Dad’s Old Paint Bucket

Not long ago my mom began asking my brother and sister and me about what we would want from among their belongings. Being somewhat sentimental, I could have said “anything and everything.” Instead, I told them of one thing I wanted; Something, I am sure, no one else would have desired. If there would be an estate sale it would be one of those items still hanging around when everything was reduced 75%,and even then would probably only be taken as a container to carry other dusty treasures.

My dad’s old Paint Bucket has always been a fixture wherever his tools were kept. I don’t know when he first took possession of the Bucket. It may have been a gift from his dad. Perhaps he had bought it at a hardware store in West End from the money he made while working at the Godwin Radio Company.  I don’t know. What I do know is that this Bucket was his before he married my mom, his bride of 53+ years.

Dad was a printer, not a painter. Painting, however, seemed to follow him wherever we lived and wherever he went. Therefore, this old Paint Bucket has the colors and stains of my life growing up as the son of Jack and Bonnie Bruce.  My dad wasn’t a professional painter. He was a do-it-yourself and do-it-for others painter—after hours or on weekends and days off.

The Paint Bucket is now layered with coats and drips of paint accumulated over 60 years. That Paint Bucket once held the paint that covered the hallways, living room and bedrooms of the little pink-bricked house that sat along Scenic View Drive above Eastwood Mall in Birmingham. I’m sure the gray paint of the front porch, where mom once killed a black snake with my toy hoe, also once filled the bottom of that Bucket.

When we moved to Belview Heights in Ensley, the Bucket went with us. Dad painted the white sculptured walls of the living room and den where mom entertained so many. Dad put the Bucket into action when he

On the Doorstep of Glory

Over the past week a hymn I have not heard or sung in decades kept popping into my mind. It’s a hymn written by Charles H. Gabriel in 1900 titled Oh, That Will Be Glory.

Dad leading music at a camp

I believe I know why the song has come back to me. When I was a child, and for years into my adulthood, my dad was the music director in our church. Every Sunday, and at every other special service, he would stand before our church and ask us to take the hymnal from the pew and then he would wave his hands to the beat of the hymn and lead us in singing. I can still hear his tenor voice in front of that microphone in the pulpit, loudly exhorting us to sing—which we did.

Out of all the songs my dad led us in singing, this is the one that has been implanted back into my memory the last few days.  It began this past weekend as I sat by him in the den of my parents’ home where my dad’s favorite chair has now been replaced with a hospital bed. Parkinson’s is quietly wielding its last fatal blows. We are grateful for prayers, family and friends visiting, care-givers, and now, Hospice. However, the greatest comfort comes in the truth of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ as proclaimed in God’s Word and echoed via the songs of our faith.

A song that was once so enthusiastically sung in anticipation of the future is now a proclamation of an imminent reality for my dad. On this Good Friday as we remember the cost of our salvation, we can also relish the prize of the cross. A prize my dad is about to experience.

 Oh, That Will Be Glory

When all my labors and trials are o’er,
And I am safe on that beautiful shore,
Just to be near the dear Lord I adore,
Will through the ages be glory for me.

 Refrain:

Oh, that will be glory for me,
Glory for me, glory for me,
When by His grace I shall look on His face,
That will be glory, be glory for me.

When, by the gift of His infinite grace,
I am accorded in heaven a place,
Just to be there and to look on His face,
Will through the ages be glory for me.

Friends will be there I have loved long ago;
Joy like a river around me will flow;
Yet just a smile from my Savior, I know,
Will through the ages be glory for me.

______________________

NOTE: I wrote this on Thursday and scheduled it to be posted on Friday morning. I didn’t know that before the sun would set on Thursday Daddy would be experiencing “glory.”   “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:8 (I will share more about my dad in my next post.)

What Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Would Like About the Atlanta Falcons

I would much rather be spending my day off for the MLK holiday writing about the victorious Atlanta Falcons going to the Super Bowl. Yet, some guy in San Francisco gets the honor of praising his 49ers. We here in Atlanta have succumbed to another post season loss; our hopes of being in the Big Game now gone with the wind. It hurts. Yet, thankfully, football wasn’t the only momentous happening taking place in the Georgia Dome yesterday.

As the nation remembers Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this weekend, we do have hope. Not of football, but of his Dream. If we could have brought Dr. King back and taken him to only one place with the hopes of showing him the realization of his Dream, the best seat just might have been in the Georgia Dome for the NFL’s NFC Championship Game.  Today, almost 40 years after Dr. King gave one of the most noted speeches of the 20^th century, there are aspects of the dream being exhibited—and the Falcons Game Day provides one of the best displays.

The Atlanta Falcons were the host team; Atlanta the host city. As the nation’s NFL football fans tuned into to watch the NFC Championship Game, something special was taking place among the 72,000 gathered in the south’s largest city. It wasn’t the record-breaking volume produced by enthusiastic fans. It wasn’t that this was the biggest home game the Falcons had ever played. It wasn’t a 

Momma’s Christmas Stuff

It was the day after Thanksgiving. While many were out Black Friday shopping, I was making multiple trips up the ladder and into the attic to retrieve boxes of Christmas decorations. With my parents’ health in decline, my mom had been displaying fewer decorations each Christmas. This Christmas, she decided to share her Christmas treasures with the family. So, into their attic I went.

These, and many like them, encased lights and were strung around our Christmas trees.

My job was to retrieve boxes of Christmas decorations which had been collected over the past seven decades. Each trip back from the attic ended with me unpacking a box and displaying the contents on the dining room table. When the table was filled, I set up a folding table for the overflow. Filling it, I brought in another table. By the time I was finished there were three tables loaded with figurines, plastic holly, ornaments and candles. Wax carolers stood poised in attention. Electric log candles were ready to be plugged into an outlet. Snowmen were braving the warm 72 degrees in the house.  Painted pinecones had lost their scent, but not their silver, red and green spray paint. The little old red felt reindeer was propped against an empty manger.  Serving plates that each Christmas had offered peanut-butter fudge, fruitcake, and fingerlings, now sat empty among angels, Santa Clauses, snow bunnies, glistening red apples, Christmas tree salt & pepper shakers and a lime-green Mr. Grinch. Christmas dishes, wreaths and red bows took their place under the tables. Decades of Christmas memories, randomly displayed in a room of clutter. It was beautiful.

About half-way through the process my mom entered the room. This was when the task became an unforgettable moment.

Tips for Running a Marathon in a Hurricane

When I was one of the fortunate ones this past spring to register for the 37^th running of the Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) in Washington DC, I envisioned several challenges to making it through 26.2 miles—battling a hurricane was not one of them.

I didn’t think DC would be hit with a heat wave like the one that stopped the Chicago Marathon in 2007. However, ever since I registered for the MCM I have wondered if it would be cold on race day. After all, the northeast can get chilly by the end of October. If so, I would be ready. I already conquered cold this past February in, of all places, Birmingham, Alabama when I ran the Mercedes Marathon with a race-start temperature of 22 degrees. By the time I arrived at the first water station, there were chunks of ice in my water. By the second station, where I could have benefited from ice skates in order to keep moving, I had to crush the paper cup to break the ice before I could drink. At the next station is where I discovered that Powerade makes great slushies. I even saw a runner with icicles in her pony tail. So, I’m ready for cold—but a hurricane?

This past weekend I checked the race-day weather report for DC and was pleased to see a perfect forecast for running—lows only in the upper 40s and highs in the 70s, with some clouds. Perfect. But perfect didn’t last long. This was before Hurricane Sandy decided to make a trek up the east coast. Now the race-day forecast calls for a 90% chance of rain and wind speeds of about 24 MPH. Great!

I’m altering my drive up from Atlanta for the race. Instead of heading up the east coast on I95, I will now head up to someplace like Minnesota and drive in from the west. Hopefully, this way I will miss the rain and resulting freeway pileups in the Carolinas and Richmond. Yet, the greatest alteration is going to be how I prepare for running in a hurricane.

Guts, Politics, Health Care and CHANGE

Regardless of who wins the elections in November one thing is for sure, health care in America will never be the same.  And this is a good thing.

Even if the White House welcomes new residents or the balance in power tips in favor of the Republican Party, health care will never go back to where it was 2 years ago. Never. Thankfully, never.

This is not a discourse on who should be elected in November. It’s not a debate on other political issues such as the fight against terrorism, the war in Afghanistan, gay marriage, unemployment, job creation, Benghazi, abortion or Big Labor and the NLRB. While health care reform is intertwined with many of these issues, health care reform stands primarily in its own political silo. My thoughts recorded here speak to one issue—health care in America has changed.

Health Care in America has Changed

For decades there has been talk—simply talk—of needed changes in our American health care. Finally, change has come. Finally, someone had the fortitude to put something on the table. I may have my gripes with some political positions of President Obama, but one thing cannot be denied—he put health care on the table and has forced our nation’s leaders to wrestle with it. Finally, someone has spoken with authority for the millions without adequate access to reasonable health care.

Without any doubt, the changes are not perfect. I doubt there is anyone, on either side of the aisle, who would voice 100% agreement with all that comes with health care reform. Even as health care reform was voted into law, proponents were not satisfied with it. Yet,

Faith as Therapy?

Why would I as an evangelical Christian who professes the uniqueness of Christ agree with Dan Buettner when he writes, “It doesn’t matter if you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or Hindi.”

For those who know me, hearing that I concur with a statement such as this would be shocking. Some would think I had lost my faith. Yet, I do agree with Buettner on this statement because of the context in which he writes it.

Dan Buettner is the author of The Blue Zones, a New York Times Bestseller. The Blue Zones is a book providing “lessons for living longer from the people who’ve lived the longest.” The research is conducted among four groups of the people who have a significantly higher percentage of inhabitants living to be centenarians, (100 years of age or older). The four Blue Zone communities are found in the Barbagia region of Sardinia in Italy, Okinawa in Japan,