Observations from behind the counter – Working Christmas

I work at a store that is open every day of the year. Which means, unless it falls on a regularly scheduled day off, I work every holiday. Thanksgiving and Christmas are especially busy. And Christmas Eve and Day, when almost everyone else is closed, is crazy. What follows are just a few observations about working on Christmas.

I confess, for some reason, I had a hard time this year getting into the Christmas spirit. And the week leading up to Christmas day was terrible. People were out all night long. The crowds and busyness and rush-rush just suck the spirit of the season right out of you. I can’t imagine working in a retail store or restaurant that is non-stop busy. I’m sure you have heard the saying, Working with the public wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the public. I will Amen that.

Saturday night, Christmas Eve, about 12:10 am. A woman is in the store on the phone, wandering around looking for something. Finally, she asks me, “Do you sell wine?” I tell her we do but I can’t sell it to her now. She asks why and I tell her it is after midnight. (In South Carolina you can buy beer 24 hours a day except between midnight Saturday night and 7 am Monday.) She murmurs, “South Carolina!” Then she comes to the register and once again mutters, “South Carolina! Why is everything closed on Christmas here?” (For the record, I’m glad nearly everyone closes on Christmas.) I tell her, “Everywhere I’ve lived as an adult, everybody always closes on Christmas. Where are you from?” “D.C.” And I gathered they aren’t so backward up there. But you know what, I’m pretty sure she got off for Christmas and would be mighty upset if she had to work Christmas Eve and Day. She just wants stuff available for her. Which led me to this conclusion:

People in America are more concerned about convenience than they are motivated by conviction.

Which ties in to another observation:

America is a consumer culture, not a contemplative one.

There was a mild uproar over some stores opening on Thanksgiving night for the Black Friday sales. Yet every store open was packed out. I had people wandering around Christmas night waiting for Wal-Mart to open back up at 5 am! Kohl’s (an area department store) ran a big TV ad announcing they were opening at 5 am on the 26th. And I bet there were people there at 5 am, too. If a store will open people will shop. Americans are consumer mad, they just have to get out and buy something. I had people all night just coming in to buy chips or soft drinks or candy or cigarettes or to get $5 worth of gas. Just to get out of the house and buy something. I told a police officer last night, “If every store in Rock Hill would close for 2 days, we would have riots!” In fact, I have finally figured out why there was such a mad rush West in early America – stores were not open long enough back East!

So many people live day to day, they could not plan ahead for two whole days. I’m sure of it. They get enough gas or beer or tobacco for right now. And plan to do the same thing tomorrow. I know, I see a lot of people every single day, getting the same thing each time. There are people who come in 2,3,4 times a night and buy one can of beer each time! I have a guy who comes in every week day morning and buys one 35¢ pack of gum. And he brings exactly 35¢ each time!

One of the biggest fears in America is to have “nothing to do.” People are so stimulated these days they don’t know what to do with themselves. Contemplate? I’ll tell what I’m thinking about, Where can I go? What can I do? and Who sells what I wanna buy? !!

What you said got me to thinking

I’m sure that has happened to you. I was following a family conversation on facebook and a reference was made to me. This conversation was a potential minefield so I stayed out of it. (Just in case any family member involved in that discussion should happen to read this, I am still staying out of it!) I commented just to keep the facts straight, but it got me thinking. There are those who would say that is a dangerous thing, but I did it anyway!

Perhaps you are wondering, “What was said that would make you think?” It was suggested that because we lived in a house provided by the church we can’t relate to people who struggle having enough money. My initial response was, “HA! Obviously, you don’t understand – the pastor in a parsonage is there because neither he nor the church has much money.”

But it got me to thinking about my life. And money. Right now, we have way more money than ever in either of our lives. I guess we both grew up middle class, but middle class in the 50s and 60s was a little different. I like to tease Mary because when she was young she got to go to a pool. I tell her, “You grew up rich. We were so poor we didn’t even know people with a pool!”

