health.

One lady stopped to offer us a ride. She had a very small car. We could not all fit into it. I told my wife and children to go home and come back and get me. My son came back to pick me up in his old Jeep. I crawled into it and he started off with a jerk.

“That’s what I meant when I said, ‘Hit it’,” he said. I took one good look at him and thought to myself, if he says “hit it” one more time, I’m going to hit something—but it’s not going to be the car.

Passing Through the Doughnut Hole

The last few weeks have been exhausting for me.

I have been x-rayed from head to foot. I have become a fixture in the scan department.

A CAT scan is a big machine that looks like a giant, sugar-coated Krispy Kreme doughnut. Your body lies on a small, steel table while it passes back and forth through the middle of the doughnut.

Now, I had at least a foot overhang on each side of that little table. My arms had to be held in an unnatural position to keep from having them jerked out of their sockets.

After spending hours in this contraption, I thought of a way to make it more bearable. It should be labeled in giant, green letters which read, “Fresh-baked doughnuts.”

Can’t you imagine the joy of passing back and forth through a giant, jelly-filled doughnut?

While I was lying on this table, the room filled with medical personnel. They began to attach different pieces of equipment to me.

It seemed I was going into surgery right there on the CAT scan table.

A doctor walked up with an eight-inch-long needle in his hand and asked, “Have I explained to you how I do a biopsy?”

I took a good look at the needle and just don’t remember a lot after that.

My Beliefs

We live in a day when we are all expected to have a creed or a confession of faith.

We use these creeds to judge our fellowship with each other.

So, let me tell you some things I believe.

I believe that we must love everybody. The Bible says, “For God so loved the world.” This is an all-inclusive love. No one can be left out.

I believe that we must have compassion on everybody. The Bible says when Jesus saw the multitude, he was moved with compassion on them. The church that puts any program ahead of compassion is a failure.

I believe we must meet the physical, as well as the spiritual, needs of the world. Jesus said when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give water to the thirsty, visit the sick and those in prison, we have done it unto him.

I believe we must preach the gospel of salvation to all the world. Jesus said we were to go into all the world. We are to win, teach and baptize.

I believe in prayer. Paul said we ought to pray all the time. The only real Christian is one who believes in prayer and practices it.

And I believe we ought to laugh. The Bible says the one who sits in the heavens shall laugh.

So, judge me by what I believe, if you wish.

I believe our faith is seen in more than our words.

Just Talking … Forever and a Day

However you say it—tempus fugit, tide and time wait for no man, time’s a wastin’—they all mean the same thing: Time flies.

We are at the changing of the year. We are almost at the changing of a century. Ready or not, here it comes. The year 1998 is gone and, with it, all its hopes and dreams.

It has been said, “We grow too soon old and too slow smart.” How did I get here so fast? It seems like only yesterday I was a barefoot boy in City View. And now I am almost three-score years old with a wife, two married children, and three precious grandchildren.

Once along this journey, due to a series of near-fatal heart attacks, I arrived at the gate to eternal life, but the good Lord sent me back. Now, having been diagnosed with inoperable kidney cancer which has spread to the lungs, I am on that journey toward the gate again.

The big question is, “Would I have done anything differently?”

The answer is yes. I would have prayed more. I would have spent more time with my children. I would have walked in the fields with my Lord and talked as old friends. I might have even gone fishing and maybe tried hunting.

God has been good to me. He gave me a wonderful, supportive family. He let me spend 28 years already at the sweetest church in South Carolina. He even allowed me to meet and know Baptist people all across this state and beyond.

Do I have one wish left? I would love to sit in a quiet corner with my loving wife, sipping coffee and just talking … forever and a day.

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SECTION TWO: OTHER WRITINGS

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View From a Chinaberry Tree

You either love a chinaberry tree, or you hate it. It may be possible to do both. When you smell its sweet blossoms in the spring, you’ll love it. When you sit under its cool shade on a hot day, you’ll love it. When you have to rake up all those slimy berries in the fall, you’ll hate it. If you have several chinaberry trees around your house, you may even lose your taste for English peas because those chinaberries look just like them.

