One of my dreams of ending my preaching years was to do so in a way I would be welcomed back. That was not the case in Florida, but certainly has been the case here.

I will give credit where credit is due, though. My friend, John Roberts, sent me his notes on his study through Luke’s gospel and I’m using some of what he wrote for a part of my sermon. If I ever taught through Luke again, I’d steal a LOT of what he did! It’s very good.

Janice asked if I were going to just use one of Dave’s sermons from Chorus Church. Tempting as it is (I love his preaching and his style), there are some things I’ve been wrestling with that I want to share … hopefully to encourage others.

Long Beach has changed quite a bit in the three years since we left, as well it should have. It’s different to go back. For one thing, I don’t have a clue what they might need to hear, so they are going to hear what’s going on in my life as I try to – again – hear the call of Jesus to “follow me.” There will be more than a few people there I don’t know. There will be some who will be glad to see us and hear me again. There are others who, if they know we are coming, will probably not show up that day. Church is a strange mix, isn’t it?

Just to spend some social time with friends will be the best part. We miss those friendships these days.

But Jackson let it be known that he “needed” to go somewhere with Daddy and Grindaddy. Sort of a boy’s night out. We convinced him that Daddy needed to stay with Mommy and help with the twins, so he was fine with just going somewhere with Grinmama and Grindaddy. Somewhere that served ice cream.

We went by the house so I could get out of the suit and into some jeans. While I was changing, Jackson wanted to play with “the blocks.”

Twenty-seven years ago, I took some scrap lumber and cut it up into about 100 blocks of various sizes and shapes and sanded them down for Josh to play with. Over the years a few others found their way into the box … manufactured pieces (painted and very smooth). We’ve kept those blocks for all these years and Jackson’s favorite thing to do at our house is to “play blocks.”

We set them up as high as we can and he knocks them down and then laughs hysterically. Every time.

Who would have known those pieces of scrap wood would become such an entertainment for the next generation. Of all the toys he got for Christmas (and he enjoys them), he also loves to just stack up wood so he can knock them down.

If my life were only as simple.

His guitar was on display at the funeral and I must admit, I lusted. Maybe covet is a better word. Let’s just say the lusting led to covetousness … but in a good, spiritual way. I was thinking just how nice it would sound in a praise band. That counts for something, doesn’t it?

Not only was the chapel filled to SRO, there were people standing all around the funeral home. I would guess well over 300 people and our chapel will only hold about 180, so you can imagine the scene.

The man was a motorcycle enthusiast, and many in the crowd were bikers, including at least one from the local chapter of the Hells Angels.

But there was one older man wearing his leather and colors that caught my attention. I asked him after the funeral if I could take a picture of his “colors.” He was very nice about it. He belonged to C.O.B.B.

Now that’s a motorcycle club I could join.

Some day.

Soon.

If I had a Harley.

Last night, Josh and I went out to a very rural community to pick up a mother. Wife. Sister. Aunt. A woman very precious to her family. This was witnessed by about 50 people gathered at the house to be with her in her final hours on this earth and to stay until the body was removed.

The hospice nurse told me, “I’ve never seen the owners of the mortuary show up to remove a body. It’s usually a cast of various characters hired by mortuaries to do this job. I’m impressed.”

I told him we take care of our families from start to finish. We pick them up. They will sit down and make arrangements with someone they already have met. If they came in to talk with us prior to the death, they will more than likely see a familiar face picking up their loved one. By the time of the funeral, the family often has come to think of us as friends. At the graveside, they are very appreciative.

So on two levels, “as it should be” came together. They saw us as ministers to them (and many of the family shook our hands or hugged our necks to thank us for the way the removal was done) … England family members literally showed up and did not hurry them in any way; and she was surrounded by 50 or more people who loved her and watched her transition from this life to the next.

Apparently this particular model has a problem with the magenta colors fading out. We learned this last Thursday when we needed to print 400 cards for a funeral and the printer crapped out on us! Fortunately a local printer we use was able to rescue us … literally just in the nick of time.

The first thing the Wife does when anything technical goes south is to call Dr. Randy Wray, our not-so-resident technical genius. I am surprised he has not changed his phone numbers to unlisted ones. Instead of ignoring her calls, he did a quick search and found out this is a well-established problem and HP really could care less. At least in the United States they don’t care. In Great Britain (and a few other places), HP will actually repair or replace the printer (with a reconditioned one) even if it is out of warranty. The key phrase is “magenta fading.”