I don’t remember much before being 10 years old or so (a lot goes into that and I would write about it, only I don’t remember!). I do remember Hawai’i. There were 8 children and two parents. All living in a small three bedroom house. Our next door neighbors, the Gumapacs had 13 people living in a slightly larger house (and they had cousins in Honolulu, 18 of them living in two adjoining apartments). I shared a room with two brothers. But my sisters had it really rough: 4 girls and a baby in one room! I don’t know how my parents provided enough food for us with only my Dad working. We never went out to eat, probably in part because they had not yet invented all the fast food joints we have now. Our big night out was going to a Shakey’s Pizza Parlor. We could watch them make the pizza. I always got a pepperoni and green pepper pizza, even though I didn’t like green peppers. No one ever bothered to tell me I could order the pizza minus the peppers! We got most of our clothes from the Salvation Army, but so did a whole lot of other people. When I was in the 6th grade I was a Junior Police Officer (crossing guards). We had to wear khaki pants, which in those days was poor man’s clothes. Then they changed it to blue pants. Rather than buying me a new pair of pants my mother dyed my khakis blue. I took a lot of ribbing the next time I wore my “new” blue pants! When we got into high school we began to get store bought pants. And since most people had very little money school lunches were subsidized and only cost 25¢, and everyone had to spend a week working in the cafeteria. But we were happy. I knew there were some folk who had more than we did but it didn’t bother me – I could beat most of them up, I mean, most everybody was in the same condition we were. Beginning with my 9th grade year, my Dad wanted me to go to school in the next town. So he got a “District Exception.” What he didn’t get was a ride. This meant I had to find my own way from Kaneohe to Kailua, so I hitch-hiked to school. In those days I hitch-hiked everywhere. But it is true, we endured all this while living in Hawai’i!

My Dad died and after my junior year we had to move to Nashville. What culture shock! The first summer we lived with my Grandparents. Some of us slept in a travel trailer in their driveway. We must have moved up in the world because we rented a house then my Mother bought a house. January after I graduated (another long story) I went off to the University of Tennessee at Martin. I came home in the summer and went back that fall. While at school this time my Mother re-married and moved to California. So there I was, stuck in Martin, TN. In the midst of all this I had met Mary and we had begun to talk about marriage. Long story short, I dropped out of school and began working at a Sonic Drive In.

Then we were married. I was 20, she was 19. I was working at Sonic and she was still in nursing school. Like college students everywhere, we had no money. When she graduated we moved to Memphis so I could pursue my schooling at Mid-South Bible College while she got into nursing. When she got pregnant I had to go to work full time and school part time while she stayed home with our first daughter. Eventually I graduated and headed off to the ministry.

My first church, Pensacola, was very small. As was the salary. We were there for a couple of years and then moved to Macon. A bigger church but not by much. After 3 years we moved to York. This was a little bigger church and more financially stable. All three churches provided a parsonage. This was part of the older way of doing things. But we weren’t getting rich. The unspoken arrangement was, “We can’t offer you a lot of money but we can offer a house for you and your family.” But you know what, I wasn’t in the ministry for the money. Oh, I know all about how a lot of pastors are doing quite well, thank you very much. We just wanted to serve the Lord. We ate. We all wore clothes. We were happy. As little as we had, our children had way more than I had growing up. My Dad had something he called the “Weak Week” box. If you were too weak to pick up a toy then it was put in the box for a week. Oh how that killed us because we didn’t have many toys. I tried that with my girls. They wouldn’t put something away and into the box it went. A month later we discovered it was still there! They had so many toys they never missed it. The “weak week” box didn’t last long at my house.

I’m sure we could have used and would have enjoyed more money when I was growing up and when we were raising our girls. But we were happy. It is true that at one point Mary went back to work part time as a nurse and we used that money for vacations and extras. And since we had made a commitment to being home with our children, I stayed home with the girls when she would work. Now we have more money than ever. Of course, the children are all grown and gone. Most of them far away! Of course with more money comes more taxes, ugh!

