“Prius Mori Quam Fallere Fidem”

Our latest journey to jolly old Britain inspired me to return home and do a little research into family history. So far, here are a few fascinating tidbits I’ve uncovered about the ancestors…

Dr. Edward Strother of London is responsible for the longest word in the English language, according to the Guiness Book of World Records. “Aequeosalinocalcalinoceraceoaluminosocupreovitriolic,” describes the spa waters in Bath, England.

George Washington’s father (Augustine) bought the farm he grew up on the Rappahannock River in Virginia from one of my great-grandfathers (William Strother). Yep, that would be the cherry tree planted by my great-grandfather that little George chopped down (so the legend goes).

In line 160 of The Reeves Prologue and Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales,” two young Cambridge students are among the pilgrims. In modern English, “One was named John and Alan the other; born in the same town both – a place called Strother far to the north – I cannot tell you where.”

There was a Fort Strother in Alabama, a town named Strother, Missouri at one time and there still is a Strother Air Field near Arkansas City, Arkansas.

United States Presidents John Taylor (10), Zachary Taylor (12), and Jimmy Carter (39) as well as Old Blood and Guts himself, General George S. Patton are all relatives.

Of course, not all of my forefathers were quite so heroic: One of my ancestors was a convicted horse thief, sentenced to hang, but reprieved by the governer of North Carolina for 99 years in 1763.

There were long rumors of a family castle in England. What is now known as “Fowberry Tower” on the northern border of England was rebuilt and owned for several generations beginning with Squire John Strother in 1666. Get this – they raise alpacas on this property now. It turns out my family hails from Northumberland, the northernmost county in England, just before crossing the Scottish border. Tanya and I passed right through there last month and I had no idea. No wonder I feel so at home in that part of the world!

And last but not least I leave you with the family motto, the family motto: “Prius Mori Quam Fallere Fidem.” Or: “Yield to Death Rather than Betray Trust.”

Sundays and Spongebob Squarepants

So I’m scanning the paper today when something I usually pay no attention to at all catches my eye: “Cable TV Nielsen Ratings for the week of July 23-29.” After a few made-for-cable shows and a NASCAR race (my theory on this sport’s rise in popularity: 20,000 actual stock fans at each race; 80,000 fans who just want an excuse to get together and drink beer), the number 9 and 10 most watched shows out of the thousands on cable – Spongebob Squarepants. On 7 AM and 10 AM Sunday morning. Meaning that there are millions of kids in this country are vegging out at the “church” of Bikini Bottom instead of being a part of a real, vibrant, living faith community that can help love them to a profound understanding of who they are and where they are going. While I’m tempted here to rant about the evils of mass media (see: “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Portman) or the complicate abdication of parents of their God-given responsiblity to give spiritual direction to their children (see: “The Shema” – Deut. 6:4-7), instead I think I’m a bit sad. Why are so many familes sleeping in on Sunday morning instead of gathering to celebrate life and the great mysteries of faith? Who do I know that doesn’t want to get out their pajamas because they have been wounded too many times by people who call themselves Christians? Are my neighbors kids flipping channels because I’ve never told them that there’s another side to faith that could not be farther from judgmental glances, money-hungry TV evangelists, and repressive religion?

No offense, Spongebob. Just wondering where we’ve gone wrong.

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown!

So my kid brother decides to do something he’s never done before and take up acting this summer.  Of course, that it happens to be a musical about his all-time hero, Charlie Brown - and that he was cast in that role – helps.  And it was outstanding.  I only wish you could have heard my girls cackle at their uncle with a giant lunch sack over his head as he imagined the cute red-headed girl looking at him.  Of course, the audience was a bit thin that night as many of Salem’s cultural elite headed to the demolition derby instead.  As the famous kid in the yellow shirt would say, “Good grief!”

Clap for Alaska!