He also found an article written by a man in England who actually figured out the problem and how to repair it. Complete with pictures. I followed the article as carefully as I could, but he left out a few critical steps for removing certain parts of the printer. He said it was about a 2-3 hour job. I started at 10:00am and finished up about 4:30, stopping only for lunch and to talk with my family for about 20 minutes.

When I finally got it reassembled with only one screw left over (and I disassembled it again to find where I’d missed that screw, to no avail), the thing actually worked like new! The secret is to get to the innards of the machine and remove the laser optical unit and clean the mirrors that reflect the laser onto the print drum. The mirrors on our printer were noticeably filthy. I also rigged a type of filter over the intake holes to prevent dust from going back in there as I’d like not to have to do this again in another few months.

So here are some shots of the job.

Getting started.

All of those circuits had to be disconnected from the circuit board and then removed from the harnesses that keep them all in place. Accidentally pulling any one of those hundreds of individual wires from it’s connector would immediately render the printer useless. And worthless. Something I did NOT want to do as we’d just put in all new ink cartridges … about a $400 expense.

FINALLY! Getting to this point only took about two hours.

The crown jewel … the optical box … with the cover carefully removed so as not to lose an all-important spring! All-important springs make me very nervous as they have a way of simply flying off never to be found again.

When I finally got it all reassembled, we successfully printed a page that was heavy on the color of pink … a page we could not print last week for the funeral programs. Today or tomorrow, I have to print 200 folders for a service on Friday. Hopefully we will do it in-house and not have to run to the printer at the last moment.

Thank you, Dr. Wray, for once again coming to the rescue. You should consider riding a white stallion. Or maybe just wearing a mask and carrying around silver guitar picks. You could be “The Lone Wray-nger.”

Her father was the final family member to speak and he thanked everyone, individually, for how they had blessed his family during this time of loss and grief. Then he said, “And Josh … Joshua from England Family Mortuary … what a superguy! He held our hands through this whole process.”

Moments like that, when you see your child has blessed another family by simply being a servant, make a parent kind of swell with pride for just a moment. A healthy pride.

And a renewed appreciation for the good job his mama did in raising that boy.

I am not a war monger, but those bumper stickers that declare “War is not the answer” are stupid. Sometimes it is the answer. Sometimes it is the only answer. Sometimes people and nations have no other option but to stand up to and put a stop to evil.

February 23 (Tuesday) of this week was the 65th anniversary of the battle for Iwo Jima. It was fought from February 19 through March 26, 1945. Thirty-five days of pure hell. In just over a month, we lost 6,821 men with another 17,000+ injured. The Japanese had 22,000 soldiers defending the island. When the smoke cleared, over 21,000 of them were dead.

A U. S. Marine who survived Iwo Jima had this to say about “killed in action”:

I have found the meaning of ‘killed in action.’ It is the body of a man that is torn with bullets and shrapnel, bloated from lying in the sun, the face black from shock with the skin falling off parts of his body, with dried blood on the ground. This is ‘killed in action.’

There is no glory or honor to it. People will talk of this glory and honor, but they don’t see the bare facts. There is no death compared to the death of a man on the battlefield. And this is the way we saw our buddies.

How can people back home expect us to be the same? We can’t be. Not with these sights burned in our brains. Not with the smell of death forever in our nostrils. Not with the thought of the awful fear never to be forgotten. We are changed forever, never to be as we were. God help our poor, lost souls.

Not the most pleasant, uplifting quote you’ll read in the blog world today, but that is the reality of those who go to war to protect and preserve freedom. As the Marines left the island, they walked through the graveyard of their fallen comrades … with the admonition from the fallen before they died: Tell the people back home they have all their tomorrows because we gave all of our todays.

Even now as you read this, there are those who are still giving up their todays for our tomorrows. May God help us all.

But we’ve had different life experiences and maybe therein lies the difference in and depth of faith. It was only after your death when we started sharing stories among ourselves did I realize just how much you endured over the years. No wonder your faith was so strong and your eyes so fixed on Jesus.

Your daughter is becoming an artist (to add to her many talents). She recently sent me a picture of “The Bear” that she did freehand. I might have done as well had it been paint-by-numbers, but then I don’t remember any of those things that I did very well. You would be very proud of her ever-developing walk of faith. She sounds more like you these days, which is good. For the most part!

The children continue to entertain us. Lilly is the one to watch as she has this determination to live life on her terms. She crawled over to the oven last week where Heather had some cookies baking in the oven and stuck her tongue between the oven door and the oven!

