THE HOSPITALITY HAT

Let mutual love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.  Greet all your leaders and all the saints ...”  - Hebrews 13:1, 2, 24a

In the Fall of 2008 my wonderful wife Debbie finally saw things my way (all husbands understand this comment, so please, wives, do not be offended; we need you to be the brakes at time to our eager ideas of what we’d like to spend money on!) and agreed that we really did need a new outdoor gas grill (the old one had at last become unusable). So, the search was on. Within a few days we were in a well-known national home building big box store and saw a great $300.00 grill on sale for $200.00. No one offered to help us decide on a grill, in fact no one paid any attention to us at all. We had some questions about the grill, and we approached a checkout operator to ask those questions.

I simply started that conversation by saying, “We found a grill we are interested in and…”  We were interrupted by the clerk holding up her hand in stop-sign fashion, saying, “Unless you have your own truck there’s a $79.00 charge for delivery.” We stopped dead in our tracks. We lived only ten miles from this store, and even with gas prices above $4.00 a gallon that seemed ridiculous. Debbie told the clerk that we had gotten large items on sale at this chain before and often the delivery was included in the sale price. The clerk went to the manager and then reported that he, too, has said it would cost us nearly $80.00 have them deliver the grill.

Now you need to note this: at no time did anyone attempt to sell us a grill! All that was done in that store that day in the way of “customer service” was to warn us of the new, higher delivery charge. So, we left. There is another store in this chain that was only two and a half miles from our home. We stopped by there on our way back home, and a manager was arranging grills outside for a sale display, and one that looked like the one we had seen at the other store was included. As he was fastening the chain on the grill display I approached and said, “I saw a grill on sale at your Waynesboro store and I was wondering if you have the same model on sale here.” He looked up, never batted an eye, and said, “Unless you have your own truck there is a $79.00 charge for delivery.” We stopped in our tracks, and both of us said not another word, but turned and walked back to our car and left.

We checked for grills at several smaller local hardware stores, but they had nothing of the equivalent. Then a month or so later, after I had abandoned the idea of getting a grill before winter, I was in the ACE Hardware store in Verona . There, in the middle of that small box store, was a beautiful grill, similar to the one I had seen in the other store. It was also on sale for $100.00 off, but it was priced $50.00 higher than the other one because it also had a rotisserie feature. Robin, a delightful twenty-something clerk approached me and offered to show me the grills feature, to “sell” me the grill in fact. So, when I saw that I liked it, I asked about delivery charges, and she asked how far away I lived. I told her it was close to five miles, and she laughed and said, “Oh, there’s no charge for a delivery that close!”

I bought that grill, paying $50.00 more, but actually $29.00 less, since there was no delivery charge. More importantly, ACE got a customer for life. By the way, I told Robin the story of my earlier attempts to buy a grill at the big box store, and she later told her boss, who told them store employees at a meeting that afternoon. When they delivered the grill the next afternoon the delivery guy handed me a brand new ACE hat! He said, “This is from our store manager in appreciation for your business and also for your great lesson on the importance of good customer service.” I wear it with pride!

There’s a lesson here for the church: We also need to be sure to practice good “customer service,” that is, we need to care, really care, about the needs of other who come to worship with us, first-time-attenders and regulars alike. So may I suggest that we all be “ACE” customer service reps by giving those initials, A., C., and E., a new meaning: “A Caring Environment” is what every person should experience at Bridgewater United Methodist Church each and every Sunday. Will you do all you can to help us in that? I hope so! God will bless you and us for being A.C.E.s!

MY MOST EMBARRASSING VALENTINE MOMENT

We all know that young children have a basic and concrete understanding of life.  I was no different when I was a youngster. 

As a third-grader I was looking forward to the class Valentine’s Day Party.  I had taken home the list of children’s names, and Mom had taken me shopping for cards (I was sure my Looney Toons cards were the best!).  I had carefully signed my name to each and every card, and then I had laboriously written each of my class mates names of the envelopes.  I was all ready to go on The Day.  I placed all the cards in my bookbag and headed off to Keezletown Elementary School.

Our teacher had given us a clear instruction about how we were to take the valentines home that we would collect in class that day.  So, as I walked to school I looked carefully in the hedgerow until I found what I thought she was asking us to bring: a stick.  See, my family and I are from Ohio, and way back then we still didn’t know all of the lingo of the South.  One word I didn’t know was “poke” used as a synonym for “bag,” so when the teacher told us, “Now be sure to bring a poke to put your cards in,” I pictured poke a stick through the cards and carrying them home that way.

I was so embarrassed when I didn’t have a bag!  My teacher never could understand why I had brought a stick to class to carry home my cards!

