Missing Montreat

Montreat's been on my mind quite a bit this past month or so. Sadly, I won't be able to head out there for the Youth Conferences this year as I did last year. Although finances are certainly tight in the current economy, that's not really the reason I can't go this year--at least, not directly. If you serve as a Small Group Leader, Montreat pays for your flight, room, and meals for the entire time you're there. In fact, going last year probably helped my budget for the summer! However, Fuller is in the midst of a significant restructuring effort, and although I won't be losing my job in the midst of it, things are going to be changing fairly quickly, and it's just not a good time to not be here.

But my sister, who still lives in Kentucky, was able to be a Small Group Leader this year, and so I got a lot of updates from her. It was an especially appropriate time for her to be there. 2009 is the 20th anniversary of her first conference, much as last year was the 20th anniversary of mine. Her "anniversary" experience was even more so, however, as the preacher for the two weeks she served was Tom Are, Jr., who gave the sermons back in 1989 (transcribed via the links on the right-side bar)! I'm told that he shared a few of the same stories (after all, the youth of this audience wasn't even alive to have heard them back then!) and a few new ones (I eagerly await the CD my sister has promised me). She even got to sing a song leading the congregation in worship during her time there (that's her in the middle, with Rev. Are on the right, and one of the music leaders on the left. Archbishop Tutu wasn't there. It's just his smiling picture in the back.).

This weekend, Montreat will no doubt have their annual Fourth of July parade, which I still remember watching when I was there with the 1992 Planning Team, and I'm hearing word from many of my Facebook friends (many of whom were fellow Small Group Leaders last year) that they're getting reading to head out there for their Youth Conference experiences (there are six such conferences every year. My sister was at the first two, but there are still four to go!). Have fun! Wish I could be with you all!

Tom Are sermons: epilogue

I'm sorry for getting the August 11, 1989 sermon posted late. (It should have posted last Friday, and I only finally got it posted late last night.) This has been the first week of classes for the Fall quarter at my seminary, which is always an intense time. But this year, it seems to have affected me more than usual, and I found myself extremely tired, even when I had the occasional moment to catch my breath.

The Friday sermon was a particularly interesting experience for me. For each of the sermons I transcribed, I tend to go through the whole thing over again after I've finished the first draft, and I invariably find mistakes that I made in my original transcription. Usually important stuff, like leaving out the word "no" or "not" when the addition of that word completely changes the meaning of the sentence, or forgetting to include the object of a verb.

The particular recording I used for Friday's message was of considerably lower quality than the other recordings, which were all over 15 years old, and recorded onto CDs from aging audio cassettes. I found that I had to keep my ear fixed as close to my player as possible, even with the volume turned up to its highest level, just to make out what was being said. And even then, there were a few phrases that I just couldn't quite make heads or tails of....

Thankfully, I had made some very rough MP3s of these recordings a few years ago. I had deemed them too painful to listen to due to static, which is why I'd paid to have the CDs made. But the MP3s had the advantage of being manipulated through my computer(of the time)'s sound editing software. This enabled me to make out those few phrases that I'd had trouble with before.

It was actually a surprise that, even with such technical issues, I should have trouble making out such phrases anyway. I've listened to these tapes dozens of times over the years, although admittedly not so much recently until I decided to take on this project. But I came to realize that I'd actually not paid as much attention to Friday's sermon, which does not have so much of the humor that marked the other sermons. As important as I had considered these sermons to be to me personally, I still had managed to "tune out" during some of the important parts!

I am thankful that I have had a new opportunity to "rediscover" these "lost" portions of Friday's message. I intend to leave the link to Rev. Are's sermons on this page for the forseeable future. I hope that a new generation of people will have an opportunity to be blessed by them.

Tales from Tom: It's For the Baby!