You remember the kind of “fits” Tara could throw, right? So much that we now refer to “Tara fits” in our family. The other day Janice called me into the family room at Josh and Heather’s to witness Lilly having a “Tara fit” on the floor. Quite impressive, to say the least, for a 14-month-old. She did another one last night, but to her credit, she was tired and sleepy. We have a vibrator thingamajiggy that you sit on and it massages your back. Lilly wanted the control to it and pitched a fit when the control would not come loose from the unit.

Logan is becoming a “Grindaddy’s boy.” If I’m around and he’s not pre-occupied with eating, he wants to be in my arms and will grunt his way into my arms. No complaint from my end, though it does make it somewhat difficult to help Josh do things around the house with Logan in my arms. He always knows when we leave with Jackson that something’s not right. So we finally took him out by himself the other day and I honestly think he knew what was going on and how he’d just pulled one over on his siblings.

Jackson was with Josh the other day at Lowe’s when the cashier asked Josh, “Is that your son?” Josh replied, “One of them.” Before she could say anything else, Jackson volunteered, “Hi, I’m Jackson.” On the other hand, he can put Josh to shame with how shy he can be. Just never know.

He has figured out not only how to send text “messages” on iPhones, but he recognizes his favorite people’s text settings. He knows how to send them to Jan, Heather, Brittany (Heather’s sister), Jessica, myself, and others. Pam (Jan’s sister) got a series of text “messages” consisting of random letters that had her so concerned, she called Janice to see if everything were okay. Sometimes I get texts from Jackson as fast as every 10 seconds or so.

His latest thing was to use a black magic marker to paint his fingernails. I guess it could have been worse … such as walls and furniture, or Logan or Lilly. Never a dull moment around those children.

Dave (our preacher) asked if I would be a part of a monthly series in July where one of four men from the church preach on each Sunday of that month. My Sunday is the third one, and I’m not only honored to be asked, but quite excited about actually speaking at Chorus Church. My topic is on “Fellowship.” Still debating just how much to share about the concept of “fellowship” in which we grew up. But I have a while to work out the sermon.

Had a nice visit from Don and Leota last week … don’t remember when we last saw them, but we thoroughly enjoyed a couple of hours together as they are both quite fun to be around (in their individually unique ways).

Otherwise, things are about the same. We have busy times and we have incredibly slow times. Just hope the busy times will be enough to pull us through the slow times, economically. You lived through worse times than what we’re enduring, but with this present administration in D.C., who’s to say we’re not heading into another depression in this country.

I think a lot about what it would be like to be homeless. But that’s about all the hope my level of faith can produce at times! And that’s why I’d love to talk with you. Sometimes you just want to talk with someone who has been down your path.

Much love . . .

To say the least, I was wondering if God was hearing any of my prayers. Something about which I often wonder.

The day it all came to a head and we had to let one of our employees go, we got a phone call from an aunt of mine who lives on the other side of the country. She asked, “Greg, is anything going on with you that I need to pray about?”

I asked why she would ask that question because, in fact, there were several things going on with us that I would appreciate her remembering in prayer.

She told me that morning she was praying and was asking God to be with a nephew of hers (my first cousin) and instead of his name coming from her lips, my name was mentioned and she was not even remotely thinking about me!

I told her our situation and she promised to continue to lift us up in prayer.

About the time I was wondering if God was, in fact, hearing our prayers or remotely aware of our situation, He does something like that!

Jan and I attend a class on Wednesday nights, so I had to stop at 6:00. As it turned out, we made it to class just in time to leave on a first call (pick up a body).

Now … as tempted as I am to simply ignore all the snide remarks made in yesterday’s comments in a sleezy attempt at defamation of my character, I will make a few comments just to clear the air.

The roof of the cover is actually sloped a bit more than required by code.

I do know north from south and east from west. However, since this is NOT my house and there is only one side of this house that is considered the back side, that becomes a mute point. If I ever need to know direction, I can simply pull up the compass app on my iPhone and find out just which way I’m facing! Besides, this house sits in a cul-de-sac, so none of them are facing true any direction.

Generally speaking, though, the south end of a house is usually on the ground and the north end up there around the roof area … right?!

Vertical and horizontal did not figure into this project as I already knew where the boards had to go and which direction they needed to go.

Hopefully we can put up the final piece of roofing and seal off where the patio cover connects to the house (a horizontal connection, by the way Mrs. Attorney in Mississippi! -:) We have about a 60% chance of rain on Saturday and Saturday is the next opportunity we’ll have to finish this phase of the project. Unless … we can leave the mortuary a little early this afternoon and get it done before friends arrive tonight for dinner and to spend the night with us.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working on this with my son.

I’m not nearly as young as I once was!