I have never forgotten the other meaning of “poke” since that day!

Why, as a Christian, the Alabama Governor's Comments Concern Me

I think I am among the most blessed people on the face of the earth. Seriously, I do. And I had very little to do with being such a blessed person. I didn't choose to be born in the U.S., but I am so glad I was. I didn't choose to be born of the Caucasian race, but I think - at least in this country - that it is a blessing that I was. I didn't choose to be born into a church-attending, God fearing family, but because I was, I was blessed to be exposed to the teachings of Jesus, and to have thus given my life to Christ.

Think how hard it would be for me to become a Christian if I had been born in a different land, to people of a different faith. I imagine that somehow I manage to come to America, a land that cherishes freedom, especially freedom of religion. After I get here I hear of the Christian faith, but I don't know anything about it. I meet my new neighbors, who look at me suspiciously because I am different. I learn, in time, that some of them attend the Christian churches in the neighborhood. No one ever invites me, I feel their suspicions, and I don't fully understand it. In time I hear bits and pieces of the Christian faith expressed (through conversations, newspaper and television), and I am intrigued by a religion that is based on love and grace and forgiveness. Yet I do not feel loved by my Christian neighbors. I try to live a good and responsible life, and in time I am able to become a citizen of the U.S. I am unable to worship at a place of my birth religion, because so few of us live in the area of the U.S. where I live with my family. I think about maybe going to a Christian church, but I am fearful because I do not know how I am to behave, what is expected of me. Remember, no one has told me that God loves ME, or that Jesus, God's own Son, died for MY sins.

And then I hear the governor of my state say that anyone like me - anyone who is not a Christian - is not in his family. I don't know what that means, but it sounds an awful lot like what the leaders of the religious dictatorship I managed to escape would have said. And I am afraid, very afraid, that I will be denied the protection of this state government that I thought was mine, no matter what my faith. I also think that maybe Christianity is more like my religion than I had thought, and that it if you don't believe like they do you may have no value.

Thank God, that is not my story, but I can take no credit for that fact at all. I can, however, lift my voice and decry prejudice and persecution in the name of religion - even my religion - whenever I see it raise its ugly head.

My Ten Favorite Quotes (Today, Tomorrow it May be Different)

1.     The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.  ~ Dolly Parton

2.     If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

3. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ~ Mark Twain

4.     Fall seven times, stand up eight! ~ Japanese Proverbs

5.     No pressure, no diamonds. ~ Mary Case

6.  You must be the change you wish to see in the world. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

7.     Once you choose hope, anything’s possible. ~ Christopher Reeve

8.     Reach up as far as you can and God will help you reach the rest of the way. ~ Greg Hickman

9.     Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle. ~ Plato

    10. Never, never, never give up. ~ Winston Churchill    (In his later years, Winston Churchill was asked to give the commence-ment address at Oxford University. Following his introduction, he rose, went to the podium, and said the above 5 words. Then he took his seat.)

LATE (BUT ON TIME) FOR THANKSGIVING DINNER

While I was the pastor of West End United Methodist Church in Portsmouth, Virginia, I took a carload of ladies from the church to a Lyman Coleman small group seminar in Virginia Beach. The large auditorium at Virginia Beach UMC was filled with round tables, and seminar participants were assigned to sit at different tables so no two people from the same church shared a table.  Dr. Coleman then began the warm-up session by providing us with questions to ask each other at our table. One of the questions was “How many speeding tickets have you been given since you started driving?”  I, of course, had the most of anyone at our table, and as it turned out the most of anyone at the seminar: eleven.

Much to my chagrin Dr. Coleman then had us share some of our answers, and I had to stand and announce to the entire room that I had accumulated eleven speeding tickets in the twenty five years that I had been driving.  The ladies from West End Church seemed a little hesitant to get back into my car for the drive back to the church at the close of the seminar.  Who could blame them?  I decided right then and there that I would do better, drive better, and get no more speeding tickets.  And the only way to absolutely be sure that I didn’t get another speeding ticket would be to never again speed.  Ever.  Easy, right?  Read on…

The next week was Thanksgiving.  My son, Sam, was in the first grade, and had invited me to join him for the school’s Thanksgiving Lunch on the last day of school before the Thanksgiving Holiday break.  I had some ill parishioners across town that I needed to visit that day but I felt that I could see them and still make it to his school in plenty of time.  The problem was that at the last home I visited I found the wife to be in quite a bit of distress over her husband’s illness, so I took some extra time to listen to and console her, occasionally checking the time on her mantle clock.  They were an elderly couple, and I could see that worry was taking its toll on them.  As we chatted she invited me to lunch.  As I glanced again at her clock I politely explained that I was to have lunch with my son at his school at noon. 

