Have you ever seen a barge gliding down the Verdigris and Arkansas River Channel? That barge and its cargo could be headed to any port in the world. Located fifteen miles east of downtown Tulsa, the Port of Catoosa is the most inland seaport in all the United States. The McClellan-Kerr Arkansas Navigation System, all 445 miles of it, allows cargo to travel to the Mississippi River and on to the Port of New Orleans. Cargo can also go north on the Mississippi to St Louis, Minneapolis, Chicago and even on to Pittsburg. A single barge can carry the equivalent load of 60 semi-trailer trucks, or 15 railroad cars. The power to drive the barges is provided by tow boats.

Dorothy and I once attended the christening of a brand-new tow boat at the Port of Catoosa. The boat was named in honor of former Tulsa Mayor James M. Hewgley, Jr. We were invited to this event because Dorothy’s office was next door to Mayor Hewgley’s in the Philtower Building downtown. It was at the christening that I learned there was a difference between a tugboat and a towboat.

To me, tug and tow seemed to be interchangeable terms. As a kid, I always heard about tugboats guiding big ships and tow trucks pulling stuff, never about towboats. To me, pulling a boat in the water with ropes and chains seems very similar to towing a boat behind a truck. But in the practical world of navigation, these boats have different designs and different roles.  A tugboat has a pointed bow, works in harbors and open water, and pulls and pushes large ships to safely in a harbor.  A towboat has a flat bow, works in rivers, and pushes and guides barges from the back. A barge that is pushed is easier to control and guide through winding rivers than if it were pulled or tugged. Both kinds of boats have the same purpose—safe passage. Sometimes some of us need a push; others may need a pull. That is one more reason God provides the Holy Spirit—to help navigate us through the week.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Find safe passage. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

There were a few times that, as a youngster, I remember our family taking road trips, some by car and at least one by train. Road trips are sometimes like pilgrimages to revered sites almost sacred in meaning. They all begin with a destination in mind and may, or may not, end well. Dad and Mom loaded the car with suitcases and three kids in the backseat in the days before seat belts. We set off from Miami to Jacksonville, staying with relatives there. We were late for my cousin’s wedding, but we arrived in time for the reception at the Yacht Club. We were underdressed for the party, and I was disappointed that we were not allowed to drink the orange juice punch.

We headed north to the Smokey Mountains and learned the story of my mother’s family trip to the Smokey’s when, as a little girl, she walked over to pet the baby bear. The bear ripped the front of her dress and she was fortunate to survive without scars. We made it to Washington, D.C. to stay with my Aunt Clyde, whoever she was. She took us to the zoo where we witnessed, in horror, a sleepy grizzly bear leap straight up to catch and eat a hapless pigeon that had landed in the tree above. Along the way back we ran out of relatives and stayed at one of those little cabin-like motor inns. The room had a vibrating bed, if you could come up with the quarters. The three kids in the backseat were somehow always in trouble. Then, before we knew it, we were home. 

God’s call to Abraham set him on a family road trip to a land of promise—he obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. (Hebrews 11:8) Like Abraham’s, our life-long road trip is filled with unexpected twists and surprises, bickering and beauty, tragedy and grace. While some may choose to make their pilgrimage on their own, Christ gives us the church, a community of believers to share the journey. 

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Don’t pet the bears. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

I do not know when our church became a neighborhood voting precinct site. I know that the first presidential election in my time as pastor here was in 1976. Presidential elections draw large turnouts. We are preparing for the lines, providing more space for those with disabilities, and generally seeking to make the experience as comfortable as possible. Our neighbors are coming here to exercise the most far-reaching act of democracy the world has ever seen—casting their ballots freely, fairly, and privately. There have been additional statewide rules and procedures passed since last time, safeguarding the ballots from the time they are printed until handed to the voter. Additional protections follow the ballots from the ballot box at our church to the County Election Board. The entire voting process is staffed with trained citizens. Neighbors help neighbors, because voting matters.

