You have George to thank!

 

Anyone who has traversed a golf course from hacker to pro. Anyone who has stood in a tee box to drive the ball toward the green. You have George to thank! Who was George? He was the inventor of the wooden golf tee.

George Franklin Grant (1846-1910) was an accomplished individual. His dad, Tudor Grant, was a runaway slave who became an active abolitionist. “Having experienced the evils of slavery firsthand, he became an ardent abolitionist, smuggling slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad across Lake Ontario to Canada.” His dad’s spirit of independence and determination found its way into George’s life fabric.

George became the second African American graduate of Harvard Dental School. He was the first African-American faculty member of Harvard University. “He was a pioneering dentist, teacher, and inventor.” He was the inventor of dental prosthetics, especially as they related to patients living with cleft palate.

It was US patent No. 638,920 that has had the most wide range impact. This was the first patent for a wooden golf tee. Turns out George, along with all his other interests, was an avid golfer. “One aspect of the golf game frustrated him, however. He was unhappy with the imprecise, messy, and unsanitary process of teeing up the ball, which required pinching moist sand to fashion a coned-shaped tee.” So what did he do? He searched for a better method!

The impetus for the golf tee can be informative for all of us. When we come across something that frustrates us and impacts something we enjoy, we can do something about it. The something may not be an invention, but it can be an action.

Most would rather complain than act. Many would prefer to criticize rather then act. There is a tendency to bemoan, gripe, point to flaws, and place blame. Instead you need to find a better way.

George could have quit the game he loved tired of the current means of fashioning a tee. He decided to look at it differently and find a solution. A solution that benefited him and golfers for generations.

Next time you’re out on the golf course thank George. And the next time you find something not to your liking, think George…do something about it.

MONDAY QUOTES: The Einstein Rule

A NEW feature of Trustworthy Sayings begins today.  

Each Monday will feature MONDAY QUOTE.  I hope you will enjoy this    new feature and find it helpful as a resource.  

What about you?

What are you favorite Christian quotes?

COMMENT BELOW…….

RESURECTION SUNDAY April 4, 2021

 

 by Scott Stoner

Let anyone with ears listen! —Matthew 13:9

The sounds of spring in the Northern Hemisphere are unmistakable. Birds singing, rain showers, the wind in the trees, and the sound of gurgling creeks, all announce the resurgence of life all around us.

 

The sounds of Easter are unmistakable too. Some of my favorite sounds of Easter include trumpets, bells, organ music, choir descants, children shrieking as they hunt for eggs, and loud acclamations that Christ is risen.

 

All around us, God is speaking to us of resurrection. The question, one that we have been reflecting on in our journey through Lent this year is, “Are we listening?” We have learned that one of the greatest gifts that we can give to one another is the gift of listening. We have learned that much of what passes for listening is not authentic listening, but instead superficial, almost a pretend kind of hearing, and that deep, authentic listening requires intentionality.

 

Today we are reminded of the gift of resurrection that God has promised us. The gift that we can give back to God is to truly listen to the story of Jesus’ resurrection with the ears of our hearts.

 

Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, while not usually associated with the celebration of Easter, is a profound description of what happens when we are open to listening to God. With the guidance of our guest writers, this Lent has been devoted to removing the rocks and thorns in our hearts, souls, and minds that make it hard for us to truly listen to God and to one another. I invite you now to listen to this parable as a parable for what can happen when we genuinely listen to the good news of Easter in our lives.

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!             —Matthew 13:1-9

My hope and prayer for all of us today is that through listening to the story of Easter anew, God will bring forth a harvest of resurrection in our lives and in the lives of those whom God calls us to love and serve.

 

 

Living Well Through Lent 2021

Copyright ©2021 Scott Stoner.

All rights reserved.

Holy Saturday April 3, 2021

 

Hear the Cicadas

by Martha Bourlakas

 Holy Saturday sounds quiet. Yesterday, we heard the loud anguish of chaos: yelling, crying, pleading, nailing, wailing. Today is different. We are heartbroken, left holding the dead body of our beloved Jesus Christ, and we hear a significant shift in tone. Peaceful phrases form the narrative: clean linen, new tomb, myrrh and aloes, in the garden. We know what’s going to happen with Jesus, and ourselves, because we have read over and over what comes next, but we have to pay attention and hear this moment. On this Holy Saturday, we are all cried out, no tears left, but we are not yet in the Resurrection. We are still at the tomb. Quiet, in shock, not yet flowering the cross, not yet counting the eggs in our baskets, not yet eating our hot-crossed buns. It is in this quiet we become prepared for the glorious new life to come.

