MacMike

Anyone Can Sing

As a long-time choir director, I've been saying for years that everyone can learn to sing. That is despite the fact that in my first choir, at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Columbia, AL, there was a "bass" that never hit the right note. He threw his head back and "sang" at the top of his lungs and no amount of coaching seemed to help him. Alas, this article states that I am wrong. A certain percentage of the population really CAN'T sing. They basically fall into three categories: People who know they can't sing, people who think they can sing and dudes in emo bands ...

Lilly Grace

Welcome to our world, Lilly Grace! We've been waiting for you with great anticipation. You have the most awesome big brother and the greatest parents! Oh, and your grandparents couldn't be prouder.

Lilly "graced" us with her presence, February 24, 2008. She weighed 7 lbs and was 21" long.

Check out her photo album!

Marshall, NC

Early on in my "new" career, I had to leave the office one day to take some pictures of comps. On the way out the door I was grumbling to myself about "wasting time." Now understand, in my present life, I only get paid when I produce an appraisal. To produce one, I need to be sitting at the computer compiling data and writing a report that is usually over a hundred pages long. Stepping outside the office means I'm not producing that report and not making any money. BUT, I wasn't very far into my journey when I was reminded about one of the perks of the job to which I was attracted. DRIVING AROUND IN THE MOUNTAINS TAKING PICTURES! What could be better? AND, of course, it is just as necessary to take those pictures as it is to be sitting at the keyboard.

Today was one of those days. Finding comps for my present assignment has been especially challenging. My subject is in Mars Hill, NC. I DID manage to dig up one comp there. But today I had to visit the county courthouse in Marshall, NC for some documents and stopped to ask the locals about additional possible comps. This was my first visit to Marshall and I fell in love with the little town. The next time you're in that "neck of the woods," stop in Zuma Coffee and have a Zuma Gold cookie with your java. You'll love it.

New workspace

Are you curious about where I work now? My office is on the 2nd floor of the Earth Guild Building in downtown Asheville. I pay to park behind the Civic Center which is about a block away. The Library and Malaprop's Book Store are in between. The Haywood Park Hotel is across the street. We're surrounded by hip restaurants and shops. Ashevilleians don't seem to care for chains, so especially in the downtown area, there are no big department stores or chain restaurants. Now out by the mall is a different story.

My office is separated from Kendall's by a glass wall. The first thing you see when you enter our office is my desk and smiling face behind it. It almost appears that I'm the receptionist, so for instance, a neighboring office guy came by recently to give us calendars that he had created. He didn't know what to call me, so he referred to me as the "office help." Anyway, Kendall is very good about referring to me as her "associate" and always does a great job of including me in decisions and never making me feel inferior in any way.

For those of you who visited my office at church or home, you know that I am used to working with "piles." Not so, here. I've included a picture of my desk as it always looks when I leave each day. At all times I only have one file open on my desk at a time and it easily slides into a drawer at the end of the day.

I don't really have much of an explanation for this sudden case of neatness and organization. I guess it is emblematic of our new, simpler lifestyle.

If . . .

If

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

White Christmas

Well it wasn't a white Christmas in Canton this year. But we did get a dusting the day AFTER Christmas! The pictures don't really do justice. It LOOKED like a lot more snow in real life.  

The year that I started writing my doctoral thesis, Peggy and I stayed at Higher Ground in Maggie Valley the week after Christmas. And did we ever get snowed in! That was a plus for the writing process because we weren't even tempted to go do fun stuff. We did venture down the mountain one day to buy chains for the tires. By the time we headed back up it had iced over. The chains did no good at all and our neighbor even tried to tow us with his four-wheel drive Jeep but that didn't work either. We ended up leaving the car halfway up and hiking the rest of the way with our groceries. We're still waiting for that kind of weather this year. Even though it is 56 degrees today, it is supposed to get really cold on New Year's Day.