Now, on the other hand, chinaberry trees are good for boys. They have low-spreading branches and are very easy to climb. In fact, several boys can sit in one tree at the same time. It is a good place for boys to have their very important conversations in. No doubt, many great decisions have been made in a chinaberry tree. You can sit in a chinaberry tree for most of the day. If you climb high enough, you can hide among the leaves and watch the world go by.

We had three chinaberry trees at our house. We had two in the front yard and one in the back yard. I think this was so that each one of us had his own tree. When you played cowboys and Indians, or cops and robbers, you needed your own hideout. A chinaberry tree was good for that.

Chinaberry trees were also very good for another reason. The berries made excellent ammunition for pea shooters. We would leave for school with a piece of bamboo cane in one pocket and a handful of chinaberries in the other. A well-placed shot with a chinaberry could raise quite a welt.

A chinaberry tree could also be dangerous. On one occasion, my brother tried to make a Tarzan-like leap from his tree. He got his head caught between the forks of two limbs and hung himself. I wasn’t tall enough to get him loose, so I ran to get Daddy. He lifted him up and freed him from certain death in a chinaberry tree.

I kind of miss the old chinaberry trees, but I can eat English peas again.

Mama’s Banking System

A person has to be pretty sharp just to bank his money these days. With IRAs, money market certificates, simple interest accounts, all-star accounts, instant cash accounts, installment loans, and joint checking accounts, banking gets to be somewhat confusing. I have enough trouble just balancing my checking account.

My mother never had these problems. When I was a boy, we never went to the bank. Mama had her own banking system.

Her bank was an oblong, tin cookie can with handles that folded across the top. This can contained an assortment of smaller ones. These were baking powder cans and Band-Aid cans. Some were even little banks themselves.

Each of these cans was for a different bill. Mama had worked out a budget that called for so much money to be put in each can each week.

One can was for insurance and taxes. Another was for lights and water. There was a can for groceries and one for clothes and doctors. One can was for the house payment, which was twenty-three dollars a month.

Now, sometimes a bill was higher than expected. She would then have to borrow from one of the other cans to meet the increase. When she did this, she would put the amount borrowed on a little slip of paper and place it in that can. The next week, the borrowed amount would have to be replaced.

Mama kept her bank under her bed. We all knew where it was, but none of us would ever get it out from under the bed unless Mama told us to do so. The cans were never locked up. They didn’t need to be. We all knew that that money was our livelihood and none of it ever took missing.

When any of us children wanted a penny or maybe a nickel, we would go and ask Mama. She would say, “Go and get the can and let me see what I can do.” I crawled under that bed many times to get the can out for a penny. That’s when you could get two pieces of bubble gum for a penny. In the worst of times, Mama could always find a little money in her bank.

I can still see Mama and Dad at the big round table in the dining room, figuring out their bills. There on the table in front of them would be the cans and Dad’s pay envelope. We never had much money, but we never went without the things we needed. Between Dad’s pay and Mama’s banking system, there always seemed to be enough to meet the need.

Recently, while rambling through an old cabinet at my home place, I found Mama’s old banking system. My folks finally gave in and started using a commercial bank when they began to draw their Social Security checks.

I found the oblong, tin cookie can with three of the smaller tin cans that Mama had used for so many years. Two of the smaller cans were little banks. They were advertising cans for A&P Bokar and Eight O’Clock Coffee. Both of these cans must be about 50 years old.

My initials were scratched on one of these cans. When I became old enough to carry a paper route, Mama helped me with my banking. My two brothers’ initials were also scratched on those cans. As they grew older, they took over the paper route and let Mama keep their money in her bank.

The third little can that was still in the bank was a Calumet Baking Powder can. It was so worn that most of the paint on the can was gone. On the top of this can was scratched a large “T.” That “T” me