 

When I was growing up, our family would visit a graveyard on our yearly beach vacations. My parents loved the deep shade of the Spanish Moss and the history the tombstones taught. I saw it as needless time away from the sand and the ocean, but I was a kid, so I went along. Sweating and swatting mosquitoes, I read the dates of the babies and children and felt the childhood fear, I hope nothing happens to me. Then I would quickly move on, so as not to feel sadness too long. Nodding my head, Yes, I get the history here, but wondering, How soon can we leave? I’m ready to play and have fun again. Ten-year-old reflections of deeper human questions: How do we regard death? How do we laugh and celebrate after someone we love dies? How did my relationship with someone I loved affect the person I am?

 

As people of Jesus Christ, we must take this brief, suspended moment under the graveyard oak trees to reflect on the person we watched die on the cross. If we move too quickly to the celebration of Resurrection, we might miss, in all the noise, the space for the important tombstone questions:

 Do I know, as much as possible, the person Jesus was?

How will the life of Jesus make a difference in my life going forward?

 How will I show the love of Jesus in my other relationships?

How will I live into the hope of rebirth?

 

By taking the time to sit with death, to look into the tomb, we find it is not as scary as we once thought. We learn from what was, and carry that knowledge into the salty ocean of our futures. Listen, and you will hear the cicadas sing songs of courage and hope.

 

 

Living Well Through Lent 2021

Copyright ©2021 Scott Stoner.

All rights reserved.

Are you finding this Lenten Devotional Series helpful?

Please COMMENT to allow me to evaluate my reactions to my blog.

Should I continue this blog I have felt to re-establish or should I discontinue?

I have already decided to continue through the Month of May 2020

 to follow the Lenten Season. 

Pilate: The career politician.

 

Oh, poor Pilate. The career politician. A second tier Governor serving in the region he despised. A blip on the radar screen at the apex of history yet infamous for reluctantly ordering the greatest injustice of all time.

Pilate could stomach life at his Palace on the Mediterranean Coast, but the Passover annually brought him to the crowded, noisy city of Jerusalem. He had to be ready to quell any unrest the rowdies might stir up. Pilate had goofed up one too many times and was now on Rome’s probation list.

A knock at his door came exceedingly early Friday morning. Knock, knock, knock. A delegation of Jews wanted him to sign off on an execution. Pilate wanted to wash his hands of the matter but remembered he was in that catch-22 situation. His job was on the line.

Pilate asks Jesus, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” The implication was, “Is this a joke?” A bloody peasant. No army. No Kingly clothes. He could tell this was no insurrectionist. Three times Pilate declared Jesus innocent. This guy Jesus should not be on anyone’s Most Wanted List.

Pilate asks Jesus another question, “What is truth?” The Roman world was much like our post-modern world... Truthless. There was no such thing as Truth with a capital T. It was simply, you got your truth, and I got my truth. Truth was, and still is, up for grabs. Pilate did not realize that TRUTH was standing 6 feet in front of him. Pilate did not understand TRUTH because he did not understand Jesus… who was the Way, the Truth and the Life, no man comes to the Father but through Him (John 14:6).

Pilate’s definition of truth that his beliefs automatically reflect reality is akin to the man who once told me “I don’t believe in hell” as though his belief changed the existence of hell. If I were to claim that “I don’t believe in Mexico,” does that change the existence of Mexico?

Pilate was forever the politician. He tried everything:
1. Dismissing the case.
2. Referring the case.
3. Amnesty
4. Reason with them.
5. Satisfy them with some blood.

Finally, Pilate puts his wet finger up in the air to see which way the wind was blowing. His conscience (and wife) told him to let Jesus go but political expediency won out. Eight of the saddest words in the Bible follow, “The voices of the crowd began to prevail.” Pilate caved. A perfectly innocent man was sentenced to death.

Interesting, at that exact moment, at the Temple, literally a stone’s throw away from Pilate’s front door, unblemished Passover lambs were being prepared for the slaughter. 

The old hymn says, “Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe; Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.” Hallelujah!!!!

