The Anchor Holds

The following is the letter Heather and I included in the order of service for Jacob's funeral. This may seem like an odd time of year to bring this out, but our hope is found in that babe in the manger, and through the Lord Jesus we survived our tragic loss. Perhaps someone might be encouraged by these hard won words.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

The Lord Jesus, prophesying Peter’s death, said to him in John 21:18b that “…another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.” Jesus’s words strike home with us because we have come down a road we would not have chosen, to a place we do not wish to be. But having arrived at this place and looking back, we can see with certainty the work of Jesus in our lives. It was He who girded us with His grace and gave us strength, and increased our faith. And it was He who carried us in his hand through places our own strength could never have managed. And it was He who placed us so carefully in the midst of such a host of loving friends who have brought the Body of Christ so wonderfully to life on our behalf.  And finally, it is He in whom or hope resides.

While our grief knows no bounds, neither does our hope in Jesus, and we know that as we speak, Christ is giving Jacob a hero’s welcome in Heaven. His ears are no doubt still ringing with “Well done my good and faithful servant.” Jacob ran the race and finished his course. He fought the good fight and kept his faith. In our eyes he is a hero. In our eyes he is the most noble, most courageous, most faithful man, young or old, we have ever known. God honored and blessed us by choosing us to be the parents of Jacob Alan Durham.

God gave Jacob a measure of wisdom and faith beyond his years, and during some of his most difficult and trying days, he would often say to us “God is in control, and He never gives us more than we can handle.” We shall hide these words in our hearts as we face the coming days made dimmer by his absence. Yet, we take comfort in knowing we shall see Jacob again, and that his life was well spent in the service of the Lord Jesus.

We know that many lives have been touched by Jacob’s faith and courage, and it is our hope that in the coming days some of you will share with us by letter or card some of your remembrances of Jacob. Perhaps then we can comprehend just a portion of what God meant when he said in Isaiah 11:6 “… and a little child shall lead them.”

We close with the words of Paul to the Philippians when he says to them that “Nevertheless, you have done well that you shared in (our) distresses.” God bless you all as you have ministered to us in our greatest need.

The Anchor Holds,

Alan, Heather, and Allie Grace Durham 

I Wish Feminist Were This Liberated

This is another article for the digital High Point Magazine at ECS. Yet another example from my Treasure Chest.

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In order to put 2003 graduate Drace Tashie’s ECS story in context, a slightly modified version of Sister Sledge’s 1979 hit song “We are Family” would be helpful. Drace’s version would have to go something like “We are family…. I got my little sister with me… and all my brothers, … and my Mom and my Dad, oh! and 23 first cousins, two sister’s-in-law, three second cousins, and….. 10 aunts and uncles.” Add all those folks up and you get 45 of Drace’s family members who have attended ECS since the 1970’s. That would be 45 compelling reasons to continue to invest in the school.

Consider that, and Drace’s continued commitment to Evangelical Christian School begins to make a lot of sense. It explains why her current involvement is a heart issue. “Some of the greatest memories of my life were of my time at ECS. My mom says that I would do high school all over again. And she’s right. I just loved the experience.”

Her time at ECS and the teachings and encouragement of her parents have this Samford University graduate not only back in Memphis working as a pharmacist for Kroger, but giving back to the students of ECS. “As I have gotten older I have really begun to appreciate the work of ECS even more, and I would encourage graduates who enjoyed their time at ECS to give back to the school. Right now I am not married, and I have the time to pour into others. It is those relationships that last into eternity,” Drace explains.

That eternal aspect of relationships has Drace pouring herself into the lives of students spiritually, physically, and financially.

 Three years ago she started meeting every other Sunday for a Bible study with a group of about 15 eighth grade girls, some cousins included. “Going into their sophomore year this fall there are about eight girls who are really regular.” She makes it clear that her involvement in the lives of these girls is in large part due to what she gleaned from her teachers and coaches at ECS. “My teachers and coaches were a big part of my spiritual growth, and I want to give back the life lessons I learned through the classroom and athletics. I also find that I am learning while I am teaching these girls.”

Naturally, as a former three sport athlete in basketball, soccer and softball at ECS, one would suspect Drace of finding a way to pour herself into a sports team at the school as well. So, this past year she got involved with the varsity girls’ basketball team and continues to work with the girls this summer. “I can’t make every practice, and I miss some games because of work, but I really enjoy being there with the girls.” Not only does she help on the court but she gives back by doing everything from making game week treats to monograming team towels.

 “Drace is such an encouragement for us to work hard and push ourselves because we know she did those same things right here too,” explains Kate Jamison of her, yes, …. cousin Drace.  “It is so good for these high school girls to see a young career woman like Drace who loves the Lord and loves them and is willing to mentor them,” adds Karen Jamison, an alumna and ECS basketball mom, and oh yea,  one of her aunts. “She has been a big sister to the girls who don’t have sisters, and that has been so encouraging for them to have a picture of a young woman who can be a great athlete and yet be girly,” continues Karen.

If this were the extent of Drace’s investment in the students of ECS, it would be impressive enough. However, according to ECS Advancement Director Rex Jones, “Drace is the model graduate because she gives not only her time and her talent but her treasure as well. She is one of our most faithful alums when it comes to giving financially.”

This probably comes as no surprise to her mom who Drace says always encouraged her “… to tithe and to give where the Lord leads.” This too is a heart issue for Drace. “I know how important the tuition assistance program has been to some of my cousins who would not have been able to experience ECS without some help. I give because I don’t want money to be an issue for special kids.”

A conversation with Drace is a wonderful encouragement. Her parents, her grandparents, and her days at ECS have equipped her with a way of seeing the world that is decidedly Christ centered and relationship oriented. Her days as a pharmacist had their origins in the advice of her grandfather and the magic of her chemistry teacher Paul Vanderswaag who, according to Drace, gave her confidence by demonstrating that “science was not scary.” Her work is informed by the wisdom gleaned from Mr. Mark Brink’s senior Bible class that equipped her to answer her patient’s “serious life questions and to talk about deeper things.”

Drace Tashie is a model giver.

We can only imagine what she might have done just one more cousin in the mix? 