With this morning's tale, I bring the Friday series of Tom Are, Jr. stories to a close. I hope that you've enjoyed them. If you're interested in hearing more of Rev. Are's stories, I invite you to check out the web site of Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kansas, where Rev. Are is the senior pastor. The site has an archive of sermons, both printed and on audio, dating back to when Rev. Are joined the church.

And, as always, if you'd like to read the full text of this sermon, please click on the Tom Are, Jr., sermons link on the right. This story is from the sermon for Friday, August 11, 1989.

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I remember… I was eight years old. My mother and father came in, and they had that serious look on their face. The one that says, “we have something very important to tell you.” It usually came right after I had done something very bad. I was a little nervous, we went into their bedroom. Mom and Dad… they were a little nervous. That was evident. They kept looking back and forth at each other. It was clear they had not rehearsed.

And then Mom finally said, “Tom. We want to tell you that you are going to have another brother or sister.”

I said, (in an “awww, man!” fashion) “Again?” I didn’t remember putting in an order for one, you know?

They said, “You’re going to have another brother or sister.”

I said, “Today?”

They said, “No! No, no, no. Not today.”

I said, “This weekend?”

“Not this weekend.”

“Well, when then?”

“Well, sometime in January.”

Well, school hadn’t even started yet, you know? It was still summer. When you’re eight years old, January may not ever get here! I said, “Why tell me now?”

She said, “We just want you to be prepared.”

All right. Well, then, pretty soon, this crib showed up in my room. I said, “Mom, very few people in the second grade are in cribs these days. You know?”

She said, “Tom, it’s not for you! It’s for the baby!”

I said, “The baby’s here?”

She said, “No, son! January!”

I said, “Mom, it’s not Thanksgiving yet.”

“We want to be prepared.”

All right. Then some real strange things started happening. They painted my room. They had never done that. They had never… even when I got the Play-Doh stuck on the wall in the corner, they didn’t even try to paint any of that… but they painted my room. And then they put these little clouds on the wall. I thought that was ridiculous. I thought that poor kid’s gonna feel like he’s falling out of an airplane his whole life!

“It’s for the baby… who’s not here.”

And then, Mom started going to other people’s homes, and having parties… for the kid! She tried to throw me off and tell me they were “showers,” but I knew the difference between a shower and a party. One I would do gladly, the other I hated! But that kid was having a party! Did they bring me anything? No! He still had four months to cook and he’s raking it in!

Tales from Tom: Patrol Camp

I've really enjoyed transcribing these sermons (and the stories within them) over these past few weeks. As I'm getting down to these last couple, I've had occasion to realize that I've lived with these sermons as part of my own story for more of my life than I'd lived prior to hearing them at the age of 15 (I'm 31 now). While I'm not sure if that should make me feel old or not, it definitely says these stories have had "staying power" for me!

If you want to read the entire sermon of which this story is a part, click on the link on the sidebar for sermons by Rev. Tom Are, Jr. This sermon is the Thursday, August 10th sermon, and has a lot of good stuff to say about forgiveness.

(And, as a total aside, "Happy Birthday, sis!")

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When I was in the sixth grade, I went to Bear Elementary School in Montgomery, Alabama. I was a patrol… a safety patrol at Bear Elementary School. Now, how many of you were patrols? (waits for show of hands) Good! I bet every one of you wore those little orange sashes with the little aluminum badges on there. (applause indicates he’s correct) At Bear Elementary School, we didn’t wear those things. We wore uniforms, man! We had these grey uniforms with stripes running all the way down the side of your leg. We had real badges, not those aluminum kind! We had real… they made your pockets sag, you know? They gave us whistles that we could sorta loop on this pocket… we were bad! We knew we were bad! You know… we’d strut down the hall! All the kids would look up and say, “Oooh! He’s a patrol!” And we were weren’t just “safety patrol.” We were “Junior Traffic Police.” Had this patch on our shoulder: “Junior Traffic Police.” We had policewomen that would come out to the school, and they would teach us to march, you know… “Left, right, left, right.…” We could do that by the sixth grade. And we would go out to the street, and we would haul the little flags out there that would say, “Stop.” And all the traffic in Montgomery would stop. And little Billy would walk across the street, you know, with his lunchbox. And then we’d let the traffic… we were in control! We were the baddest kids in the school, and we knew it.

