Author: Fred Shope

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Weekend Wanderings

I wasn’t able to post any links last weekend because we were I Georgia with our son and daughter-in-law, who were waiting for the child they are adopting to be born. After some frustration and a bit of worrying, a beautiful baby boy was born. He was a few weeks early, so he is having to spend some time in the NICU. His new parents hope to be able to take him home in a week or so. We are so grateful for the ways we have seen God work in this whole thing, and we are excited to be grandparents. One down, one to go!

Here are the links:

The United States of Xanax.
Good question.
Good story.
Do you have to be happy?
Are you a liturgical snob?

Some vegetarians are not to be messed with.
Finally, a good definition of fake news.
Maybe this self esteem thing has gone a bit too far?
A history of church pews.
Defensive giving.

A story for losers.
God knows.
Good post from Keith Giles.
Spiritual gardens.
The myth of autonomy.

Spelling is important.
Chaplain Mike has some pictures that bring back some good memories for me.
Creepy abandoned cities.
A long strange trip.

Have a blessed week!

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Weekend Wanderings

It’s heating up a bit here in the sunny South. The last couple of days we’ve been going around our county and the county directly south of us to visit different farms and see some art and crafts. It’s called the Ag & Art Tour and this year it has been expanded to eleven counties throughout the month of June. Today, I ate some peach ice cream in a waffle cone, so summer is officially here. We hope to do a little bit of traveling this summer, and see some friends that we haven’t seen in a while.

Here are the links for the week, specially curated for your reading pleasure:

Erring and admitting it. 
Another Dust Bowl?
Beware the fearmonger.
Moving in with  prophet.
Once in a lifetime.

Keith Giles on love.
I don’t think I’m brave enough to ride one of these.
Jared C. Wilson on dying.
Senate Intelligence Committee and Hamlet.
Help for social media users.

Now for some fake news!
Prayer and grace.
Good questions.
Good post from Chaplain Mike.

Have a blessed week!

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Weekend Wanderings

Another week has slid by. The NBA Finals have started and it is a little reminiscent of the Lakers / Celtics rivalry back in the day. It looks like it may go seven games and should be a lot of fun to watch. The political scene continues to be interesting. I might have some commentary on that in the not too distant future. For now, here are the links:

Is the internet broken?
This is a problem.
Good article.
I think this could be called overreach.
Millennials get accused of all sorts of things.

Cool pictures.
One of my favorite authors has a new book out!
Then there’s this.
Isn’t technology wonderful?
A free drink.

Some good words from Brennan Manning.
Honest words from a former student.
Sin spanx?
Scot McKnight on the Bible.
The gospel according to Gandalf.

Too much to ask?
Good words from Bob Edwards.
One human being.
Part 1 of what looks to be an interesting series from Chaplain Mike.
Good post from Keith Giles.

Have a blessed week!

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So, What’s Been Going On?

Last week I mentioned that a lot had been going on in my life. It’s true. There have been a fair amount of changes around here. All of these changes are good and will hopefully bring further good as time passes.

The first thing that came our way was the news that our daughter and her husband are expecting. They will become parents toward the middle to end of August. Not too very long afterward came the news that our son and daughter-in-law are going to be parents as well! They are adopting a baby boy who is slated to be born sometime between the middle of July and the beginning of August. So, all of a sudden we have gone from having no grandchildren to expecting​ two! God has answered a lot of prayers.

In the midst of all this wonderful news, I began a new career as a legal assistant for a good friend of ours. This was an answer to prayers that have been going up for the last two years, so needless to say, I am very grateful and happy. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but so far I think I’m learning a lot of new tricks. I’m looking forward to going in to work on Mondays for the first time in quite a while. It definitely has been an adjustment and is much more challenging than anything I’ve done in a while, but it’s certainly not boring.

Hopefully, I can be forgiven for not posting as much lately. If not, that’s okay too. Sometimes certain things have to take a back seat to life. I’m going to try to be more regular in my writing, but I’m not going to make any promises. Life is good, and it marches on. I hope all of you faithful readers have good things happen to you as you continue on your journey.

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A Poem: Home Again

I wrote this one a couple weeks ago.