From my perspective, this has been the most challenging election we have ever faced. I learned early in ministry not to publicly endorse any political candidate, not because my chosen candidate might lose, but because I have known many candidates to succumb to big money, criminality, and/or sexual corruption. I do not want to be found complicit by implication. I appreciate our people taking the political debates outside the ministries of our church. I have run for public office and have both won and lost. I am glad to talk personally and privately to anyone about my political views. I also have found most people really want to hear me say what they already believe, and not why I may look at things from a theological point of view.  What is most important for us as citizens is that we vote. The greater the number of people casting their vote provides a clearer understanding of where we go next as a nation or local community. It is very easy to become cynical, discouraged, and disengaged from the process. Because so many citizens do not vote, we may one day discover we no longer have constitutional rights or free and fair elections. Your voting matters. 

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Go vote. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

I love the season of Fall. I’m still waiting for it to start around here. I believe we may have had the first autumn breeze of the season today. Summer has hung around for much too long. I’m ready for some good sweater weather and our family fall foliage tour through the cemetery. Looks like we may have to wait a while longer to see the full range of colors on the trees. During this time of the year I long to see God’s ever-changing palette. A shaft of sunlight will suddenly illuminate a tree, and it seems to call me to a place of reverence and gratitude. It inspires me with awe and wonder. But it also means more change.

Dealing with change is work. It is time to get the furnace checked and the air filters changed. It’s time to clean out the unused or broken stuff. It is time for people of a certain age to figure out new medical plans. On November 3 we will have to change our clocks back again to where God had it in the first place.  Two days later, the election that decides whether America continues as a democracy or something else.  Then it is time to rake leaves and get ready for the holidays, happy or not.

The old saying, the only things that are certain in life are death and taxes, fails to mention change. Everything in life changes. Sometimes I have to remind myself of my own philosophy of transformational change: Embrace change, because change is embracing you. I am not always pleased about the way changes are embracing me.  To find insight into daily life, reality, and change, I suggest a quiet meditation time from the book of Ecclesiastes. Just a little heads up when reading Ecclesiastes, The Teacher, Solomon, is possibly having a mid-life crisis. He seems both depressed and hopeful at the same time. He is wrestling with questions on the meaning of life and his place in the world. Read chapters 3 and 5, then 11 and 12, for guidance on living a valued life before God and the world. Everything will change, but Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever. (See Hebrews 13:1-8)

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Behold the wonder of change. And let’s experience the love and power of God together. 

Share this webpage:

I have a memory of my sisters and me enjoying the light breeze out by the street in front of our house, gazing at the beautiful sky. We were surrounded, far out in the distance, by a great wall of dark and stormy clouds. We were standing in the eye of Hurricane Cleo. Soon the wind began to get stronger, and our father called us in. The eye of the hurricane is a deceptively beautiful place—sunny, quiet and peaceful. It is the calm place in the middle of the storm.

My family told the story of the time both sets of my mother’s grandparents witnessed the horrors of the Great Miami Hurricane. When it was over, more than one thousand people were declared dead or missing just in Miami. My great-grandmother told me of waist-high water in the streets and knee-high sand everywhere left behind. One very costly lesson learned that day in 1926 was about the eye of the hurricane. When the eye passed overhead, hundreds of people went outside thinking the storm was over. Recorded winds of 145 mph were swirling in the eye wall, the most dangerous part of the hurricane. Hundreds of people died when they could not take shelter fast enough as the destructive eye of the storm moved up through Florida.

We are recent witnesses to the vast destruction of Helene, from north Florida through Appalachia, and the heroic efforts of recovery that will be underway for months now, if not longer. As I write this, the massive hurricane Milton is targeting central and south Florida. Even hurricane-experienced survivors know better than to shelter in place for this one. Enjoy the calm places of your days; storms are always swirling nearby. My dad drilled bolts into the concrete blocks of the outside walls of our house when we moved in, so it would be easier to attach the plywood boards over the windows and some doors. We were always prepared as well as possible from whatever storm would come our way. We knew the story of Jesus, who calmed a fearful storm one day. Where is your calm place? How are you preparing for the swirling storms of life?  