But let me stress again, this is not a thinly veiled response to that facebook conversation I alluded to. Everybody has to make their own choices and live with the consequences. It just got me thinking about our lives. We didn’t have a lot when we were raising our girls and even less when we were young. But we had enough. I have never been that interested in having a lot of money, anyway. Good thing, huh? ’cause we never did. Until now, or so the tax man sayeth!

Another favorite carol

My last post was “One of my favorite Christmas Carols”  about an old and obscure song that I had introduced to the church. The carol? "A Great and Mighty Wonder." And I said it was one of my all-time favorites. And that got me to thinking about another song I introduced that became one of my favorites – “From Heaven Above To Earth I Come.” It was written by Martin Luther for his son Hans in 1540. Luther, who loved Christmas, entitled it Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her. Since most of us don’t know German, it was translated into English by Catherine Winkworth in 1855. (If you know and like hymns, especially older hymns, then you are familiar with Winkworth as well as J.M. Neale.) We sang this to the tune, Sagina (And Can It Be That I Should Gain – a hymn I believe every Christian knows by heart!) I hope I am remembering this right, but I think I remember the praise team singing the first two stanzas and then the congregation joined in on the third stanza. If not, that is how I always wanted to do it! Another great carol!

From Heaven Above To Earth I Come

ANGEL
From Heaven above to earth I come
To bear good news to every home;
Glad tidings of great joy I bring
Whereof I now will say and sing:
To you this night is born a child
Of Mary, chosen mother mild;
This little child, of lowly birth,
Shall be the joy of all your earth.

"This is the Christ, our God and Lord,
Who in all need shall aid afford;
He will Himself your Savior be,
Himself from sin will make you free.
He brings those blessings, long ago
Prepared by God for all below;
Henceforth His kingdom open stands
Open to people in all lands.

CONGREGATION
Now let us all with gladsome cheer
Follow the shepherds, and draw near
To see what God for us has done
In sending us His glorious Son.
Give heed, my heart, lift up thine eyes!
Who is it in yon manger lies?
Who is this lovely baby boy?
’Tis Jesus Christ our only joy.

Welcome to earth, Thou noble guest,
Through whom e'en wicked men are blest!
In mercy come to our distress,
How can we thank thy gentleness?
Ah, Lord, who didst all things create,
How cam’st Thou to this estate,
To make the hay and straw thy bed
Whereon the ox and ass are fed?

And thus, dear Lord, it pleaseth Thee
To make this truth quite plain to me,
That all the world's wealth, honor, might,
Are naught and worthless in Thy sight.
Ah! dearest Jesus, Holy Child,
Make Thee a bed, soft, undefiled,
Within my heart, that it may be
A quiet chamber kept for Thee.

My heart for very joy doth leap,
My lips no more can silence keep;
I too must sing with joyful tongue
That sweetest ancient cradle-song—
Glory to God in highest Heaven,
Who unto man His Son hath given!
While angels sing with pious mirth
A glad new year to all the earth

One of my favorite Christmas Carols

We went to church this morning and sang Christmas Carols. That was nice. And how those brethren sang! As we sang, I remembered that I regularly introduced a new Christmas Carol every year. Usually some really old obscure song that I had discovered. You see, I had learned that old Christmas songs had really great words, and if we could learn them they would be brand new songs to us.

One of my all-time favorites is "A Great and Mighty Wonder." This was written in the 7th century by St. Germanus and the original title was μεγα και παραδοξον Θαυμα. It had been translated into English by John Mason Neale (who translated a lot of ancient songs). All of this was in its favor. All we had to do was learn the tune. The hymnbook had put it to Ellacombe (The Day of Resurrection, another old hymn also translated by J.M. Neale!), which is a bright tune and easy to learn. So we learned it and sang it every Advent season thereafter.

I love this carol and am enjoying singing it again. I hope you can join me. If you don’t know it or have forgotten how it goes, just grab a hymnbook and look up the tune Ellacombe. I mean, everybody has like 10 different hymnbooks lying around, right? OK, so maybe collecting hymnbooks is one of my eccentricities! But you can also go here for the sheet music.