One Day a Seventh Grader Could Change the World

One of the greatest blessings of teaching for 18 years at a place like Evangelical Christian School is when you encounter one of your former students years later and realize they are doing great and important kingdom work. The following is an article I wrote for the ECS online magazine High Point:
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Sitting across the table from Ryan Dalton proved to be weird ----amazingly, incredibly, awesomely weird. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that this was the same curly haired, quirky kid that sat in my 7^th grade English Grammar class almost a dozen years ago. The same kid I had dubbed ‘Wretched” because he was mystified by that word on a vocabulary quiz and who joyfully answered to that name even after his graduation from ECS in 2005 just told me that God had punched him in the face at Barnes and Noble one day a few years earlier with the book Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery and that he was now actively fighting human trafficking. Then in the very next breath he starts talking about “trekking Bibles” in NEPAL and meeting a human trafficker!!

Honestly, at this point I was too stupefied to care about directly quoting him. I just wanted to hear his story. So, the conversation went very much like this:

“Wayyyy wayyy wayyy WAIT a minute! You do what? You were where? Doing what? With whom? Wait, wait, wait you gotta start this over” I stammered trying to fathom what he had just said.

 “OK, well I am walking through Barnes and Noble one day and just happen to glance at the title of this book called: Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery. I picked it up and started reading, and it rocked my world. I could not believe that a relic from history like human slavery was very much alive not just in the third world but in the US.”   

According to Dalton, the next several months found him digging into every available resource out there on the topic of human trafficking and modern slavery which led to him making the topic the focus of his undergraduate thesis. God had lit a fire under Ryan Dalton with a book and then he fanned it into flame in a city square in Nepal where he encountered the real thing.

“Seven guys and I from First Evan were trekking Bibles in Nepal when this guy comes up to me in a town square and asks me if I wanted some drugs,” begins Dalton with this part of the story.

“Wait, wait, wait, trekking Bibles?” I ask.

“Yeah, you stuff a couple of Bibles into your pack and then hike them into different parts of the country,” he says.

“Well is that legal in Nepal?” I ask.

“Yeah but the Maoist have a lot of influence there and can make things tough on you,” he casually replies.

In my head I am still wrestling with the concept that a kid I taught English Grammar 12 years ago in 7^th grade is traveling to NEPAL!!, and smuggling Bibles to people in remote areas and is now about to tell me of his encounter with a sex trafficker.

“So, this runner asks if I want drugs, and I tell him no. And then he asks me about girls. He wants to know if I would like some girls. At this point, I told our college minister that I really felt like God was showing me the reality of this and I wanted to go wherever this was going to lead. He said go, so me and a translator follow this guy down all these allies and back streets until we arrive at this massage parlor.”

He goes on to tell of young girls between the ages of 12 -22 being paraded out for him and the translator to select. They choose two and leave with them and duck into a café on a side street. They buy them a meal and listen to their story, give them some money for their own and give them contact information for people who might be able to help them escape the sex slavery they are trapped in. They ultimately had to leave the girls because the pimp discovered them in the restaurant.

“After that incident the world just looked like a different place. Nothing was the same when I got home. I had been at a crossroads when I left for Nepal. After getting my degree in Philosophy and International Relations, I was trying to decide between law school and the military. When I came back, all I could think about was how I could work to end the slave trade. Now I am in my second year of law school at the University of Memphis and am really involved in Operation Broken Silence.”

I asked Ryan if this war on human trafficking was his calling. He assured me that it was but that he had only recently become comfortable with the idea.

“Sometime I get so tired of the darkness and misery I see in this battle. Sometimes I just want to enjoy beauty and truth, but then I remember what one of the staff at Lebree told me: Select a career based on your response to the brokenness in the world. I do this because Jesus set me free, and he has stirred in my heart the desire to set others free”

Frankly the whole conversation left me dumbfounded. Here was a young man I had known as a bumbling  adolescent in middle school and yet here he was now, sitting across from me with grim faced determination,  arguably impacting the world in the name of Christ from one end of the globe to the other. I sat in my seat watching him finish off his hot chocolate thinking God is so cool and selfishly thinking that 7^th grade grammar must have played some small part in this story.

Of course, it is just like God to take sparks from a fire he started in Nepal and scatter them all the way to a summer camp in Arkansas/Missouri? (fact check). Last summer that’s where Robinson Littrell, a senior this year at ECS, first heard about human trafficking and where God first stirred his heart to take action.

“I was completely ignorant of the concept of human trafficking, and when I heard a guy speak on the subject at Kanakuk last summer, God just grabbed my heart and left me crying on the floor. I came home from camp determined to get involved somehow,” recounts Littrell. 

No surprise that Robinson’s research into human trafficking lead him right to Ryan Dalton and Operation Broken Silence. In just a few short months, Robinson has become a MOVE Ambassador for OBS and has initiated his own organization called Mission: Abolition under the umbrella of Operation Broken Silence and has a growing number of ECS students meeting and brainstorming and planning ways to combat modern slavery. His efforts have impacted groups at several area schools and show promise of impacting even more. 

The work of Ryan and Robinson has global implications and rings true to the words of Luke 4:18 “He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoner ... to release the oppressed…” and leaves me in stunned awe of God’s genius.

Ryan Dalton is the Director of Anti-trafficking Operations for Operation Broken Silence and can be reached at ryan@operationbrokensilence.org  

My Declaration of Intoleration of Monotonality: A Rant

Monotonality should be illegal in a public speaker, and apparently Microsoft Word declares that monotonality is illegal ----thus the nasty, little squiggle under the word every time I type it. Dictionary.com declares it to be nonexistent and that the word I am looking for is, of course, the word monotonous . However, I just don’t think that monotonous has enough density to convey the egregiously awful weight that bears down on a listener when trapped under the slow, repetitious pounding of a monotone speaker. Monotonality seems to capture that weight.

As a teacher I know that to speak in an uninflected, monotone, trudging dialect guarantees in very short order, glazed looks, drool trails on chins, and bobbing heads slowly sinking to desk tops. And yet, many are the folk who stand in front of crowds to deliver a speech or sermon and drive their audience into a stupor with their Monotonality.