 

I don’t make it to the movie theater often these days, but when I do, I make it count.  With good friends Brian “the Baconator” Coates and Seth & Arley “about to be my neighbors” Worley, I laughed much harder than I had for a long time.  And yet, as it always seems with the Simpsons, I couldn’t remember much of what I was actually laughing at when it was all over – maybe the Simpsons are like my appetite for Chinese food – great at the moment, but somehow, I’m hungry again two hours later.  Anyway, I agree with much of this review had to say: “What I love about The Simpsons is the way it can draw a cheap sophomoric laugh one second, only to try and slide a subtle bit of satire past you in the next. When you watch it “correctly,” it feels like both sides of your brain are engaged.”  Ah, engaging both sides of the brain while laughing into the middle of the night with a few friends and a lot of strangers.  D’oh!

(And if you go, stay for the credits and hear Maggie’s first word ever.)

“A mad god’s dream…”

“But Edinburgh is a mad god’s dream…” – found from a poem on the foundation of the new Scottish Parliament Building [Ed. note: We've found that 'mad' is an admirable quality to the British because it means more 'willing to risk' than just 'downright insane.']

As our train pulls south out of Edinburgh, it is a bittersweet moment for us.  As with any city you’ve come to love, you have swirling around in your head and heart this mix of good new memories while at the same time wondering to yourself when and if you’ll ever return, and just how different the world will be then.  For Tanya and I, Edinburgh was the perfect place to get away to for a little while so we could spend some time re-discovering us – a perfect blend of old-world beauty, romance, history and culture.  From our first glimpse of the view from our hotel window facing the Royal Mile (it’s not often that a massive castle is there to greet you each morning!) to our final sprint to the train station huddled under our tiny umbrella in the pouring rain (after the wettest summer on record the weather has been great – and we fully expected to get soaked at least once, after all, it’s Britain), it was a nearly perfect three days of exploration, uninteruppted conversation, and running into absolutely no one we knew (we did have a close encounter with some people from Peoria!).  And I have to admit I’ve developed quite an appreciation for Scottish sensibilities.  They have a strong sense of national identity that has been forged by being the underdog in so many battles and issues over the centuries.  I was moved by reading the Declaration of Arbroath, signed in 1320, that says in part…

“For, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any condition be brought under English rule.  It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”

Can you hear the bagpipes playing in the background?  Oh wait, they just were.  But I think the U.S. could learn a thing or two about cultural identity and the importance of knowing who you are.  A future generation needs to hear, know and love the stories of why freedom matters and how they can be citizens of the “great conversations” of our times that will shape the future.  So while many of the monuments here are gaudy attempts to over-glorify some spurious acheivements of mere mortals, you do have a sense that you are part of a greater story here.  And while this is a city in need of spiritual redemption, you also get a sense that only a place like this could produce a fiery reformer of the church like John Knox, support the development of the English Bible in the face of royal opposition, and give us the milkman-turned-world famous actor Sir Sean Connery, knighted in the Queen’s Palace at Holyrood (“I’ll take ‘The Pen is Mightier’ for $200, Trabeck!).  Edinburgh has been a joy…now it’s back to the Northeast.  Cheers!

Visual proof…

That my wife is much better looking in a skirt than bagpipe players…and that I’m not the first preacher in history to use the “hold my Bible in one arm while making points with the other” technique!

A Thousand Years in a Day

So we are coming to the end of day 4 of our journey and after 3 very full days spent mostly with the Farish family and their wonderful hospitality, here is what we can tell you so far (the stories and pictures you’ll have to wait a bit for…)

1.  The steam locomotive and the match were both invented here in Stockton, not to mention the fact that this town has the widest ‘high’ street in all Europe.

2.  Toffee pudding is ‘brilliant.’  Horlick’s is not.

3.  Inspired by the antics of some school children, Tanya can talk a Vicar into a race rolling down a steep hill. 

4.  We can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about a guy named ‘Lord Londonderry’ – and the food at his pub is great.

5.  We found a way into Durham Castle even after it closed, and it did not involve a siege, a catapult or knights that say ‘nee.’

6.  In one single day, we visited a cathedral that was started in the 900’s, the home of George Washington’s ancestors (1600’s), a manor from the 1820’s and a Victorian village and parish school from 1913.  And we descended 250 yards into an old coal mining shaft.