HOME AGAIN
It’s been said that you can’t go home again
I decided to see for myself, so I went back
Back to the places that shaped me
The places that for so long defined my life
They were still there, still the same
Yet somehow different, somehow changed
The house I grew up in seemed smaller
The tree in the front gone, the shed in the back dilapidated
The elementary school still stands, but it too has shrunk
So have the baseball fields where I used to play
The junior high is now a community center
The posts with dirt on top replaced by benches
My old high school has been torn down
Replaced by a new one that looks like a prison
The small town has grown into a sprawl of suburbia
Where it takes forever to drive anywhere
The chicken house has no chickens or eggs
The “giant” hogs are gone from the pen
The path up the hill through the pasture is overgrown
Just a few cows still wander the hillside
The old house has hot water now
You don’t have to heat water on a wood stove for a bath
Cell phones have replaced the old crank wall phone
Where you listen in on other folks’ conversations

The old mules are no longer around
And the smell of Paw’s pipe is long gone
The old wooden church we used to visit is gone
Replaced by a larger brick building
Family names still dot the old graveyards
New ones have been added

They say you can’t go home again
You can, but it’s not home
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Weekend Wanderings

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a links post. A lot has been going on in the world, and a lot has been going on in my own life (that’s for another post). Without further Ado, let’s get to the good stuff.

This is cool.
This is sad.
This is strange.
This looks like a cool place to visit.
A list of the best commencement speeches ever.

This is a shame, but I think it’s much more common than it was when I was coaching.
Good question.
Progressive political theology.
Interesting fashion sense.
This is terrible.

Wow. Just wow.
A good reason to not complain.
Good article about transhumanism.
Who’s a good boy?
Want more self control? You may want to rethink that.

Life milestones. Some of them are good.
Subversive supper.
I agree with this post.
Moral grandstanding.
Bottling the tears.

Have a blessed week!

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A Little Bit of Poetry

Here is a poem I wrote last month and read at a local poetry reading:

A Sunny Day, Three Teen Boys, and a Fishbowl. What Could Go Wrong?
It was a beautiful sunny day,
But the crawfish had long since ceased to be.
The teacher said, “You and your friends take that out!”
“Go to the creek to clean that nasty fishbowl.”
So, off they went, three teen boys headed down to the creek,
On a sunny day, with a fishbowl.
What could go wrong?
The cleanup was surprisingly quick,
Considering there were three teenage boys down at the creek.
After a minimum of horseplay, it was time to go.
Back to class, to finish the day.
So, off they trekked.
On a sunny day, with a fishbowl.
What could go wrong?
Nearing the building, they came across a gym class.
A girls’ gym class, playing softball.
So being teenage boys, on a sunny day,
They decided to stop and watch for a while.
 After all, it was such a nice day.
Who wants to be stuck inside?
What could go wrong?
Where to sit?
There were only posts, with dirt
Where the bench used to be.
The young man had new pants on, so that wouldn’t work.
“I know,” he thought,
“I’ll turn the fishbowl on its side and sit!”
What could go…
Crack!
Oops!
Something had gone wrong, terribly wrong.
The fishbowl had splintered into jagged shards of glass,
Some of which were now embedded
Deep in the young man’s thigh.
Since they now couldn’t stay,
The three teen boys began the trek
Up two flights of stairs.
After the ambulance ride to the hospital,
The young man tried to explain to his mother
Why he thought sitting on a fishbowl was a good idea.
What could go wrong?
‘Tis strange but true,
This little story,
About a sunny day, three teen boys and a fishbowl.
After his brush with death
The young man recovered and
Lived to tell the tale.
Boy, I miss that fishbowl.  
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A New Morning

It was quite definitely early morning now, not late night.

“I’m so cold,” said Lucy.

“So am I,” said Susan. “Let’s walk about a bit.”

They walked to the eastern ridge of the hill and looked down. The one big star had almost disappeared. The country all looked dark gray, but beyond, at the very end of the world, the sea showed pale. The sky began to turn red. They walked to and fro more times than they could count between the dead Aslan and the eastern ridge, trying to keep warm, and oh, how tired their legs felt. Then at last, as they stood for a moment looking out toward the sea and Cair Paravel (which they could just now make out) the red turned to gold along the line where the sea and the sky met and very slowly up came the edge of the sun. At that moment they heard from behind them a loud noise–a great cracking, deafening noise as if a giant had cracked a giant’s plate.