Who on this earth does not know that such uninflected droning sucks the life out of our auditory senses and crushes any chance of the delivery of their message? If they were dragged into an out of body state to listen to themselves, they would refuse to re-enter such a boring body again.

I was recently afflicted by a barrage of Monotonality and was only saved from a drooling fit by working myself into a mental lather over the travesty of what was occurring. The speaker sincerely wished to convey a message of truth and importance. However, his soft spoken, uninflected, un-undulated delivery assured that his words would glance off the granite of his audiences’ brains and fall impotently to the ground. He was doomed to failure from the beginning.

 How could anyone have so little regard for the human mind? We are by nature lovers of story and any good story attached to a seismograph would register considerable shockwaves. We need ups and downs. Who has not almost fallen asleep while driving down a long, flat, visually monotonous highway? Who will not fall asleep when subjected to a speaker armed with an over-abundance of Monotonality?

No one tolerates Monotonality by giving it their attention, and therefore, all the speaker’s efforts are wasted. In a classroom learning is lost; in a church the truth is squandered; in a business the business disappears.

I have had it with hucksters who would pawn themselves off as communicators just because they have a mike in their hand. I shall walk out of any assembly where the speaker’s speaking could be confused with a Gregorian Chant.

 A few exceptions to this declaration do apply: If the speaker be my boss, I shall be content to sit and drool; if the speaker be the preacher, I shall sit quietly and read the book Numbers. If the speaker be my wife, I shall nod in the affirmative. In all other instances I will leave immediately. 

Goats is Good Teachers

Many are the sermons, lectures, letters and talks on perspective. You know the ones that talk a lot about the glass being half empty or is it half full? or is there a glass at all?  kind of talks. Volumes have been written on the subject of how to view the circumstances this life deals us. And, I am sure that there is a great deal of wisdom to be found in many of these enlargements on how to view life. However, the best illustration I have ever seen on perspective was delivered by a small herd of goats.

I am not ashamed to say that once upon a time I owned several goats. They are tremendous teachers for a person who pays attention to them and because I paid attention, I am fully aware of why Christ refers to lost people as goats. Of course, the fact that he calls Believers sheep is no great compliment. I owned a sheep once too, but more on that another time.

These goats of mine could often be found munching their way along a fence row in our pasture and stretching and straining their necks through the wire to the just-out-of-reach, succulently superior grass on the other side of the fence. No doubt it was greener as well. And usually, this munching and stretching and straining would continue down the fence row until the goats reached a hole in the wire large enough for them to squeeze through to the promised land on the other side.

However, these short sighted pets of mine would then proceed to work their way back up that same fence row and begin munching and stretching and straining their necks through the wire to the very blades of grass they had not considered worthy of their culinary peculiarities only moments earlier.My how things had changed simply by squeezing through the fence and gaining a new perspective. Their old pasture now lay before them in a new and inviting light.

 Those goats were just like me. How often have I looked at my situation, my lot in life and thought “this just doesn’t suit me. I was made for better stuff than this. It issss juuusst over there.” And then every once in a while, the Lord provides a vicarious opportunity to slip through the wire and overhear others comment on what I do and what I do have. I am always amazed to hear the envy in their voices. I am always amazed that anyone could look at my life and want what I have. He gives me a good look, and I am content to slip back through the wire to my own pasture.

I have a pretty good pasture. I just forget sometimes. Until I slip through the fence for a spell. 

When in doubt, it's what He said.

One of the things a Christian must come to grips with in the face of terrible crisis is the truth of what God has said about Himself and our situation in a fallen world as fallen people. No one will ever write the book that will prepare a parent for the heartache involved in helping a desperately ill child fight cancer. The only thing that holds any hope in that situation are the words of the One who can rescue us from our greatest crisis, our own sin. And having said that, I am reminded of the times when Jacob would ask me questions for which I had no answer in and of myself and frankly, they were questions in which I had no confidence in what God  had said. Yet, despite my doubts, I told him what God had to say about such things. In the end there are no better answers than those offered to us by Scripture for life's most terrible questions. The following is from the rediscovered folder and is another attempt on my part to put into words the sense I was trying to make out of Jacob's struggle.
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An instrument of God will be bent and broken, twisted and torn, and as one looks on from the outside, it would seem that God is an inept craftsman to damage His tools so. But the outsider is exactly that because they only view the process and cannot see the painstaking art that results from the battering of God. They do not see that through pain and anguish great rewards are being reaped.

If God turns all things to the good for those who love Him, then private, personal suffering must reap great  benefits for the sufferer and very likely for the few intimate witnesses to the kind of suffering experienced by a dying loved one. How else could the private suffering of a saint in a far away prison cell work together for good? It is for the good of the individual suffering and to cut short that time of suffering in the name of being merciful or for any other reason may very well be to rob the sufferer of great heavenly reward. I don't know, but this proposition seems reasonable to me, at least with the depth of thought I have been forced too bring too the matter.

Golden Pollen Covered Bees

I remember the day I wrote the first line of this poem. After Jacob died, we had moved away from our little house out in the country in what is called the Kirk Community at the edge of Fayette County. However, my father-in-law still owned the place, and I had gone out there for some reason. I took a walk in the little 4 acre pasture and stretched out in the grass to look at the sky and just think about all that had gone on in our time there. The clover had grown pretty high and was in pretty big clumps about the pasture and every clump was alive with bumble bees and every bee was covered in golden pollen dust. I remember watching those golden, powdered bumble bees, and I remember the overwhelming sense of loss that swept over me. But as so often happened during those days, the Lord was gracious to send  rich images of the times I had enjoyed there with my children and especially Jacob.

I am not completely satisfied with this as an artistic work, but there has always been something appealing to me about that image of "golden, pollen covered bees". I hope you enjoy.

Golden, Pollen Covered Bees

Golden pollen, covered bees

Bend sweet blossoms to the leaves

Of the clover in the field,

Rousing there the memories

Of when my son rolled through those leaves

Of sweet clover in that field.

Our garden spot’s grown tall with weeds,

Their ripened heads bent low by seeds

Bowing in the summer’s sun

And waking there the memories

Of when my Jacob planted seeds

That strained up to that summer sun.

The golden, latent memories

Like pollen gathered by the bees

From sweet clover in the field

Are the thoughts that cling to me

Like the golden, pollen on the bees

Bending blossoms in the field. 

The New Renaissance Man

The blog sub-title requires that a certain amount of levity be woven into the fabric of the site. Here is a silly little piece I did trying to capture my idea of a Renaissance man.

The New Renaissance Man

Against the wild blue yonder stands the newest Renaissance Man.
He's known not for the things he can't do, but for the things he can
He can read from old Bill Shakespeare a sonnet of some fame,
Or take a fancy pen in hand and scrawl one without shame,
'Cause he ain't just an artsy guy with no real skills to share.
He can shoot a buck or gut a squirrel or cut his own darned hair.
And if you ask for some help with your dead buck or doe,
He'll plop his Geoffery Chaucer down and a guttin' he will go.
He is a new made man---a "Renaissance" if you please,
Who reads and writes and guts and fights and cries at flicks he sees.
So make way for this new breed of masculinity,
Who's not afraid of blank verse or a coon up in a tree.

Suffering in the Night

Perhaps the most difficult thing for me to come to grips with during Jacob's battle with cancer was the seeming uselessness of suffering all alone in the middle of the night for no apparent gain. At the time I thought the only redemptive thing about Jacob's pain and suffering must be that others will be made stronger by witnessing it. I remember the anguish of a particularly difficult night near the end of his life being the seeds for this poem. It is the best expression and sense I could make of what I am certain was happening between Jacob and his Lord during those last long nights. The drama was no longer public. It was an intimate conversation with Jesus.

Suffering in the Night

What value to the Kingdom

Are agonies in the night

Where few folk get to see them,

Being shrouded from their sight?

What gain is there in heaven

When a small one cries in pain?

Is pain part of the leaven

Working through the child for gain?

How can we find a reason

In what others cannot see?

What fruits from such a season,

If there’s no one there but me?

‘Tis fruit not meant for my plate,

Pain not meant for my gain,

For the Lord works in his soul late

When my small one’s wracked with pain.

That last small bit of dross still

His Lord would burn away,

And loose him from his flesh and will,

That he’d not long so to stay.

‘Tis value to the Kingdom,

When a small one gains his prize

Though fought for in a struggle

Hid well from mortal eyes. 

Under God's Hammer

Just tonight Heather dug out an old file folder that contained a treasure trove of my work, much of it from the years we battled cancer with our son Jacob. Being a teacher and coach at Evangelical Christian School made our agony an all too public thing at times, and this poem captures some of that sentiment. I think it probably reflects what many people feel when they too find themselves powerless in their situations. The last line was inspired by Peter's response to Jesus when many of his disciples abandoned Him. My response was ultimately the same... though hard to come by, " Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." (John 6:68).

Under God’s Hammer

You have hammered me O Lord,

You have taken my life and pounded it thin---

Thin to the point of translucence

So thin that all may see my life laid raw and bare,

Exposed to the unnumbered host gathered ‘bout

To watch the hammer fall and smash and beat

From my very bones any sway I would have over me and mine.

You beat till my grip grew weak and I cast all on you.

Your hammer beat smooth the wrinkles and undulations I had wrought,

The craft of my hands, the plan for my life.

Your white hot fire consumed the dross of my self-reliance,

Consumed my strength, and brought froth Thine when mine at last was spent.

Your anvil is indeed terrible O Lord.

No man longs for its face.

Yet, ‘tis there that your smith-craft is plied.

‘tis there you batter to mend.

But, Lord, for a spell give thy hammer rest.

Stay the hand that sends the test,

And bless again the one thought cursed.

Cool thy fire for yet a while,

And take me from thy anvil’s face.

Yet, you are Lord--- though hammer in hand---

To whom shall I turn?

A World Traveler's Stream of Consciousness

Last summer found me for a week in Seattle attending a conference for school. I was blessed to spend the entire week at a dear friend's home instead of a hotel. He and his wife had shown me the sights in the evenings and kindly dropped me at the airport for a noon flight back to Memphis at week's end. We had spent a pleasant morning at the Pike Place Market, but I was really worried about making it through security. Few things on earth strike me with as much fear as the possibility of missing a flight. That presented itself as a distinct possibility the moment my friends drove away from the curb, and I walked through the airport doors. You will readily observe that my travel experience shows its metal here.

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We had just parted company on the curb in front of the airport and you were hardly back in traffic when I walked into the terminal. Which is a rather interesting term considering my reaction upon witnessing the line to check luggage and knowing that time was short to get to my gate (or rather, short for me and my insistence on always being EARLY. You had been right to suppose that my blood pressure would soar given the remotest time constraints for checking my bags and passing through security and finding my gate.)

However, the remotest constraints very quickly became imminent constraints as I passed SLOWLY through the luggage check in line only to be informed by the agent that I had not checked in my luggage. This seemed pretty danged obvious to me since I was still dragging it behind me. Of course my first reaction was an overwhelming temptation to shout,  “The devil you say. That must be why I'm hoisting this big ole bag up on your scale here, buddy.  So you can CHECK it in!

Oh my gosh I’m gonna miss my flight, I’m gonna miss my flight. Come on jackass check the bag, check the bag. I am starting to sweat. Holy crap, I can’t miss this flight”.

He explained that unfortunately I had apparently missed a step when I checked in on line and then directed me to the “kiosk” within ear shot of his station to check in the infernal bag. Being as American as Mississippi, I predictably struggle with all things foreign, especially Russian, so it was no surprise that I was quickly brought to a babbling mass of sweating futility in front of the winking Soviet son of a kiosk.

 “Oh my gosh, I am reallllly realllly gonna miss this flight now. Clickety clack clickety clack. What do you MEAN wrong number? Clickety clack clickety clack. Dang it Dang it Dang it. Clickety clack clickety clack. Son of a Russian piece of no good foreign crap!!!!!” “Hey Buddy!!! Little help here!!!” “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, wipe your forehead you look like you are drowning.”

“Sir, do you have a credit card? Try sliding that right here. You can come to the front of the line when you get this done, Sir.”

“Wow, ha, ha … look at that. Works like a charm. I’ll be right over. Thanks!”

“Whew, back on track. Gotta get through security now. OK, speed is of the essence. Strip all metal from your person and put in your pack. Awesome, gotta chance, gotta chance. Now get your boarding pass and your ID and you are golden. ID, ID, ID (frantic shuffling of papers and ripping apart of all pack pockets and exposure of their contents) ID, ID, ID, ID. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh…..holy crap holy crap holy crap! Where is it! Where is it! Where is it! Left it on the counter at the non-baggage check in? Yea, Yea that’s it! Wipe the sweat idiot”

In a strained almost frantic voice a few octaves higher than is manly, “UHHH pardon me but is my driver’s license still at your station?”

“No man, but you are welcome to look all over my station”

The ID was nowhere to be found at the baggage non-check in station or the electronic Russian frustration station, so I started shaking violently every item in my possession over a seat in the waiting area. All the time I could hear this tremendous DONG, DONG, DONGING in my head. Then after one particularly violent shake out popped the missing ID. I snatched it out of the puddle of sweat that had accumulated in the seat depression, crammed everything back into the pack and sped to the security line groping myself all over for any metal that might slow me down at this point. 

Every second the DONGING was getting louder and making it hard to hear instructions. I chose the line that looked the most promising by the speed and "intelligent" look of the TSA officer manning it, and just like every Wal-mart express lane I have ever been in, it instantly ground to a halt while the person in front of me rifled through her purse looking for HER ID. “AHHHHHHHH idiot. How could you not have your ID handy!!!!!! Come on Come on DONG, DONG, DONG, DONG Curse you rookie traveler!! Come on.”

Things began to slow down all around me. People looked as if they were walking in jello, sounds were slurred, no one spoke distinctly and there was the horrific DONG, DONG, DONGING.

“S i r, W e e e e w e e e e e l h a a a v  t u  a s s s s k  u u u u   t u u u  e m p t e e e e  y o o o r  b o t t t le”

“What bottle?” “Holy crap!!! My Nalgene has water in it NOOOOOOOOOOO!” Where can I get rid of the water?

“O o o o v e r   t h e r e.”

“Oh, thank goodness. Just ten feet away!!! And then back in line with my stuff!”

“ S  i   r,  w e e e e e    w e e e e e l  h a a a v  t u  r u n  y o o o r   b a a a a g  t h r u u u u   a g a a a  i n.”

“ N OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, dang it. Your doomed, your doomed, your doomed.”

The instant the bag cleared the x-ray, I feverishly began grabbing my stuff and shoving things in pockets and strapping on my belt and tying on shoes and then lurched into a frantic, blind with fear, wildebeest stampede down the terminal in search of my gate. Now if you have ever participated in a blind with fear wildebeest stampede, you will instantly recall that it creates tunnel vision, and you cannot see anything except that which is right in front of you. This was unfortunate, since the sign that would have directed me to the tram to my gate was high and to the right. I thundered past it for a good 50 yards or so to run into the terminus of that particular terminal, at which time I was forced to look about me.

 Upon finding not a hint of direction as to the whereabouts of my gate, yet being able to see it across the tarmac through the windows, I had a lucid moment in which I ASKED for directions. The fellow proved to be trustworthy, and I was soon on the tram to the gate. Of course by this time, there was an obvious lather coming from under the straps of my back pack and the panting caused people to stand at a distance from me, which proved to be advantageous since it cleared the path to the tram’s sliding doors and allowed for the last leg of the blind with fear wildebeest stampede to be unimpeded all the way to my gate and most of the way down the boarding ramp.

 I skidded to a halt just before the plane door to be greeted cheerily by the crew who wished to relieve me of my fresh salmon from the Pike Place Market  and who had obviously seen many a lathered, panting traveler before, because they hardly took notice of my wet clothes and wild eyes. 

I declined their offer and moved down the aisle to my seat only to be greeted by a portly fellow from Arkansas who promptly requested a seat belt extender. My right thigh will never be the same. Four hours with my leg pressed to a chubby old man’s left me with my first case of heat rash since infancy. Being a world traveler is tough.

Hating on Elevators

Over the course of my son Jacob's battle with cancer, we spent countless hours in hospitals and precious moments waiting on elevators. Here are two poems that more than convey my sentiments for elevators at the time.

Nevermore

While I ponder weak and weary by the elevator door

Praying, hoping, ‘twould soon land on my linoleum floor.

T’was cross the hall a craven clerk from long lost days of yore,

Dashed my hopes with his foul quote of “Never…..Nevermore.”

“Hateful fiend, you craven man. Mock me now no more

Take thy wretched, ancient face from my linoleum floor!”

I shouted down the shaft as dark as night’s plutonian shore

But echoed back the Craven’s words, “Never….Nevermore.”

Long years have passed since first I pondered near that wretched door,

But now my place is ‘side the clerk from long lost days of yore.

And to the passing stranger on our white linoleum floor

Who punches that dreaded button, we both quoth

“Nevermore”

Elevators

By the elevator endlessly waiting

countless minutes lost debating

should the stairs I now descend

or wait here ‘til the bitter end?

Lost in thought , I stand here thinking

While my ride comes slowly sinking

Down its glacier’s path to me,

Waiting, hoping it to see.

Thousand years are now well passed

Finally it is here at last.

Yes, alas I’ve gained my prize

But dear Lord, ……doth it now rise!?

A Testimony in Miniature

The following is an excerpt from a letter to a colleague leaving for another  job opportunity. It is my testimony in miniature form and an expression of the truth that these earthly partings and separations are only temporary for believers.

Since I was a little boy reading King Arthur and his Knights, Robinhood, and the Leatherstocking Tales, I have heard the clash of arms in my head and yearned for an errand worthy of the king. At the time the king was merely a fog enshrouded male calling me upward. The first embodiments of this king were the men in my early life, all accomplished drinkers, hunters and marksmen. Then came my high school football coach who through football gave me a noble war, a love of team, and a sense of sacrifice. Through sports I could practice The Errand.