Good Friday April 2, 2021

 

Complicity

 by Martha Bourlakas

Today is a horrifying day. It is impossible and un-Christian and inhuman to move past it without acknowledging and understanding what happened. Today, we are eye-witnesses to the murder of Jesus Christ, and we are complicit because we are the descendants of this human family. In Psalm 22, we hear a cry, a scream: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? Hearing someone else’s screams, pleading in agony, is painful, and causes us to turn our heads, cover our ears. We say, I wasn’t there! I never would have been part of the mob! I never would have watched while Jesus died on the cross! Can’t we just focus on the resurrection? The glorious resurrection will come, but we are not there yet. Today, we are at the scene of violence, despair, and death, and we must attend.

 

 Lynching—mob murder used to terrorize an entire race of people— occurred throughout the South and Midwest in the years of Reconstruction, following the Civil War. The Equal Justice Initiative, www. eji.org, has to date completed the most extensive research on lynching in America. EJI Director, author, and attorney Bryan Stevenson wrote, “We cannot heal the deep wounds inflicted during the era of racial terrorism until we tell the truth about it.” When we read about lynchings or see pictures, we turn our heads, avert our eyes. We say, I wasn’t there! I never would have been part of the mob! I never would have watched while a human being was lynched! But we did watch. From the Lynching in America report: “At these often-festive community gatherings, large crowds of whites watched and participated in the Black victims’ prolonged torture, mutilation, dismemberment, and burning at the stake.”

 

I pray my white, Southern ancestors were not eye-witnesses to murder. I pray their strong faith led them to speak out against such atrocities. But I don’t know. I pray we are evolving as humans, that our faith is helping us strive for justice and to respect the dignity of all human beings. But I witness our ongoing, entrenched racism. I know I have benefitted from that racism. I know my silence and passivity are part of my complicity. I looked away from the video of the murder of George Floyd. I averted my eyes, covered my ears.

 

 Thanks be to God, the mutilated body of Jesus Christ does not remain on the cross. We live and move toward justice through the Resurrection. Today, though, we must listen to the cries of Jesus, look straight into the eyes of evil and hatred, acknowledge our complicity, ask for forgiveness, and become better, Easter people. Let us pray we remember we are beloved descendants of one family of God, ancestors of all who will follow.

 

 

Living Well Through Lent 2021

Copyright ©2021 Scott Stoner.

All rights reserved.

Maundy Thursday April 1, 2021

 Feet-Grab

by Martha Bourlakas

 Jesus did not need to see us with cell phones to know how humans would behave in 2021. The Son of God knew from the get-go how easily distracted we are, how we procrastinate the hard work of loving in favor of busy-ness, how it can be easier to lose our eyes in a screen than to have an eye-to-eye conversation. He knew we need pointed actions and stories to make us listen and attend to the larger, urgent love narrative. In today’s Gospel, Jesus knows he does not have much time left, so he must synthesize his lessons. To teach his most critical commandment— Love one another as I have loved you—he gets intimate. He holds and cleans us where we are most dirty, most callused, most vulnerable: our feet.

 

During the pandemic quarantine, our family watched a lot of scary movies together. Our ritual—selecting the movie, popping the popcorn, digging up Junior Mints from the candy drawer, turning off the lights, lighting candles—seemed trivial at first, but then meaning appeared. The world outside our doors was suddenly so frightening and unpredictable that our grown children and their parents needed intense stories and characters to help us step away from reality, if only for two hours.

 

One of the horror movie tropes is the feet-grab. As soon as the protagonist is down on the floor, especially near a bed, under which scary demon-character hides, you know what’s coming … she is going to have her feet grabbed, and will be pulled rapidly into the void. No no, no, we scream, it’s your only chance! Get up, run away! As if we hadn’t experienced this plot point over and over, our family clung to each other. We squeezed each others’ arms, held hands, covered each others’ eyes, and laughed at our fears.

 

The movie feet-grab allowed us much-needed intimacy with each other, the only humans in our immediate worlds, the only people we weren’t seeing through screens. Our daughters, like so many, quickly forced away from their close friends and boyfriends by the pandemic, had lost human touch, and needed a safe way to cling. How critical touch and intimacy are to our psychological-emotional development. What a loss not to be able to touch and hold.

 

In this Maundy Thursday Gospel, Jesus knows the immediate future is going dark, that he is being pulled into a horrible human void. Jesus illustrates his urgent love lesson, stops us cold, by holding our feet. He does not focus on our bony bunions, but looks us in the eye and washes us in humility and love. Cling to each other, he says, for it is in the intimacy, the love, you will find your way out of the darkness.

 

 

Living Well Through Lent 2021

Copyright ©2021 Scott Stoner.

All rights reserved.