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Peace, be still. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

Today, October 1, is former president Jimmy Carter’s 100^th birthday. A remarkable milestone for a remarkable man.  Following the death of his wife Rosalyn last November, Dorothy and I began discussing the time we attended a luncheon with the former president. We had each taken a picture with him using our little digital camera. We needed to get those pictures framed. Back in 2009 I was serving as the Moderator of the Cooperating Baptist Fellowship of Oklahoma. Jimmy Carter had launched an effort to help bridge the racial divide in our land starting with Baptist churches. He called it a New Baptist Covenant. An organizing meeting of all the various Baptist denominations and organizations in our state was formed to invite Mr. Carter to share his vision. The actual meeting included the most diverse representatives of Baptist leadership I have ever witnessed.

We gathered in the convention meeting hall of the Embassy Suites in Norman, Oklahoma, with hundreds of others for an evening of worship followed by smaller breakout sessions and discussions across August 7 that year. Dorothy and I were invited to a small luncheon beforehand  to hear his testimony of faith in the Lord and God’s people. Because the luncheon was limited to the steering committee, there were about 60 people present. Following his remarks, he invited us to come and meet him and have our pictures taken. There was no professional photographer, so we were on our own to take the pictures. We finally got those pictures matted and framed this spring. The back of the picture has a pocket for other pictures and materials from the event.

When the Carters left office in 1981, he was 56 years old. He told of their family discussions on how to best use the platform they had been given as a former president. They felt a call to be “missionaries” to the world, promoting peace, healing, and human rights. They developed the Carter Center, which is both a presidental library and a mission headquarters for their world-wide activities. He has shown us how to treat others and how to serve Jesus through his work with Habitat for Humanity well into his 90’s.  Now he is also showing us how to die with faith. Since 2015 he has been living with liver cancer, which metastasized to his brain, and since February 2023, in home hospice care.  Happy 100^th Birthday, President Carter.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Help change the world. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.  

Share this webpage:

Over the course of the past couple of weeks, a small RV town has formed on the north and west sides of the county fairgrounds. The Tulsa State Fair opens this week. About six weeks ago dump trucks loaded with dirt started unloading the massive amounts needed for the animal barns and temporary parking lots and staging areas. Bulldozers and shovels are valued tools these days. It has been a little quieter on the Yale Avenue side. Since company is coming, city crews have been repairing broken sidewalks and redoing the curbs and ramps along Yale between 11^th and 15^th streets. Trucks with trailers filled with large animals have been rumbling past the church headed for the fairgrounds, only to have to weave around the barriers on Yale. Carnival rides have been assembled and are still being tested and inspected, new signs have been added, and those RVs filled with people, supplies and merchandise have assembled, followed closely by the young Future Farmers and their prize-winning livestock. Corn Dog and Cotton Candy trailers are escorted down the streets like honored guests arriving at the ball. All that is left is for about a million people to show up, discovering along the way that it costs real money to go to the State Fair. Last year’s Tulsa Fair attendance was 1,075,000, by the way.

There is a widely held belief that 80 percent of every successful project is careful planning, 10% is in having a Plan B and Plan C, and the last 10% is found in the enjoyment of seeing it all come together. The unexpected will always happen—that is what makes it memorable.

I enjoy the Fair. I enjoy watching the people, eating the “food” and discovering the latest, greatest miracle-working gadget ever seen on the face of the earth. There is nothing quite like a state fair. But it would never happen at all without detailed preparations, hardworking people, and a common goal to hold the best fair ever. So when you see the 4H-ers with their creative robots and future technologies, the FFA-ers’  prize cow or pig, the blue-ribbon cakes or quilts, the hot tubs or the glasses cleaner, remember the effort and sacrifice that is behind it all. Any worthy endeavor takes preparation, commitment, and sacrifice. That includes your family, your church, and your daily life.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Prepare for the best. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

How well do you sleep each night? As a child I was taught the bedtime prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep.