“What’s that?” said Lucy, clutching Susan’s arm.

“I–I feel afraid to turn round,” said Susan; “something awful is happening.”

“They’re doing something worse to Him,” said Lucy, “Come on!” And she turned, pulling Susan round with her.

The rising of the sun made everything look so different–all colors and shadows were changed–that for a moment they didn’t see the important thing. Then they did. The Stone Table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end, and there was no Aslan.

“Oh, oh, oh!” cried the two girls, rushing back to the Table.

“Oh, it’s too bad,” sobbed Lucy; “they might have left the body alone.”

“Who’s done it?” cried Susan. “What does it mean? Is it more magic?”

“Yes!” said a great voice behind their backs. “It is more magic.” They looked round. There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.

“Oh, Aslan!” cried both the children, staring up at him, almost as much frightened as they were glad.

“Aren’t you dead then, dear Aslan?” said Lucy.

“Not now,” said Aslan.

“You’re not–not a–?” asked Susan in a shaky voice. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word ghost. Aslan stooped his golden head and licked her forehead. The warmth of his breath and a rich sort of smell that seemed to hang about his hair came all over her.

“Do I look it?” he said.

“Oh, you’re real, you’re real! Oh Aslan!” cried Lucy, and both girls flung themselves upon him and covered him with kisses.

“But what does it all mean?” asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.

“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”

C.S. Lewis: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Christ is risen!

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Waiting

This was first posted on April 19, 2014.

“How could this happen? How could we have been so wrong?”

“We believed the kingdom was going to be restored and those pagan dogs sent back to Rome where they belong. But this ‘messiah’ turned out to be just like all the others.”

“Now here we are hiding from the priests and the Romans.”

“Why didn’t we fight back? What kind of wimps are we?”

“Fight back? Did you see how many men they had? Besides, Peter tried and he told him to put the sword away!”

“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but as soon as all this mess dies down, I’m going back up to  Galilee.”

“Me too. Back to the old life. When the only thing we had to worry about was catching fish and fixing nets.”

“Yeah. It’s been an interesting three years, but I’m through with messiahs and kingdoms. Just give me my boat out on the water. As soon as I can, I’m getting out of here.”

And so, they waited.

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Blast From the Past: Good Friday

This was first posted on April 18, 2014.

“Muzzle him!” said the Witch. And even now, as they worked about his face putting on the muzzle, one bite from his jaws would have cost two or three of them their hands. But he never moved. And this seemed to enrage all that rabble. Everyone was at him now. Those who had been afraid to come near him even after he was bound began to find their courage, and for a few minutes the two girls could not even see him–so thickly was he surrounded by the whole crowd of creatures kicking him, hitting him, spitting on him, jeering at him.
At last the rabble had had enough of this. They began to drag the bound and muzzled Lion to the Stone Table, some pulling and some pushing. He was so huge that even when they got him there it took all their efforts to hoist him onto the surface of it. Then there was more tying and tightening of cords.
“The cowards! The cowards!” sobbed Susan. “Are they still afraid of him, even now?”
When once Aslan had been tied (and tied so that he was really a mass of cords) on the flat stone, a hush fell on the crowd. Four Hags, holding four torches, stood at the corners of the Table. The Witch bared her arms as she had bared them the previous night when it had been Edmund instead of Aslan. Then she began to whet her knife. It looked to the children, when the gleam of the torchlight fell on it, as if the knife were made of stone, not of steel, and it was of a strange and evil shape.
At last she drew near. She stood by Aslan’s head. Her face was working and twitching with passion, but his looked up at the sky, still quiet, neither angry nor afraid, but a little sad. Then, just before she gave the blow, she stooped down and said in a quivering voice,
“And now, who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? Now I will kill you instead of him as our pact was and so the Deep Magic will be appeased. But when you are dead what will prevent me from killing him as well? And who will take him out my hand then? Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die.”
The children did not see the actual moment of the killing. They couldn’t bear to look and had covered their eyes.
While the two girls still crouched in the bushes with their hands over their faces, they heard the voice of the Witch calling out,
“Now! Follow me all and we will set about what remains of this war! It will not take us long to crush the human vermin and the traitors now that the great Fool, the great Cat, lies dead.”