Cotton Fields

They can't dig what they can't use, should just stick to themselves, there'd be much less abuse.- Lynyrd Skynyrd

My music career began when I was 23, on a small stage in the community building in Monroe, AR. I stumped onstage (leg was in a cast you know) and sang "In Them Old Cotton Fields Back Home."

All the recent brouhaha over cotton and images/displays of cotton has caused me to wonder if some of us have too much spare time.

But this is not about that.

Memories.

Whether your daddy farmed or not, if you grew up in the South (and maybe if you didn't) you have memories of cotton fields.

Some of us picked cotton. Some of us played in the cotton trailers, jumping off the sides to sink waist deep in the white fluffy stuff. Maybe you were one of the folks who pulled over next to a field of cotton and had someone snap your picture while you stood out in the middle of it. We actually had one family knock on our door and ask that we take their picture standing in the field. We did.

And the smell. I can't see a picture of a cotton field without remembering the smell.

One more memory. Maybe my fondest.

Somewhere there exists a picture, taken by my mom, of my three oldest girls and their cousins baled off into a cotton trailer full of cotton. And the expression on their faces is priceless.

How could you not smile at that?

On Turning Fifty

For Kim

I don't really remember my fiftieth birthday.

I'm certain we celebrated with cake and a song. There were the usual cards and jokes about "getting old now."

Those things go with turning fifty. It's universal I suppose. I just don't really remember any of the particulars of the day.

I do remember another celebration of sorts. On October 21, 1976, in a motel outside St. Louis, I observed my dad's fiftieth birthday. I and several other men.

We had come to move a preacher and his family and all their worldly goods. Taking them back to Arkansas to pastor Lexa Baptist Church where my dad was a deacon.

There were maybe eight of us, and I seem to recall that all but one of the men were younger than my father.

Being brothers in Christ, they naturally ragged on Dad about becoming an old codger. He took it in good humor and ragged back, like you do.

I remember it also as being the only time in my adult life that I have shared a bed with another man. Not so strange among a group of guys who had mostly grown up poor, sharing beds with one or more brothers, usually until they married and owned their own beds.

Dad was my bedmate that night and complained next morning of my being all knees and elbows.

He passed on in June, 1998, six months before my own fiftieth birthday. I had thought it would be cool to share that with him as we had shared his, some twenty years previously.

I dare say, oldest daughter, that you don't feel any older than you did the day before your birthday. And certainly, I doubt if you feel "old."

That comes much later, in my experience, and is not really a thing to be dwelt upon overmuch. It's part of life, you know. There's a blessing that goes with it.

Our God never takes anything from our lives without giving something in return. Something always better, always richer, always calling us to remembrance of Him and His goodness.

Part of that is to be increasingly aware of the rising generation, those just starting their lives with their husbands, wives and children.

You've been where they are. You have wisdom to impart, though it will not always be received.

Someone once commented that our lives can seem like utter chaos, seemingly random events unfolding with little time to catch a breath.

Time, and may I add, faith, lend perspective. For the Christian, it is amazing to reflect upon what has been the revealing of God's perfect plan for our lives. Not that we have been perfect, but our Father in heaven certainly is.

So happy belated birthday, Kimbo, and many more.

Here's hoping and praying that your children will celebrate their own fiftieth birthdays in your presence.

Love,
dad

Who Am I

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.-Hebrews 4:12

Matthew 7:1 ("Judge not, that you be not judged.") may be the favorite Bible quotation of our day.

"Who am I to judge?" is the question on many lips. A kinder, gentler way, perhaps, of saying "I don't want to get involved."

And "Love your neighbor as yourself." What does that entail?

I would avoid danger. Should I warn my neighbor of the same approaching danger?

So there is this:

https://www.monergism.com/blog/nashville-statement-and-acting-love-toward-our-neighbor


John Hendryx' comment on article 10 of the Nashville Statement.

You may read that statement here (and sign it as the Holy Spirit prompts you):

https://cbmw.org/nashville-statement/

The quote from Ezekiel 3:18 in Hendryx' comment speaks to the Christian person's conscience, as do Paul's words in Romans 1:32.

This is personal, you see, as I have not just a neighbor but a dear loved one with whom I have been having this conversation.

My sin is ever before me, as David reminds us, and at times seems so overwhelming and all-pervasive that I too am tempted to ask: "Who am I to judge?"

But it has been pointed out (though not in the Bible I think) that "sometimes words have two meanings."

So then "to judge" can be to pronounce sentence or condemn. Not my job but God's only.

But "to judge" can also be to discern, to make a distinction. I look at the sky in the morning and may decide to carry an umbrella.

I am bound to speak as one who has been and is continually the recipient of God's love and mercy.

Turn back, turn back.

Pray for my faith, that it not falter and that I not grow weary in my entreaties before God.