A great and mighty wonder.
A full and holy cure:
The Virgin bears the Infant
With virgin honor pure!

Repeat the hymn again:
Repeat the hymn again:
"To God on high be glory
And peace on earth to men!"

The Word becomes incarnate
And yet remains on high,
And cherubim sing anthems
To shepherds from the sky.

While thus they sing your Monarch,
Those bright angelic bands,
Rejoice, ye vales and mountains,
Ye oceans, clap your hands.

Since all He comes to ransom.
By all be He adored,
The Infant born in Bethlehem,
The Savior and the Lord.
__________________________
"A Great and Mighty Wonder"
μεγα και παραδοξον Θαυμα
St. Germanus, 634-734
Translated by John M. Neale, 1818-1866

My daughter knows Uzbeks or, We were a “cutting edge” church

In a recent Facebook post, my daughter, who is living and working in South Korea, casually mentioned that there were Uzbeks at a restaurant she was at. I was shocked and asked her, There are Uzbeks in Gimahe, South Korea? She said there were quite a few.

OK, you may be wondering, What are Uzbeks? And, What does this have to do with the church you used to pastor being cutting edge? Fair enough. Uzbeks are the people from Uzbekistan. What? You’ve never heard of Uzbekistan? All this got me to thinking about being an innovative church and I immediately thought of three ways that we were on the cutting edge.

Contemporary Worship. We were by no means the first church to ever use contemporary music etc. We may well have been the first in York. But that wasn’t our goal, we just wanted to encourage people to worship the Lord - so, we went contemporary and casual before it was the cool thing to do. But we messed it up by insisting on having Scripture reading and prayer time in our services! This has obviously become popular and “in.”

But, being true to myself, I also latched on to two other “cutting edge” practices that have not as yet gained wide spread approval.

Praying Through the Window. For years I had been using Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World in my private devotions. And they began to talk about the 10/40 Window (“The 10/40 Window is located from 10 degrees south to 40 degrees north of the equator. There are 69 nations across northern Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia in the 10/40 Window. Nearly 4 billion people live here, including 90 percent of the world's poorest of the poor. It is estimated that 1.6 billion of these people have never had the chance to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ - not even once! The seat of every major non-Christian religion - Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Animism, Atheism, and Sikhism - is headquartered in the 10/40 Window. Two-thirds of the world’s population (4 billion) live in the 68 nations of the 10/40 Window” click here for more info ). I believe we began participating from the beginning. Window International Network provides a 31 day calendar with information about and prayer points for each nation and people group in the window. We made calendars available for personal use and then prayed as a church during these 31 days. Since Uzbekistan is in the window we prayed for them.

Ramadan. As a church we observed Ramadan. Not really. But we did participate in 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World.  And these 30 days always took place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. This grew out of Praying Through The Window and I’m sure that is how we heard of this. And since Uzbekistan is 96% Muslim, we prayed for them then too. So we prayed for Uzbekistan at least twice a year.

I know they are out there, but I have never known another church that participated in Praying Through the Window or 30 Days of Prayer. (We also took part in the Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. I knew of one other pastor who did as well). That has got to be the definition of cutting edge – being out in front of everybody else! Although honestly, that was not why we participated. We were part of the Christian & Missionary Alliance and our motto was Pray · Give · Go. So we were praying for the unreached of the world.

Anyway, I thought it was cool that my daughter had met Uzbeks in Korea, even though they were in her words, “super drunk.” And it got me to thinking about Uzbekistan and how I knew of it and I realized, "We were cutting edge." Just not in a cool way! My hope is: that it was truly a good work; and if it was a good work, in the promise, For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name; and most of all, that our prayers were in some way effective and that there will be Uzbeks in that day singing with me:

I’m redeemed, I’m redeemed,
Jesus saves me and keeps me just now, Hallelujah!
And I join with the throng round the throne
In the song, I’m redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.