Killing rumors

Last year, during the Christmas holidays and beyond, I busied myself every day with remodeling the kitchen in the condo. New appliances were purchased and installed, cabinets refinished, cabinet doors installed, marble tile laid on the floor and as a backsplash on the wall, and granite on the countertop. Oh yeah, you saw the pics in an earlier blog. Anyway, one day while I was outside cutting tile, a lady who had attended our church years ago and who lives in the Waterway, approached me with tears in her eyes, and told me she was praying for me to "return to God." I asked her what she was talking about. She told me that a friend who still attended that church worked with her and told her that I had "left the faith." I want to assure you that if that is what you heard, that is totally untrue. I do not blame God for the way His followers treated my family and me.

Check out this article on why YOU should consider being involved in a church.

As a matter of fact, I had heard about Pinnacle Church long before it actually began and prayed about my involvement there. When we moved to Canton in August, we were almost immediately accepted and embraced by the staff and congregation. I assure you that my faith is still strong and I feel loved by Christ constantly. AND, Peggy and I are involved at Pinnacle. Peggy is the new Preschool Director and I play guitar and sing on the Worship Team. I've even had the opportunity to lead worship once. Here is proof:

Virgin Forest

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast

A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair

Upon whose bosom snow has lain
Who intimately lives with rain
Poems are made by fools like me
But only God can make a tree

    -Joyce Kilmer

While returning from a wedding in Adairsville, GA, last weekend, we drove past the road leading to the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest nestled inside the larger Nantahala National Forest. What makes this 17,394 acre wilderness so special is that it is one of the very few remaining tracts of virgin hardwood in the Appalachians. So this past Saturday, even though Peggy wasn't feeling her very best, we drove to the forest and hiked the 2-mile loop trail through a grove of the forest's largest trees. Some of these tulip-poplars are as old as 450 years, more than 20 feet in circumference, and stand more than 100 feet tall.

I'm sure you remember from your grade school years that Joyce Kilmer was not only a poet, but a soldier in World War I. He bravely enlisted at the outbreak of war and was killed in France, defending our country. The VFW asked that the forest be named after him as a memorial - and a most beautiful and fitting memorial it turned out to be.

I highly recommend a visit. Check out the photo album.

Whatever

I served on church staffs (or is that staves?) for 31 years and there was always a great divide between the sacred and the secular, the former being important in the eyes of God and the latter amounting to little or nothing at all. This was never God's plan, however. His call has always been to penetrate every cell of humanity as a means of reflecting His light and love.

True worship is much less about our "spiritual" gatherings and far more about what happens everywhere else we spend our days. My new favorite scripture verse is Colossians 3:17, "And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." In other words, it's not what you do that matters most, rather doing whatever you do for the one name that lasts forever.

Everyone reading these words has a passion stirring within, something that captivates your desires and dreams - something that you are uniquely wired to do. And the truth is, these pursuits are not sub-spiritual options. There isn't anything more spiritual about being a pastor than an appraiser, a missionary than a musician. Both are just as valid in the eyes of God, because in the end, we're not rewarded for our field of pursuit, rather for how we made Jesus famous in our own little worlds.

If you are pursuing your dream out of self-indulgence or to take a stab at earthly fame or riches, you are fooling yourself and guaranteeing a tiny payoff for your fleeting journey on earth. The verse above offers another prize and a greater purpose when we are called to do everything we do (in word or in deed) in Jesus' name. And why wouldn't we? We have a chance to abandon self and live for a more durable fame than our own.

I challenge you and myself to make a mark in the streams of culture, which requires a massive devotion of life and energy to the end that we do whatever we do with an excellence, authenticity and Christ-like spirit that is unmatched in the world.

Toe dippin'

One of my favorite things to do (I have no idea why) is to dip my toes into bodies of water that I visit. When my adult children were kids, we took pictures of ourselves dipping our toes in the Pacific Ocean, Great Salt Lake, Mississippi River, and plenty of other lesser known rivers and streams. So to continue this strange tradition, here are some pictures of Austin dippin' his toes in a stream in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in September. We met our friends, Louie, Suzi and Josh Olivio for Heritage Days and had fun walking on stilts, learning how to use a hooie stick, cook molasses, and make apple dolls.