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.

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. 

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.

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.  

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.