“Oh dear!” she said, looking beyond me to a clock on the wall behind me, “You don’t have much time to get there, it’s already eleven forty-five!” 

“What?!” I exclaimed, quickly turning to see the wall clock, then turning back to again check the mantle clock.  Pointing toward it I said, “That clock says eleven-fifteen!”

“Oh, I know,” she giggled, “its run slow for years.  I suppose we really should get it repaired but we’re so used to it now we never think anything of it.”

I said a hasty prayer, apologized, and ran from the house to my car.  Over my shoulder I heard her exclaim, “You be careful now!”

I probably don’t have to tell you what happened next.  Every light between her house and Sam’s school turned red just as I got to it, and then I seemed to be behind every slow driver in the entire city whenever I was were I could not pass.  I prayed, I fumed, and I swore that I would never again be late!  I was determined to keep my word and not speed.  That promise was harder to keep when at last I was on the freeway and the lanes were open, and there was nothing to stop me. 

I was torn between wanting to be there on time for Sam (I hated the thought of him believing that I had forgotten, and let him down), and wanting to not speed (I had to get this speeding compulsion under control).  So, I sang hymns, and then I prayed.  I knew that I was going to be at least ten minutes late, unless I gave in and hit that accelerator hard.  I also knew that if I got pulled over for speeding I would be even later. So I prayed that, first of all, I get to Sam’s school safely, and secondly, that he not be too upset.  I asked that God please help me to get there by twelve-ten.

At eight minutes past noon I pulled into the school parking lot, found a parking place almost immediately, and walked through the doors of the school at 12:10 pm!  When I started to stop to get a pass at the office the secretary waved me on.  Down the hall was the “cafetorium” and I could already hear the loud but happy sounds of the children.

I stepped into the room, and was overwhelmed by the sight before me: there were more than seven hundred children, all of them wearing paper head décor.  There were Indians with a single, colorful feather, maidens with white bonnets, and pilgrims with tall black hats.  How was I ever going to find Sam?

As I scanned the sea of children’s festive headdresses I saw something different: one tiny hand in the air.  I stopped there, and my eyes looked from the hand to the eyes of a tiny Indian’s face beaming at me.  Sam.  I rushed over to his table, prepared to apologize.  His teacher saw me coming and stood and indicated an empty seat beside Sam.  She then directed me to get my tray and come join them. 

When I was seated, Sam beside me, his teacher across from us, I again started to explain why I was late and to apologize.  But his teacher stopped me with these words, “Sam made me save you a place, Mr. Harris, because he said that his daddy would never forget to come to Thanksgiving Dinner.”

Time seemed to stand still at that moment, as a wave of emotion rushed over me.  I slowly sat down, and glancing at Sam, who was happily engaged in eating his lunch, I had a profound realization:  Sam placed more trust in me as his father than I deserved, but my Heavenly Father wanted me to have just such a child-like trust in Him.  Then, as I tried getting the turkey and mashed potatoes past the lump in my throat, I also realized that despite what anyone’s watch or clock might have said, when I entered that room I was, in fact, right on time.

Sometimes trusting God means not allowing what seems to be true to be all we will settle for; it sometimes means believing that which is not seen, but is truly real and really true nonetheless.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." - Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)

Realizing the Extent of God's Grace and Blessings Results in Generous Giving

People often tell me that I am talented and gifted, and in some areas I am.  Money management is not one of those areas.  I can honestly own up to that fact simply because it has been shown to be true over and over through the years.  One of the many reasons I am so grateful for my wife, Debbie, is that she is a very capable money manager.

In my young adult years I was ashamed to be so poor at managing my meager financial resources yet I would not seek help from my parents.  The consequence was that during my freshman year at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) I worked at three part-time jobs and lived on candy bars and Pepsi Cola.  My parents would have been shocked to know this, of course, and I didn’t want to use any more of their meager resources than necessary (nor did I want to hear a “sermon” from my Dad on money management).  They were operating a boarding school for severely disabled adults, and they needed everything they had just to keep it afloat. Of course, they would have helped, had I asked.

Instead, the three jobs and the long hours they occupied in my life, plus my subsequent tiredness, took their toll on my studies; and in the summer following my first year I dropped out and joined the Navy.  My parents were devastated by this decision, as this was in 1968, and the Vietnam War was taking the lives of many of our nation’s young men.  As it turned out I did not go to Vietnam; after boot camp and photography school, I spent two years in Meridian, Mississippi, and nineteen months aboard a ship in the northern Atlantic Ocean.

Not Much to Show for the Effort

When I was discharged from the Navy in December of 1972, I had managed to save enough for a new car. That was it. And after I purchased my dream car, a 1972 Plymouth Barracuda, I had nothing left. I moved to Cincinnati, to an apartment on the second floor of my uncle’s house, and began to look for work. It was 1973 and the oil crisis was beginning to change how we spent our money. Gas was expensive and hard to find. So were jobs.

Even though veterans were at the top of the list in the employment agencies, I went weeks without work. My Uncle Bud was as understanding as he could be, but I was getting further and further behind in my rent. I finally found a job as a glass-blower in a thermometer factory (that sounds like a joke, I know, but it really was my job title). That job lasted less than a month (my only time ever working in a factory); then I worked as a shoe salesman (and got to meet Pete Rose). Later I found work as a traveling photographer, going to beauty salons and photographing the customers after their hair was done. That job evaporated due to the rising cost of fuel.  By then Uncle Bud had asked me to “relocate,” so soon I was living in an efficiency apartment in a boarding house for $10.00 a week.  It wasn’t long before I was unable to pay that rent or even eat healthy meals.

It Had Never Occurred to Me to Ask God for Help

Though I was raised in the church, it was no longer a part of my life. I sometimes thought of my self as an atheist, or at least as an agnostic.  I felt ashamed for having gotten myself into such a state of poverty and distress, and I refused to ask my parents for help, or even let them know how bad off I was.  The fact is, I had been a self-serving person for years.  I didn’t care what God wanted for me, and I was not going to allow God to influence how I lived.

I will tell you in another post of how God rescued me from that situation. But suffice it to say for now that I finally reached the point of such desperation that I cried out to God, and God heard me and brought me out of fear, poverty and distress.

The Widow Has Her Priorities Right

In this blog post I want us to consider the account of Jesus and his followers observing a poor widow in the temple who gave all she had to God.  Jesus says it was “all she had to live on.” Probably money managers of today would call her foolish; but Jesus considered her to be blessed.

Your church – wherever you attend - does not want all that you have to live on, but each of us who is a part of a church family should contribute their fair share.  It isn’t about how much one gives (the widow gave only two small coins), but rather it is about giving as much as one should.  So what is one’s “fair share”?  The simplest answer would be to say 10%.  Indeed if everyone gave 10% of their income, the church would collect funds far in excess of our budget!  And it would be fair to all, since all would give equally of their income. But, I know that if you have never been a tither before then the thought of giving ten percent seems incredible.

The more realistic proposal for how to give your “fair share” is to suggest that we each give a percentage portion of your income; if not 10%, then perhaps 7% or 5% or even 4%. God will bless any committed effort to consistently give to God’s work.  I would also encourage any of us who are giving according to a plan to give a bit more than you think you can afford.  I truly believe that anyone who does will be amazed at how God will bless their sincere effort to give their fair share.

After God rescued me from the brink of disaster in Cincinnati, how could I not give back? I know that some preach the idea of “giving to get” (give God money so you can receive blessings), but I am not one of those. Oh, I do believe that God blesses us when we bless others; but that is the natural result of generosity, and should not be the goal of the giver. I prefer to say we should give because we have truly been blessed. I believe with all my heart that if you will step out in faith and make a percentage pledge to your church, you will be able, by the grace of God, to give more than you ever imagined, and thus bless the church and the God who has blessed you time and time again.

Dear Lord, you gave your all for us. You did not hold back in any way. We are grateful for your sacrificial love and grace. We pray that you will meet the needs of our churches and members in the coming year, and that we will be enabled to step out in faith and trust you as we give and live in 2011. Please guide us by your Holy Spirit to give to others who are in need as well.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Why I Am Changing the Name of This Blog

This is my first blog, which I started a little over a week ago, on October 22^, 2010.  I had trouble deciding on a name for the blog, and chose “ArtWorXReflexions” because the name of my painting studio is Jim Harris ArtWorX Studio, and because this blog is intended to be a sort of spiritual journal.  The spiritual life is to be lived in reflection, that is it should reflect our faith, and how that faith influences and interacts with all of our life.  The spiritual life should also include time spent reflecting on our walk and relationship with God.

This is especially a blog about my life as an painter who uses the stained-glass effect as his motif.  The stained glass windows of the great Gothic cathedrals have historically been related to the telling of stories from the Bible.  It was developed during the dark ages, when many people were illiterate.  By studying the windows the believers could learn the stories, and gain an understanding of their meaning.  The stained glass windows of the middle ages articulated (made clear) those stories and their meaning.

That is the hope for my art, my sermons and my writing, that I may clearly articulate my faith and it’s role in my life. Thus my new name for this blog will be:  ARTiculate.