I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

You may have prayed this prayer as a child. Apparently children have been praying this bedtime rhyme for a few centuries. As a youngster, the “if I should die” part of the prayer did not bother me as much as the keeping and taking of my soul. What is my soul? Where do I keep it? And why would the Lord want to take it somewhere? That was heavy theology to ponder before going to sleep at night. Later I assumed this prayer was probably born out of the anguish of high infant and child mortality during times of plagues and smallpox. One day I discovered the full version, based on a German poem from the 1600’s, has much more to say. It also could have been based on a sermon from Psalm 4.  Where we finished praying with, I pray the Lord my soul to take,  fuller versions continued with: If I should live for other days, I pray the Lord to guide my ways. Amen. Why didn’t we learn this part before we said, Amen! 

How well do you sleep at night? What are the things you think about as you drift off (or not) for the night? I read an article this week with the headline, Why Everyone Is Waking Up at 3 a.m. A quick search will reveal several widespread reports about the reasons many people wake up in the middle of the night, and the struggle to go back to sleep. It is a popular subject in the field of mental health these days. 

I have my share of wakeful nights. A couple of Bible verses help me at the end of a stressful day: Come to me, all who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:27) Cast all of your anxiety on Him, for He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7) Try letting God hold all your stress, fears, to-do’s, etc. as you go to sleep. You will find them soon enough in the morning.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Sleep well. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

This year we have been getting our backyard ready to attract more butterflies. Our beautiful old October Glory maple tree was showing the repeated years of storm damage. We had the tree specialists mend and thin out the broken sections year after year. But the damage had become too great. We were concerned the old tree might topple on our neighbors’ fences, or our house, with the next ferocious storm. Reluctantly, we had the tree removed this spring. It was time to rework the backyard with a little landscaping project. I have since learned there is no such thing as a little landscaping project.

We gathered some ideas and found a landscaper that was reasonable and affordable. I do not enjoy weeding flower beds, ever, so we had the bed along the back fence filled with rock. We added some Juniper trees, three lilacs and three rose bushes. At the far end we planted a Butterfly Tree (Chaste tree). It is somewhat like a crepe myrtle, yet softer and wider.  That one tree alone provides most of our backyard enjoyment. That and the roses, which have been continuously in bloom since late June. Pollinating bees, bugs and butterflies attract the best birds. All these little creatures and insects tend our part of the earth with professionalism and diligence. No pesticides are allowed in our backyard, for the monarchs are headed to my house, and yours also, in a couple of weeks.

The majestic monarchs are making their journey from Canada to winter in Mexico, a place they have never seen, yet long for. When the winter passes, they will send forth the next generation back to Canada. The journey is one of transformation from a sluggish caterpillar into an international traveling butterfly. If God does that for butterflies, imagine what is in store for us. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).

When I went out to inspect the roses and the trees today, the bees and bugs were faithfully working. The backyard is starting to settle in. The weeds seem easier to pull up. Creation is amazing. God is so good. 

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Tendyour garden. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

Share this webpage:

​As I headed to the car to leave the church this afternoon, a trio of puppies, maybe three months old, came prancing towards me, all “look at us, we are out on our own.” I did not know if they had escaped their yard or had been set loose to find a new home. I am not ready for a puppy, or three, at my house. Although it does remind me of this good word:

If you can start the day without caffeine, If you can get going without pep pills, If you can resist complaining and boring people with all your troubles, If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it, If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time, If you can overlook it when something goes wrong through no fault of yours and those you love take it out on you, If you can take criticism and blame without resentment, If you can ignore a friend’s limited education and never correct him, If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend, If you can face the world without lies and deceit, If you can conquer tension without medical help, If you can relax without liquor, If you can sleep without the aid of drugs, If you can say honestly that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion or politics, Then, my friends, you are almost as good as your dog.

It is simply amazing how attached we can become to our pets. We can simultaneously delight in their antics and clean up their messes with a frown. We love them in our laps or at our feet. We smile when they are happy and cry when they are in pain. Our grief is all too sharp when we lose one. I called my first dog Nickel because his mother’s name was Penny. Nicky listened to my troubles, chased mice and other critters and ran beside me when I rode my bike. I do not know if our pets will goto heaven when they die. I do know that the Bible indicates that heaven is filled with all manner of animals and creatures beyond our imaginations. If we can love our creatures so deeply, how much greater is God’s love towards us today? 

​Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Be as good as your dog. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

​  

Share this webpage: