Writings
While we still, as of this moment, have two open positions on our program staff, absolutely no one has come to Gary Morris or myself suggesting that we interview Jeremiah. Jeremiah wouldn’t fit here. For the fact of the matter is, Jeremiah never fit anywhere. Not in his time…. which was 600 years before the birth of Jesus. Not in his place….which was the kingdom of Judah (roughly half of present-day Israel).
Every small town should have an industry by which it is known. My town (when I am not here) is Elk Rapids. The industry by which my town is known is the mustard industry. That’s right, mustard. Plain old ordinary mustard. I suppose you could say that Elk Rapids is the mustard capital of Michigan. But who cares? Or who knows? I think the town fathers need to do a better job marketing our industry. We should have a Mustard Festival. My daughter, Julie, could be “Mustard Queen.” She could sit on top of a float shaped like a giant hot dog. She could wear a yellow dress.
Have you ever noticed that some things taste better the second day? Which is why God, in an act of infinite wisdom, created leftovers….or allowed us to do so. Picture the holiday meals of your childhood. There you are, at grandmother’s house. Everybody has eaten their fill. Now everyone is being loaded up with leftovers to take home. In days to come, there will be turkey and gravy, turkey sandwiches and turkey hash. And if you had a grandmother who cooked like mine, there will be dressing, vegetables and a whole lot of other things as well.
It was, as I remember it, the winter of’64….which slid, ever so slowly, into the spring of ’65. I was in New Haven, Connecticut, finishing my final year in Yale Divinity School. I was also a Methodist waiting for an appointment. My first appointment. Not that I was alone in my anxiety. Even though Yale was intentionally inter-denominational, there were a couple of other Methodists on the floor….Jim Bortell of Illinois and Ivan Burnett of Mississippi. Which explains why most nights, along about ten o’clock, we would go to the refrigerator in the basement, dish ourselves some ice cream, and spend the next half hour speculating on where we would be appointed (and what it would be like, once we got there)...