Now every summer, they had what they called “patrol camp.” That meant that every school… every school would send a delegation to “patrol camp,” and there, there would be contests. You know, we’d have the canoe race, we’d have the tug-of-war… we would have “hold your breath underwater”…we would have all those kind of… kind of contests, and at the end, the delegation that attained the most points would take home the trophy. The valued “patrol camp” trophy, you’ve probably read about it.

For the past four years or so, Bear Elementary School had brought home the trophy. We sorta felt like it was ours. But last year, our rivals, Bellingrath… they took the trophy!

So, there we were, our delegation. We were ready to go to patrol camp, and our captain huddled us together, you know, and he said, “All right, men!” Here we are, in the sixth grade, you know, “All right, men! We’re sending you on a mission, here! If you want it bad enough…”

We said, “Yeah, we do! We do!”

“If you want it bad enough, you can bring home the trophy to Bear Elementary School, where it belongs…”

And we said, “We will! We will!”

And he said, “We’ll display it right there in the case next to the Honorable Mention of the Spelling Bee…”

And we said, “We’ll put it there!”

And we were all pumped. And we went to patrol camp. And everybody was there… but Bellingrath! And we weren’t sure where their delegation was. Now, we weren’t nervous. We were too cool to be nervous. We were acting a lot like how uncool people act when they’re nervous, but we weren’t nervous! We were just “curious” about who Bellingrath would be sending.

Well, right after supper, we’re out on the porch, and we’re sort of doing this (acting cool), you know? And then, there was this car that came down the dirt road, that had little red and white stripes of crepe paper tied around the antenna, like people do, you know, to let you know they’re special or something. That was the colors for Bellingrath! They pulled up in front of the main building there. And they had the tinted windows on the car, so we couldn’t tell who was living in there. And then, Mom gets out of the front seat, ‘cause Mom’s still driving in the sixth grade. And she goes to the back door, and she opens it like earth, wind, and fire is going to jump of there or something. And she opens the back door…

… and out of the back seat ROLLS the only guy from Bellingrath! He had to have been 350 pounds, man! He was the only guy there! Now, he had the tug-of-war, but the canoe race was in the bag! (laughter) We knew it was coming home, and we were excited! This guy was a nerd! We looked in the dictionary: “nerd.” Right next to it’s his picture! You know? He was the definition… He had on this little… beanie kinda hat. It didn’t have a propeller on it, but that’s only because somebody had knocked it off earlier! He had on this striped shirt with, like, orange, and purple and green, going up and down, and then these sorta striped pants going the other way. I’ve never seen anybody, well Scott Matheny (MYC ’89 co-director), other than that I’ve never seen anybody dress like that (loud cheers and applause)! You know? Nobody wore that kinda stuff in 1971! You know, you could wear anything you want to in the ‘60s but by ’71 we were civilized, you didn’t wear that kinda… you could go to jail if you wore that kinda stuff! … He got out dressed like… then he had on these white socks, and patent leather shoes that were two-tone!

We were looking at this guy, and we said, “We cannot believe it, but this guy is a geek!”

He walks up to us. He says, “Hi, guys! My name is Byron Ralph Gazortny!”

I was feeling pretty good about “Lorraine,” then, you know? Byron Ralph Gazortny? That’s even a geek name!

We get up the next morning…. Breakfast at patrol camp is an experience. It is a test of your commitment. Let’s see… patrol camp is in July. They start frying the bacon, like, in February. All right? When you get it, it’s about that big (gestures to indicate a tiny piece), you know, and when you pick up a corner of it, that’s all you get, it just sort of shatters right there in front of you. But the eggs, they didn’t start in February! The eggs still had some of that clear stuff on it that did like this (jiggles) when they give it to you!

They give you bacon, and those eggs, and then grits that had these lumps in it. You could suffocate on those lumps, man! They get stuck right in there, you’d be a goner, that was all there was to it! You couldn’t eat the food at patrol camp! But Byron Ralph? He’s sitting at the end of the table, and said, “If you guys would just lift the table down there and slide all that stuff to me,” and he’s sitting there eating it all up! He even took the camp peanut butter. That’s the kind that comes in the can, that you have the key and you sorta twist it. You ever seen that stuff? They’re three layers to it. It’s got like this Georgia red clay on the bottom. And then there’s probably some 10-W-30 or something in there. And then about six peanuts floating in the oil. Byron Ralph dumped all that stuff on there, he didn’t even mix it up, he just dumped it on there, eating it up, “yeah, man, this is good…” We knew this guy was a geek!

Well, we decided that… he needed to be… “included.” We decided he needed to be “officially welcomed.” Byron Ralph… this was ’71… Byron Ralph probably washed his hair in ’66, we figured. So, that first night, we took a little Prell concentrate… doesn’t need much… just a little on the pillow... all he needed was a touch of sweat, and turn his head every now and then… he woke up in the morning and there’s white cloud everywhere. Bubbles coming out of his tent, you know? We were loving it! We looked at him and said, “Oh, Byron Ralph, what happened?” You know? We didn’t have a clue.

The next night, Byron Ralph got a little carried away. Literally. About ten of us got around his bunk. We walked him down to the lake. (laughter) This is not a suggestion…. walked him down to the lake. We put him in the rowboat. We pushed him out into the lake. And then we rang the wake-up bell! Byron Ralph gets up, he stretches, he steps out of his cot, and bloosh! (laughter and applause) It was wonderful! It was wonderful! Water flying out of there, you know? He asked us about it, we didn’t have a clue! Don’t know. I guess it was just “sleep rowing,” you know, that happens….

All week long… all week long, we gave that guy more than he could take. And we could tell it was eating at him, but he never said anything. But we could tell it was just chewing him up, you know? I could also tell that he knew that I was behind it all.

The last night, we were going to camp away from camp. Now, I never did quite figure that out. We were gonna go camp on the mountain. All right? In Alabama, they don’t have mountains, man! They got bumps, but they didn’t have any mountains! So they had, like, this trail to this bump, and we were gonna go camp on the bump. So, everybody gets his backpack on, and we’re hiking through the woods. The last night, we’re hiking through the woods, and I’m there with all of my buddies. We had won the trophy. Everything was good. We were gonna stay up all night and sing songs and have a great time. And we’re hiking down the trail… there was this tree that fell down right next to the trail. So all the guys jumped up on it, and they’re running down the tree. So I’d jump up on it, and I’m running down the tree. And all of a sudden… I think a Mary Lou Retton or something. I don’t know. I go up in the air, and I come back down on the tree… almost.

Sort of on the side of it. And this was a round tree. So I went all the way down to the ground, and my ankle was sideways. And it sorta… popped.

And I said, (as flatly as possible) “Oowwowch!” (laughter)

And all the guys looked back at me and they said, (very concerned) “Are you okay?”

I’m a patrol, man! I said, (very unconvincingly as he hobbles around) “Sure! No problem! Having a great time!”

I couldn’t walk. My ankle’s sitting here, inflating! I said, “You guys go on, I’m gonna sit here and wait for Byron Ralph and do some more stuff to him!”

And they said, “Yeah! Yeah! That’s great!” So they go on. I’m sitting here on this log watching my ankle just… explode.

Byron Ralph starts coming up the trail. I know that I’m a dead boy. You know, I’m sort of playing the video of my life in front of me. Because, when you’re in the sixth grade, you don’t have one that’s long enough even for commercials, you know? It’s just sort of... it’s over.

Byron Ralph is coming up… I know he’s gonna kill me. I’m sitting there on the log, I can’t go anywhere, and he comes up the trail….

(Sound effect akin to an elephant stomp, then another) Have you ever seen those forest fire commercials? You know, where all the birds and stuff go (sound of rustling out trees in large numbers), like? That’s what it was like, man! He’s coming up the trail, and everything’s going (rustle-rustle-rustle).

He comes around the curve, and he sees me on the log. And he just smiles….

That made me really nervous.

He walks up to me, and I’m thinking, “one punch.” You know? One punch and I’m out!

He said, “Stand up!”

I thought, “I can accommodate.” I stand up.

He said, “Give me your pack!”

I said, “Going for distance?” (laughter)

He takes my pack… puts it on his shoulder. He hands me the stick that he’s been using to come up the trail… and he walks off.

By the time I hobbled into camp, he had set up my tent. He had gathered some wood for a fire, and he was over there scrounging through his stuff to begin to set it up.

I crawled in my tent, and I cried.

Tales from Tom: Brothers

This story from the Rev. Tom Are, Jr. is a bit longer than most, as I found it difficult to find a clean beginning and ending point. To understand the context, you need to know that this sermon talks about the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-31). As always, if you're interested in reading the whole sermon, just click on the appropriate link on the right to be taken to the sermons page.

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You see… I know that the elder brother is not the good guy. I know that the elder brother is not the example for us. I know that the elder brother does not wear a white hat in this story… but I gotta tell you, the boy makes some sense to me!

Makes a little bit of sense of me….

‘Cause I’ve got a little brother! If you’ve got a little brother, maybe even a little sister, you probably can understand this guy! You see, my brother, Jim… we didn’t get along! It’s not that we were enemies. You know, we didn’t bring bodily harm to one another, we… we… we just were brothers! And Jim, I don’t know what’s wrong with the boy… Jim…(laughter) It’s good Presbyterian belief to believe that every person has a reason for being… that every person has a purpose in this world. Jim was thoroughly convinced that his purpose… that his calling… yeah, one even he had received by divine intervention… his reason for being was to get on my nerves! (laughter) And Jim was very obedient to his calling.

Now it worked okay for a little while. Because Jim was about this many years old (holds arm at about waist length), and I was this many years old (raises arm a bit higher), and that works all right. Because as soon Jim would start getting on my nerves, I’d just sorta look at him with that stern face that says “I’m really talking to you now!” And I’d say, “Jim, if you have an emotional attachment to sunshine, you better get out of my face!” (laughter and applause)

And Jim would say, “I’m sorry,” and he would back out of the room. That worked fine! But then he had to go and blow it. Jim discovered alliances. I don’t know if he got it at school, or where he got it. But the youngest always figures out, the number one ally is Mom.

Jim would start getting on my… and I would say “Jim, if you have an emotional attachment to…” I’d get to about right there, and all of a sudden he’d start going “Mah-ahm! Mah-ahm!”

She’d come flittin’ down the hallway. “What’s the matter, darling?”

Jim’d start in: “Tom did this. Tom did that! Tom did that other thing!”

My mother’d look at me, and she’d say, “Go to your room!”

I’d say, “Mom, aren’t I entitled to a trial by jury of my peers?”

She’d say, “Tom, if you have an emotional attachment to sunshine….” (laughter and applause)

You see, that’s when I learned to talk like an elder brother! I’m in my room “got an emotional attachment, hmph! I tell you what… when’s the last time he cleared the table? I can’t remember! Does he take out the trash? No, [sir,] he plays sick every time, ‘I hurt my foot.’ No, I’m the one doing it, but that’s all right, take care of him. Give him a party, I don’t care!”

That went on too long! I spent most of my sophomore year in my room! Talking like an elder brother. Occasionally looking in the mirror, trying to make an ugly face…. It wasn’t real hard.

(Leans over pulpit) … But I got him back! (cheers and applause)

I got him back, man! We were visiting my grandmother. She lived in South Carolina. She announced that she and my mother were going to go shopping, and they would be right back.

Now one of things you need to understand, my grandmother and my mother went shopping, they’re not gonna be right back.

And the other thing she said is, “Tom, you are supposed to take care of Jim while we’re gone.”

“No problem! I’m gonna take care of him real good, Grandmama!”

Jim was out in the back yard. I went out and I said, “Jim you are filthy. You are sweaty. You smell bad. Go take a bath!”

He said, “But I don’t want to!”

I said, “Jim, I am in charge. Go take a bath!”

So he trudged it upstairs. My grandmother had one of those bathtubs with the feet on it, you know… different kind of experience, that was all right. Jim got in there, kinda sudsin’ up and everything, and then I yelled through the door. “Jim, I’m going next door. I’ll be gone for, oh, an hour.” Then I walked downstairs and I go out the front door. (sound of door shutting)

I wait about ten minutes. And then I open the front door. “Creee-eeak!” It’s quiet upstairs!

Jim goes, “Tom? Tom, is that you?”

(whispers) I didn’t say anything! (cheers and applause)

Jim says, “Tom, you’d better tell me that’s you. I’m gonna tell Momma if you don’t tell me that’s you!”

(silence)

My grandmother had this lamp that sat by the end of the sofa, it had these little bells hanging on it, when you turn it on and off. I went over there and I turned it off! (cha-ching!)

It got real quiet upstairs! (laughter)

She has this china cabinet in the living room. You have to walk through there…. I think Columbus must brought that thing over, or something, because if you walked through the living room, the whole thing went (rattle-rattle-rattle), like that?

So I walked through the living room. (rattle-rattle-rattle)

Jim says, (sounding even more scared now) “Tom, is that you? Tom, I promise I won’t tell Momma if you just please tell me that’s you!”

(whispers) I didn’t say nothing!

I start going up the steps. The third step from the top creaked. I’m standing on the fourth one. I’m looking there at the bathroom right in front of me. There’s not a sound… I think Jim had his finger in the faucet to keep the drips from coming down. There is no sound coming outta there! I’m standing there, looking at the door… standing on that fourth step, and I step on number three. (Cree-eeak!)

Water started moving, man! I’m telling you, that boy was on the move, now! I go up to the door, I start going… scratching on the door, you know?

And all of a sudden it gets real quiet. Well, the lock on the door hasn’t worked since my daddy was in high school, you know, so I just sort of… push it open, and step in there and I go (leaps out with a boogeyman sound)!

There’s no Jim! (laughter)

Everything in there’s just… there’s not even much water in the bathtub. There’s a lot coming on the walls, down the… way, there. I thought, “Where’d he go?” I thought, first, he soaped up, and went down the drain, you know?

And then… then I saw the curtains flapping.

We’re on the second floor! There’s nothing below that but just this little awning. I thought “Great day! He’s jumped out! He’s killed himself! I’m going be in my room until I finish college, man!” (thunderous applause)

I go running down the steps… I opened the front door… There’s my brother hanging off that awning! (cheers)

He’s not wearing anything but Mr. Bubble! (more laughter)

I start laughing so hard, I can’t hardly stand up, you know? And I’m bending over, like this (doubled over), and I get about right here… and I see my momma coming down the driveway! (laughter)

I don’t even think she stopped the car! She just got out! And she started coming up the sidewalk!

She looked at me, and she said, “Go to your room!”

She walked right by my brother. He’s going, “Mom! A little help here, please! A little help, Mom!”

She comes in my room… she comes in my room…. She says, “Do you…. do you want to tell me… what your brother is doing… NAKED AS A JAYBIRD… hanging off the front of the house where we hang the star at Christmastime?” (Cheers from audience)

You remember the other night when I told you about those questions that aren’t really questions?

I said, “Well, ma…” and she said, “Hush!”

She was too mad to punish me. Instead she was gonna give me “the talking to.” (ominous sounds from audience) You ever had that? Man, I would rather be whipped, tied to a tree, left in the forest for the weekend than get the talking to!

She said, “Why…?” It always started that way, you know? “Why… do you treat your brother like that?”

I thought that was self-evident.

She said, “Tom, you are the eldest.” I thought that was self-evident, too. She said, “You’re supposed to be the light shining in the darkness. The city set on the hill. You know he looks up to you…”

I said, “Of course he does, Momma, he’s down here!” (laughter)

She said, “You’re supposed to live in a way that he can look up to and know how to make it in this world!”

And then it got bad. She said, “Tom, you know you really like Jim.”

I said, “Mother, are you talking about the Jim that lives with us?”

She said, “You know you really love Jim.”

I said, “Mother, have you met the Jim that lives with us?”

I said, “Mother, tell me one reason… it doesn’t have to be a big one! Tell me one reason, why you think I love that boy.”

She said, “Because he’s your brother!”

I said, “Bingo, Momma! That’s what I’ve been trying to…. That’s the reason I don’t like the man! You know, for eight years, he’s been hanging around my business. Ever since he’s old enough not to drool at the table, he’s been getting on my nerves!”

Jim’s standing out in the hall, taking notes…. They do that, too.

Jim comes walking in the room… He walks in the room… He doesn’t look particularly mad… He doesn’t look particularly dry… He looks at me, and he says, “Tom. Jesus loves me. So can you.”

Tales from Tom: Salt on a Bird's Tail

Oddly enough, this story comes from a sermon that focuses largely on the story of Jesus walking on the water (Matthew 14:22-36). If you're interested in reading the whole sermon (and finding out how Rev. Tom Are, Jr. can get to here from there!), click on the link on the sidebar to the right and select the August 8 sermon. There are plenty of other humorous bits inside, as well.

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I was in the second grade… for a long time, actually. I was in the second grade, and my father told me that to catch a bird, you put salt on its tail. I went to him, I said, “Dad, I wanna catch a bird!”

He said, “What?”

I said, “There’re birds all over the back yard. I wanna catch one and keep one.”

Well, that really thrilled my parents, you know? Dad said, “No problem, the way to catch a bird, is you take the salt, and sprinkle it on the [bird’s] tail, and if you get salt on the bird’s tail, he can’t fly! That’s the rules!”

Well, he got considerable joy watching me most of my second grade spring running around the back yard with a salt shaker. I think I killed half the grass out in the back yard. He was counting on my not catching up with the bird. I was counting on catching the bird. Neither one of us counted on my ingenuity.

I built a trap! I got a box, and I put it in the back yard, and I propped it up with this stick. I put, like, a whole loaf of bread in there. A jar of peanut butter. Probably a Twinkee. Some Kool-Aid; I wanted this bird to have a choice of diet, you know? And then, I propped that dude up with a stick, and I tied a string around the stick, and then I went around the garage, and I tied the other end to me, and I watched. And this blue jay flew down there, and he kind of strutted around a while, looking at it, checking it out. And then he went in for his peanut butter sandwich.

I pulled that string, that box came down. That’s the maddest blue jay you ever seen in your life! I had myself a bird, man! And I was excited about it! I put the whole thing on a screen from the window, so I could flip it over. And there’s the box, with the bird in it, and the screen on top, and I’m standing there with a whole box of “when it rains, it pours.”

I got salt on that bird’s tail. I got salt on his head. I got salt on his back. That’s bird was knee-deep in salt! He kept trying to fly around the box, I’m just chasing him, you know, salt everywhere! When I knew he was good and salted, I opened the screen. I pulled up the screen, about that much (holding fingers close together).

My daddy lied to me!

That bird, he barely had room to get out, he flew out so fast, shaking salt on me with every flap!