My junior year I met THE King, and the true nature of this life’s errand began to take shape. The echoes were becoming discernible calls to action.  Then a little later came marriage and children and then cancer. The Errand had arrived. The cost of service became clear--- to the death. Not mine but my son’s. I always thought it would be mine. The sheer weight of that errand would crush me to dust, but the courage of my son and the grace of God would reconstitute me time and again. It was Jacob’s errand. He was the knight. I was the paige. The glory would be his, and he taught me to give even that to THE King.  Jacob was on a mission, I have been ever since.

Jacob’s last words to Heather and me were “Be Strong”. He held up his hand, made a fist, closed his eyes and greeted THE King.  I pass that picture on to you as an encouragement for the next stage of your Errand. 

I do regret that we have spent so little time together these last two years. I suspect I have missed out on a blessing, but I cannot help but be encouraged that there are still men in the world like you. A lover of letters and a lover of our Lord. We serve the King, you and I, and so we are not bound like other men by space and time. Though we part for a while; we shall meet again under the banner of the King.

Response to a seventh grader's "You can't write a poem in 15 minutes" Challenge

Had a cheeky middle schooler declare one day  that no one could write a poem in 15 minutes. Here was my answer in less than 15 minutes, and he didn't have much to say after that.

The Vine

Stretching, twisting from earth to sky

Young tender vines turn green then die

As part of God’s eternal plan of life and death and life again.

The vine’s brief life of toil and strife

Are pictures of man’s troubled life

Of work and toil and often fear

Made real by our attachments here.

The earth on which our feet now stand

Hints only of a better land

Where toil and strife and death must die,

Our hallowed land beyond the sky.

Free Advice to a High School Graduate

It is not uncommon for a graduate from ECS to ask his or her teachers for advice and words of wisdom before they ride off into the sunset and into the collegiate wars for the mind. This is what I had to offer one of last year's grads. 

What would I tell __________ that would serve him/her well through all the years of his/her life?

 I would tell him/her that Jesus makes all things new. He makes new lives from the rubble of broken ones. He takes the marred and the flawed and makes new things. He can over throw the sovereignty of DNA. He can make Apples hit the ground and roll far from the tree. He breaks all the shackles of the past, be they yesterday’s or yesteryear’s.

 If you are His, He has made you a new creation that is no longer bound by the trappings of a broken family, or ill made friendships, or poor decisions of the past. You are new. You are fully equipped by His grace to strike out in a new direction. You do not have to be what you were or what you came from. Every day is new.

Start fresh. Every day. The Lord of Hosts is on your side. You are forgiven. You are His. Nothing can pluck you from His hand.  Ever.

Remember these things, and they will serve you well to the end of your days be they long or be they short.

You are loved,

Coach Durham

Papaw's Barn

Shortly after Heather's grandfather Mr. Guy Lovelace passed away, the 100 year old barn on his farm burned to the ground one night. As you could imagine coming so close on the heels of his death it was a depressing blow for the family. Heather asked me to try to write something for the family and my dear friend and colleague at ECS, Vicki Hodge, sketched a picture from a photo for the background. We gave copies of the poem and sketch to all the families. My desire was to convey the idea that though the physical barn was gone, we all could still enjoy the memories we all had of that wonderful old building. This is the text of the poem.

Papaw’s Barn

By Alan Durham – December 1999

It was but wood and hay and stubble that burned and stands no more,

And now a heap of charred oak beams and ash and melted tin

Lies in the place where Papaw’s old, weathered barn had been.

Remember Papaw’s precious cows and wagon in the hall,

Or that corncrib filled with ancient junk and the woodpile ten feet tall?

Remember climbing in the loft and playing in the hay.

Or lying in the straw up there on a clear, crisp, autumn day?

I can still see dust flecks dancing in the sunlight through the cracks

As me and my two children lay stretched out on our backs

Resting from the games we’d played on the loft’s old, oaken floor,

And in my mind I see their legs dangling from that high loft door

Where an autumn breeze slips through the trees to brush their sweaty cheeks

Flushed red with play in forts of hay and straw built mountain peaks.

Though the flames of fire have consumed the work of hundred year ‘go hands

And brought to naught this wooden barn that was the work of man’s,

It was just wood and hay and stubble and really nothing more.

Oh, we think we’ve suffered loss because the barn went up in flame.

And we feel that special spot of ours will never be the same.

But the memories in our heart still stand and flame can’t touch them there,

Those times we walked the earthly floor or plucked hay from rumpled hair.

And remember the spot where Papaw fell on that frosty autumn morn,

Doing the things he loved to do since before we kids were born?

That dark, rich earth of his old barn cushioned his fall that day.

And I can’t imagine, if he could choose, he’d have had it another way.

Yes, I can see these scenes played out and many hundreds more,

For they’re not wood and hay and stubble that burns and lives no more.

The Jacob Durham Award

Evangelical Christian School's football banquets are unlike the vast majority of awards banquets anywhere in the South and perhaps the nation. The only individual awards presented to our players are the Captains's Awards voted on by the players and the Jacob Durham Award for Courage, Character and Commitment voted on by the coaches. The following is my presentation speech from this year's banquet:

The Jacob Durham Award is presented every year in honor of my son Jacob Alan Durham who passed away October 24, 1998 at age 9 after a 3 and a half year battle with cancer. During the long years of his fight with cancer Jacob’s courage and faith inspired the ECS community and especially the ECS football team.

His example led the ECS Athletic Booster Club to establish a perpetual award in honor of his life. Other than the Captain’s Awards, it has been the only award given at an ECS Football Banquet since 1999. Obviously this award is special to me and my family. But I think it is a testimony to the young men of the 1999 State Championship team who declined all individual honors save this one, which seeks to honor character and faith above all else.

So each year The Jacob Durham Award goes to the Senior Football Player who best exemplifies the spirit of the passage found in Joshua chapter 1 verse 9.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Perhaps this verse more than any other captures the character and spirit of Jacob. His short life was an example of courage and faith, a courage founded in his confidence in Jesus Christ and a faith tempered by the fires of trial. Jacob was a tenacious young man who loved life and could often be found wearing a t-shirt with a frog strangling a stork with the caption “Never Give Up” blazoned across the front.