7.  I got to play Indiana Jones and explore a crypt for the first time.

8.  I didn’t get to meet the bishop, but I get to have a conversation with an ‘arch-deacon.’

9.  Last but not least, we have both ministered here and been ministered to by this amazing community of faith.  I am always filled with wonder at the way the Holy Spirit brings like-minded people together, and I believe that God is moving in what was once the spiritually dark Northeast of England.  We’ve seen it in the vision of these people to reclaim churches and lives, their unwavering commitment to prayer, and their genuine eagerness to hear and learn about what God is doing on our side of the pond.  We find a fellowship of encouragement here, literally from the first moment we arrrived off the train just in time to ’crash’ a church BBQ & were welcomed with hugs, grilled leek sausages and conversation.  I’ve recently been finishing a book titled ‘Simply Christian’ by the bishop of Durham (this region), N.T. Wright, and I love this passage because I think it captures the spirit of what we see happening here and the kind of community we always want to be a part of:

‘For many, the word ‘church’ means just the opposite of that negative image [that many readers have of dark buildings, pompous pronouncements, false solemnity and rank hypocrisy].  It’s a place of welcome and laughter, of healing and hope, of friends and family and justice and new life.  It’s where the homeless drop by for a bowl of soup and the elderly stop by for a chat.  It’s where one group is working to help drug addicts while another is campaigning for global justice.  It’s where you’ll find people learning to pray, coming to faith, struggling with temptation, finding new purpose…it’s where people bring their own small faith and discover, in getting together with others to worship the one true God, that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.  No church is like that all the time.  But a remarkable number of churches are like that for quite a lot of time.’

So it’s up the coast and off to Edinburgh tomorrow!

We have arrived…

…in the Tees Valley, that is.  Its 12:27 PM local time here, which makes it 6:26 AM back home – good morning!  It’s about 12 degrees, which feels a bit chilly but also refreshing.  Of course that in Celsius, for all you rabble who are so far behind the rest of the civilized world (translation: 54 Faherenheit).  I haven’t slept a wink in about 36 hours, but it’s amazing how your body clock re-sets itself when the sun comes up (not to mention the wonders of a strong cup of English Breakfast tea).  So far, our adventures have consisted of accurately predicting the plot to the ‘Astronaut Farmer’ without listening to a single word, trying to help a young mom we met on the plane named Julia and her son Max find their luggage to no avail, and being entertained by a bunch of young ladies on the train talking about ’sweet tea’ in thick British accents (I have a suspicion they were poking fun at our accents, but in the name of international diplomacy, we’ll prefer to think that they were laughing with us instead of at us).

Oh, and reading the London Sunday Telegraph.  I absolutely love the wit of the British Press.  Take these lines from the review of yesterday’s pompous and ridiculous ‘Live Earth’ concerts, which sucked millions of watts of energy and jet fuel and the life right out of the idea that rock music means anything anymore except being manipulated to support the latest feel-good fad:  ‘Wembley Stadium was only about 60 percent full as Genesis took the stage, a little too casual to do anything more that suggest that one or two people neeed not leave their mobile phone chargers plugged in.  Razorlight need the night and power-draining electric lights to cover up their laddish ordinariness.  Their message seemed to be ‘use public transit more.’  David Grey and Damien Rice sang Que Sera Sera, the message clearly being, ‘Don’t leave your TV on standby.’  Kasabian energetically promised the world, however doomed, will always be filled with more pop and more people waving their hands in the air.  Al Gore popped up on a screen.  The audience quickly understood his point – if they don’t act responsibly and sort things out within 15 years, no more pop festivals.  Then the Black Eyed Peas played a set that suggested they hadn’t thought about the future for more than five minutes.  Spice Girl Geri introduced Duran Duran, which to some was the end of the world; under the circumstances, it would be cynical to comment on how deeply their song ‘Ordinary World’pollutes the atmosphere.  And Keane and James Blunt each shared ways of conserving energy, leaving Madonna to make sure the planet is still around in 50 years time so she can do her farewell tour.’

So bring on loads of British wit and hours of pub talk about politics, the weather, and matters of life, love and faith – it’s going to be a good week!

Seven Years Old

Today we celebrated Eliza’s 7th birthday! OK, wait, let me back up.  In reality, my kids are so loved that birthdays and holidays aren’t just days, they’re seasons.  So on the “sixth day” of Eliza’s week-long birthing-day celebration, we took the girls to the city pool/water park in Tanya’s hometown of Freeport, IL for the afternoon.  The park has a 30-foot-high corkscrew waterslide that she was barely tall enough to go down.  She was nervous at first – asking questions about the climb, the turns, the speed, etc.  But she asked if I would go right behind her, and so I told her I would.  I was proud of her as she bravely but carefully scaled the wet steps, climbed onto the slide and whisked herself down the barrel chute.  I followed a few seconds later and it was a pretty impressive ride.  As I climbed out of the pool, I thought to myself, “well, I know what I’ll be doing all day – going up and down this slide with Eliza.”  It was then that she turned and shouted to me, waving a finger in my general direction (no she did not!): “Hey Dad, I’m good, I don’t need you anymore!”  Dripping wet and rubbing the cholrine out of my eyes, I stood there a little stunned as those words sunk in – my just-turned-seven-year-old doesn’t need my anymore?!  She doesn’t want me to follow her up the eight flights of slippery and treacherous steps and follow close behind her down the flooding vortex of watery danger that is this water slide?!  After all, this is the kid who just lost her second front tooth (note the ability to drink from a straw without opening her mouth above) a couple of days ago.  And now she doesn’t need me?  Ah, I knew I would have to come to grips with my little girl growing up, but you always think it will be the dramatic moments – the first boy coming to pick her up for a date, the first school dance, walking her down an aisle.  But, true to life, the letting go process is more like a million little progressive moments.  Which is probably better so those big ones don’t complete crush you.  It’s all a really good thing that she’s growing up, I know.  But it’s a hard thing, too.  So my daughter turns seven and I found out that I’m the one still growing up.  Life is funny like that.  Happy Birthday, Eliza!

Going Away Now for Awhile…

So here we go: day #1 of my first-ever sabbatical.  I’ve got to confess that this sensation of a month without routine is all highly unusual to me.  I’m pretty addicted to a “get it done” pace of life.  Case-in-point: it was really, really strange to be at our student ministry summer camp last week as a supporter (btw, what a great week team!) and not the guy in charge – it was a feeling I couldn’t shake the entire 28 hours we were there.  But after enough Mountain-Dew-fueled crazy summers (camps, mission journeys, vacation bible schools, family trips, late night adventures in a church van trying to find the nearest open ‘til 2 AM Wendy’s…) to last a lifetime, I also have to admit that with each mile we drove further from Nashville last night, I settled into a sense of peaceful anticipation.  I am relishing the thought of some time to recharge, renew, and yes, even rest.  I’m looking forward to a new adventure on the other side of the pond and giving some much-needed undivided attention to my wife and girls.  I have some books to read, some thoughts to get out of my head and onto paper (and maybe even this blog), and a deep need to spend some time “unplugged” as well in solitude and reflection.   As a wise friend once told me, “The casualty of being too busy is that you stop caring.”  So I am ready to care again.  I want my world to become brighter and more interesting.  I want to recapture the inner strength to love people with a reckless pursuit that is worthy of the relentless hound of heaven himself.  In essence, my prayer is that I would awaken once again to all that is “good.” I was recently reading that at the end of the last concert on U2’s globe-trotting Joshua Tree tour Bono turned the crowd and said, “You know it’s been ten great years, but now it’s time for us to go away for awhile and dream it up all over again.” In a couple of months, it will be ten years since I accepted my first full-time call as a minister.  So after a decade of adventures in disruptive grace and taking a spiritual journey alongside countless others, this begins a season when it’s time to dream again – not my own dreams, mind you, which I always find pitifully too small; but that I will be re-captured by The Great Dream – “immeasurably more than all you could ask or imagine.” (…and I think all you fellow U2 fans should consider joining me for therapy at www.bonofatigue.com, the site for all of us who are “suffering from an over-consumption of U2 tunes, endless Bono interviews and African-related relief ideas.”)