Tales from Tom: Middle Names

When I mentioned the Montreat Youth Conferences the other day, I mentioned a series of sermons, delivered at the conference in 1989 by Rev. Tom Are, Jr., that were particularly influential. One of the features of these sermons that made them so powerful was the preacher's use of stories to illustrate his points. There is a longstanding debate about how much one should use such illustrations in a sermon, and how much one should just "teach from the text." It is commonly argued that if the illustration is too good, the story will be remembered, but the actual point of the sermon might be missed!

I'm sympathetic to these concerns. However, at least in my case, it was the often humorous stories that got my attention. But, as I've listened to these sermons many, many times over the past 15+ years, I can safely say that the main points of the sermons have not been lost on me. In many ways, they have helped shaped my own theology. While I may not believe exactly the same way as Rev. Are in all respects, I make a point of it only because I believe that no two people agree with each other in all respects.

So, in the interest of "story-sharing," I will dedicate Fridays for the next month or so to sharing some of the stories from Rev. Are's sermons. When I share a story from a particular sermon, I will post the full text of that sermon, which Rev. Are has granted me permission to transcribe for this blog, on a linked page, which you may find to the right. The page is available right now, and I'll have the first sermon up by the end of the day. If a story "gets your attention," you can check out the full context by reading the sermon, which will also have other stories within it!

Without further ado, I now share what Rev. Are has to say about middle names, given during a sermon on baptism:

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Parents do mean stuff to you with your middle name. I think they’re trying to get back at you for all that pain you just caused your mom, you know? My wife, she’s a nurse, I know how this stuff works. They go in there, you know? You pop out, {pop!}, there you are. The nurse kinda wipes you off so that you don’t look quite so much like a squirrel. And then they walk over, and they show you to Mom. Mom’s still sweatin’, she’s still breathin’, she’s still cryin’, she’s still screamin’, and they say “Darlin’, what would you like to name it?”

And she says “Name it ‘Helmut’!”

And she says “Darling, this one’s a girl!”

“I don’t care! ‘Helmut’!”

It’s the medical staff, they take care, they give you a real name like “Susie,” or “Linda,” or “Frank,” or something. If it was left up to parent’s we’d all have names like that! And then when you grow up, they try to get out of it. They tell you that it’s an old family name, right? They tell you, “you know your great-uncle Helmut on your father’s side.” That guy never lived! He wasn’t there! And you ask anybody “Oh, he was really a nice boy, Uncle Helmut, yeah.” He didn’t live! They try to cover their tracks!

I remember the first time, or the first time that I remember my full name in public. It was first grade. You know how first grade teachers are, they’re kinda goofy anyway. I walked into my first grade class. I was nervous! I walked into my first grade class, and my teacher, she leans over, with big glasses, you know? Well, she leans over, got the pencil stuck in the back of her head. And she said “And what is your name, Son?”

I said “My name is Tommy Are,” because I was Tommy back then, you know, “Tommy Are.”

She said, “Well, that’s just fine.” I was real relieved to hear that, it was the only name I had!

I found my friends Bobby Armstrong and Danny Martin sitting over there, so I went and I sat with them. And as soon as I got comfortable, she said “Now when I call out your name, I want you to come have a seat.” She’s getting ready to do that seating chart thing, you know?

And she said “Robert Herbert Armstrong.”

We didn’t have any “Robert Herbert Armstrong” in our class! We were saying, “Who’s the new kid?”

All of a sudden, Bobby Armstrong stood up. Danny Martin said “Herbert! What kind of a name is ‘Herbert,’ man?” I was dying laughing. I was loving it!

And then exploding from the front of the room: “Thomas…… Lorraine…. (at this point the auditorium bursts into laughter, which lasts for over 10 full seconds) Are.”

I’m saying “she didn’t do, what I just think she did.”

Danny Martin said “Lorraine! That’s a girl’s name, man!”

Frank Campbell says “My grandmama’s named Lorraine, man!”

For six weeks, they’re calling me “Lori” for short. Except Frank Campbell, he just called me “Grandmama!”