It was that Never Give Up attitude that gave Jacob his infectious spirit of encouragement. He rallied the spirits of those around him even in the most difficult of circumstances and habitually pointed them to Jesus. 

That is exactly what this year’s recipient does.

In the interest of complete honesty, I can say that I called this one two years ago. Even as a sophomore tonight’s recipient was demonstrating the character qualities that this award seeks to honor. Despite some all-too-obvious physical disadvantages, this young man NEVER seemed to concede to the idea that he could not be a major contributor to our team. He demonstrated a never quit attitude in practice, and perhaps most importantly, he never quit working his guts out in the weight room.

By the time he was a junior, it had become quite apparent to us coaches ---though it was a reluctant admission--- that he was indeed one of our better players. He just did not fit the persona and physical stereotype of an impact player. But he was becoming one.

 I knew he had most assuredly become an impact player last year, when in one of Coach Hutto’s ecstatic exclamations he shouted through the headsets, “That boy can marry my daughter if he wants to!!!!” Those of us who have daughters can understand the fullness of that exclamation.

As a senior he has led in the best way possible. He has led by example: in the weight room, on the practice field, and in games. He is recognized by his peers as a young man of unquestionable faith, courage, and integrity. He truly seeks to honor Christ in all aspects of his life.

He may not always be able to accomplish all his heart desires, but his heart always desires to accomplish everything that he is able. He has done the most with what he had, and in this manner I believe he has demonstrated the best qualities of a Christian athlete to our coaching staff and our team and our school.

The 2011 recipient of the Jacob Durham Award is Austin McCann.

Heavenly Balm

A few years back my youngest noticed that he was the only family member without a poem in his honor on the walls of our  home. He demanded that this be remedied. This was my response.

My Heavenly Balm

Before stars shimmered in the sky

or He spread sand on the shore

My God could hear my anguished cry

“Please send me a son once more!”

And in His perfect time and will

He sent a son to me,

To mend my heart and help me heal

deep wounds that eyes can’t see.

This balm that is my baby boy

Has made me whole again

And I can feel a father’s joy

Where desperate pain had been.

In Caleb, God has honored me

With a boy to make a man,

And planted in his heart, I see,

The strength to make him stand.

Inside my little bold one’s chest

A hero’s heart lies there in wait

To meet the trials that God deems best

To make his earthly labor great.

My father’s love will urge him on,

For no measure is so great

Though it should stretch from dusk to dawn

To fathom a love so great.

Count the stars shimmering in the sky

And the sand spread on the shore

But that will be a feeble try

Because I love him more. 

The Road I Would Not Travel

I wrote this poem during the last weeks of my son Jacob's battle with cancer. I think it reflects the resolution a Christian must have to trust the Lord Jesus when everything seems lost and make the words of Job our own "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him."

The Road I Would Not Travel

The road I would not travel was the one he led me down,

Strewn with jagged gravel and crossing treach’rous ground.

It clung to barren mountains and crossed storm swollen streams.

Its course passed no sweet fountains, no scenes from pleasant dreams.

I faltered at his bidding when he said, “This way is best.”

These words seemed so unfitting to describe so hard a test.

“Your way’s through pain and trials, and down it I would not go.

Why tread those countless miles down a path I do not know?”

“Would I lead you down a road over which I have not been?

Or burden you with a load that I didn’t choose to send?

My way is hard and lonely and t’will drive you to your knees,

But only there is where you’ll find My help, My rest, My ease.

And when the roads been traveled and you’ve labored to its end,

When your former world’s unraveled then---your dreams I’ll start to mend.

Your toils will earn you treasure in my kingdom far from here

With glories beyond measure and no trials or tears or fear.”

These words my Lord had spoken and offered his wounded hand

And took my life though broken and gave me the strength to stand.

And

The road I would not travel was the one he led me down.

Strewn with jagged gravel and crossing treach’rous ground.

The Books We Would Not Choose

If before I was born, I was ushered into God’s Great Library of Lives to be Lived to select  the book of my life, I would never have picked the one I got. Who picks the book where their father becomes an abusive alcoholic and their oldest son battles cancer for three year and then dies at age nine? I would never have picked that book, yet that is the one the Lord handed me. And now thirteen years after the death of my oldest son Jacob, I can say it has been the best book in the world.

Without that book, I would never have known the depths of the good things God has planted in this fallen world. How would I have known that the things I counted loss were the tempering fires that would teach me what was truly good? Without those flaming hurts, I would never have seen the unexplainable courage of a little boy wracked with pain, yet staunchly loyal to his Jesus. I would never have felt the comfort of a Father who witnessed the same in his own Son yet did not decline to offer Him up as a ransom for many. And I could never have comprehended  the gratitude of a man who realizes he has not lost a child but has only sent him ahead.

Had I chosen the book, it would have been filled with nothing but the joys and happiness and plenty of this world. The truth is I do not know how to choose the best things for me and mine, and I would venture to say that most Christian parents don’t either. We would shower our children with joy and happiness and plenty and think we have chosen well. But we do not have God’s perspective. As C.S. Lewis puts it

… if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.

 

This is the problem . It is not that we want too much for our children but too little. We would have them be content with a good education, good jobs and comfort when God has set before them an epic mission to change the world. Granted, that mission is dangerous, arduous, and daunting. But isn’t that the  best kind?

Regretfully, most Christians have trained themselves and their children to love comfort and predictability over adventure and have become like Bilbo Baggins when he proclaims that his kind are “… plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them.”

Like Bilbo, we don’t see anything in the great adventure for us, let alone our children, and so this offer of Christ to an epic mission is the one book we would see shelved and unread. That, however, is the one thing we must not do. We must pull down that great story from the shelf and find the chapters of our Christian children, point them to their parts, and urge them into the tale. For it is true, as the writer of Ephesians declares, that they were “…created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for (them) to do”.

As parents and teachers, we need to urge our children and students into the great tale and down the road to adventure knowing  what Bilbo knew,  that “ It’s a dangerous business…going out of your door, … You step onto the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.” Who can tell, the Lord may hand our children  a book that changes the world. May they open and read. 

Honoring Coach Guthrie

This past year the greatest mentor of my life was welcomed into heaven. If ever a man was greeted with "Well done my good and faithful servant," it was my high school football coach Sam Guthrie. I was unable to attend his funeral but sent this to the family to be read during the service by his son Brian.

*******

For most of my adult life, I believed I played high school football because I loved the game. I fooled myself into thinking that what I really loved was the contact, the competition, and the green grass under stadium lights. I thought I loved my team mates most of all. I loved them because we sweat and hurt and laughed and cried together.

 I did love all those things, but they were not the reason I played.

Truth is… I played for a man. I played for Coach Guthrie. I look back on those days and realize that at that time in my life Coach was what I needed more than anything else this world had to offer.

In him was all the approval I had desired from my own father but never received. In him were the words of affirmation I so desperately wanted to hear. I realize now that I played football to hear Coach Guthrie say “Well done”.  But he said so much more with his life.

 He presented the picture of manhood that I had been missing. In him was a man who could be firm and strong and yet still convey love. In him I saw for the first time a man who could love his wife and children and Jesus and still have room for the young men he coached. In him I found the image of Christ. And it was that image that changed the trajectory of my life for eternity.

Because of Sam Guthrie, I gave my life to Christ. And in me,… like in so many others he influenced for Jesus,… his work continues.  It is now his turn to hear his Coach say “Well done! my good and faithful servant.”

A prince among men has been ushered into the presence of the King. I rejoice that I will see him again, but the line to greet him is likely to be long. 

Automotive Hell

Wrote this last year in response to getting my daughter's car repaired at a dealership. Classic case of what happens when cars become so complicated that Bobby Joe down the street can't get things lined out for you under his shade tree.
**********

The heavy stench of danger filled the car the minute I drove on to the dealership property and only grew heavier as I passed through the gigantic, pearly white garage door. Being acutely sensitive  to the dangers of car repair, I  could make out the  admonition “Abandon all hope ye who enter here”  cryptically swirled into  the stucco finished walls.  I knew I didn’t have a  chance ,in well ….. hell ….of leaving this place whole. Virgil wasn’t with me, and I never leave a repair shop unscathed. This was gonna hurt.

Words were coming out of the technician’s mouth … they made sense … ALONE…, but strung together they were incomprehensible, devoid of meaning. Gas----vacuum--- recycles---- exhaust----carbon----emissions.

The crisp, unsoiled technician assigned to me might as well have been speaking  French or Portuguese  or Norwegian. Gibberish, pig-Latin, call it what you will, I had no idea what the devil he was saying. Gestures were no help. Speaking louder didn’t help either. Using a funny accent …… no good.

After winking dumbly and nodding my head for what seemed like an eternity at the dollar signs floating in the air before his face, I managed to decipher that the repairs for the problem would likely do nothing to help the car run better but would make the little, demonic, orange light on the instrument panel wink out and save the planet from global warming. I confide that I cared more about the mocking orange light than the planet. It was unnerving driving around with that engine icon leering at me. Besides ,I live in the South. What’s another degree to a heat index of 108?

“Well, what we have to do is blow smoke up your exhaust,” said the technician, which my brain immediately translated in to “Mr., since you don’t know jack, I am going to blow smoke up your...”.  This certainly had an ironically  honesty ring to  it. A sort of in your face revelation of the facts. For $150 the magical smoke machine was going to  reveal the real  source of the problem…then we could talk about the cure, the elixir, the  potion, the application of the leeches. No doubt there would be more filthy lucre required of me at that juncture.

“OK, so let me see if I have this right: for $150 you’re gonna blow smoke up my, uh ….exhaust and that will reveal the problem? Then, we’ll discuss the cure? And this will take how long?,” I asked.

“Oh, we’ll have to blah blah blah blah blah and blah blah …….. ‘bout two hours. Then we’ll know what’s wrong,” says he with a thin  smile as he points the way to the waiting room.

 As I pushed through the second door to the waiting … uh… Customer Lounge, the real source of my foreboding dawned on me. The whole process was proceeding with sterile, surgical precision. You pull up to the pearly gates. They roll up like a great, white cloud revealing a spotless floor and little bitty offices from which the crisp, unsoiled Technicians materialize like so many clammy handed funeral directors. They greet you with good grammar and explain things in a lofty language that puts you politely, but properly in your place as an automotive dunderhead. They roll your ride through another set of gates and out of sight. Then they usher you into a very cool…climactically speaking…Lounge with two big, flat screen TV’s, one ironically showing The Price is Right and the other a stupor inducing World Cup match. They hand you a card for free Wi-fi and point out the free pop-corn.  And Rod Serling announces the latest ridiculously high customer service survey numbers while I wait, fighting the mind numbing, clinical, nature of the place and stupidly blinking at the sign that says, “Help save the puppies. Recycle.”

Where was the sound of impact wrenches? The smell of oil and anti-freeze? The guy with black finger nails and a name tag reading Bubba or Joe? The very details that make automotive repair  sensual and visceral and real were missing. Bubba and Joe may be scallywags but they always smell the part. They disarm you with their oily, odor of  competence and blue collar verbiage.  They say words you’ve heard before. They offer you 40 weight coffee, off color jokes, familiarity and last year’s well worn magazines. You won’t find these guys collecting aluminum cans to save puppies. They may blow smoke up your exhaust but you like it. It’s real. You think you’re getting your exorbitant money’s worth. Not like this eat -off –the- floor clean dealership service department so far removed from reality. 

After two hours, my funeral director found me in a corner gobbling up the free wi-fi and gave me the news.

“Well, after blowing copious amounts of nuclear ionized blah blah blah smoke up your exhaust and examining your blah blah blah system under a black light in an operating room…..uh, we discovered that you need a new gas cap. Old one’s cracked. The cap is $21 and the diagnostics are $150 plus tax. You can pay Rod Serling at the counter. Have a great day. And don’t forget to give Rod your aluminum can to help the puppies.”

Standing on the spotless floor behind the pearly gates watching my car return from the nether regions, I can’t help but laugh when the door pops open and another crisp, unsoiled,  fellow asks, “Courtesy vacuum? It’s free?”

“Far from it brother, Far from it!,” I reply as I slide into the seat to drive back into the real world.