“You can’t go home again.” That’s the old saying. I went back to Lipscomb today. Went to University Bible and had lunch on their food court. My friend Dustin was in town. I hadn’t seen him in several years. We were at Lipscomb together. And during our tour we were reminded about how old we were. Ten years ago in 1993 we entered Lipscomb as freshmen. While the rest of these kids were 8 years old. Just entering 3rd grade.
University Bible is some kind of hybrid Bible class and chapel combined. All takes place in the Allen Arena. And nobody is taking notes. They’re just sitting there like its a typical chapel. Makes me wonder how hard the final exam is on it. Or if they even have a final exam.
So the history goes, David Lipscomb gave his farm to use as a Bible college. There is a clause in there that says all students must have chapel and a Bible class everyday. If they don’t, the farm reverts back to the Lipscomb family, which I’m sure would develop it for a cattle farm. In the middle of Green Hills.
So students take Bible and chapel everyday. On the schedule, you’re in Bible for 5 hours a week, but only get credit for 2 hours for some odd reason.
Changes? Fundamentally nothing has really changed much. The kids are still preppy. Thursdays mean everyone wears Greek letters on their shirts. Someone should remind them that they’re not part of a real fraternity, only an imaginary frat otherwise known as a social club. The word “fraternity” is equated to social drinking by Lipscomb’s definition.
The kids are walking around with backpacks and seem to be overly concerned with fickle things. Like whether or not AIM works on Lipscomb’s network.
The facilities have changed. Allen Arena is nice. But at the same time they haven’t done anything with the Burton Bible Building. I have been told they are going to tear it down and make a fine arts building. Then build another Bible building elsewhere on campus. There are some strange proceedures on Lipscomb campus. Like the McFarland building. It was built with government funds, so therefore no Bible classes can be taught there. Whild Ward lecture hall (attached to McFarland) was built with donated funds. So therefore they are able to have Bible classes there.
On the food court, Dairy Queen is gone (I still miss it), yet Pizza Hut is still around. Only this time with cinnimon bread and breadsticks. I wish they had that when I was there. Sub Connection is there for all your pseudo Subway needs. Why can’t they belly up some money and get a real life Subway or Jersey Mikes in there? I can remember during my senior year taking my lunch to class. Eating a sub sandwich in Systems Analysis. I also remember having a mouthfull of sandwich when a professor asked me a direct question in regards to the class discussion. All I could do was sit there and swallow a whole bite and attempt to answer the question. During my senior year Lipscomb didn’t give me room for lunch. So I managed to squeeze it in during the 15 free minutes after chapel before and during class.
Like I said before, my freshmen year at college were some of the best prolonged time in my life. Things never rally were the same after our freshmen year. We tried to recreate the magic during the sophomore year. But you can’t prolong it. Whatever past is past. As if the classes somehow get harder or students just get more and more jaded.
Allen Bluff Mule
Somewhere on Highway 70 going east to Smithville, there’s a mule painted on the side of a bluff. It’s black and very noticeable if you’re looking for it. It’s been there forever seemingly. I remember seeing it in the 80s when my parents would drive us every month to my grandparents’ house in Sparta. Then later on during my adult years, long after my grandparents had passed, I still see the mule on my way to Short Mountain in Woodbury.
I always look for the mule on my way to Smithville. Smithville itself is just a mere pitstop. It was where my family would get ice cream at the Dairy Queen (when the DQ was the only restaurant there). I have no friends or family in Smithville. More or less just a pit stop. Turn left at the DQ to get to Short Mountain. Or drive straight on through to get to Sparta. That’s all.
Still, there is development on Highway 70. They’re building a 4 lane road seemingly from Watertown to Sparta and beyond. And I still think there’s more cars on Highway 70 between Mt. Juliet and Lebanon, yet we only have a 2 lane road with no serious consideration for development.
There was talk that the mule might get axed. But it looks like it won’t. Read this article for more info. I realize the article is over a year old. But I’ve got the original paper edition sitting on my desk right now. So I’m obligied to write about it.
The Lipscomb Years
Dinner with Dustin tonight. Dustin is a friend from Lipscomb who moved to Denver a few years ago. I hadn’t seen him since he moved. I’ve talked with him on the phone briefly a few years ago. But that’s been about it. It was great to catch up and see what’s happening.
We both agreed that our Freshmen year at Lipscomb was some good times. Probably the best few months of my life were between January – April 1994. You can say “oh that was a great vacation.” or “that was a great camp.” But rarely do you have a long span of time where seemingly every day is a good day. I have never laughed as much and experienced such hilariousness as then. For the most part I hung out in Dustin’s room….in the basement of High Rise. Dustin’s room was decorated in some kind of 70’s museum. The wall of aluminum cans. Maurice the lamp (named from Steve Miller’s “The Joker”). The light up church signs. The chandelier of ties. It’s all very difficult to explain for those uninformed without getting into inside jokes. Just be aware that the Freshmen year of college could potentially be your best year of your life. The extra freedom of college life coupled with relatively easy classes equals good times.
Just a note. The Hermitage Applebee’s has pictures of Lipscomb’s campus hung in the lobby area. I thought it was weird. Dustin pointed them out to me. I guess the manager may have gone there or something.
Old Church Memories
So I’ve gotten more old church bulletins. These are from 1975-1988. Primetime growing-up years for me. They are invoking some memories (more or less) about those church years.
- The great revival of 1987 – 15 people (mostly teens) were baptized during a Gospel Meeting in September, 1987. Looking over the names listed in the bulletin, only 2 of the baptizees are still active attendees at church (and those 2 only come on Sunday mornings). To get back to the original story of it, Bill Watkins came and had a gospel meeting during that time. Many of his sermons were emotionally based. (And there’s nothing wrong with that). I can remember the last sermon where he had the chairs lined up on the podium. He told what each of the chairs represents (the innocent child, the faithful Christian, the sinner, the backsliding Christian, the lukewarm Christian). And if he pointed to us we’d have to go and sit in the appropriate seat. Of course he never actually made anyone go up into the seat. It was more of a retorical question. This got the largest number of responses. Years later I saw him do the same sermon with less results. I guess coming off of the 10 persons baptized in one night, just can’t be topped.
Still I wonder about these people who were baptized that week and ponder if we need to call up VH1 for a “Where are they now?” segment. Was their response based on emotionalism? Are they attending church elsewhere or not at all? - My less than spectacular prayer leading. I can distinctly remember two specific times which I was asked to lead a public prayer at church and completely bombed. Once was during VBS when I was in 8th or 9th grade. The VBS director asked me to lead an impromptu prayer at the end. I wasn’t prepared at all for it and declined the invitation. The director later apologized to me for putting me on the spot, (which I thought was always cool; He didn’t have to apologize, but he did just to make sure we were both cool with each other. Most people wouldn’t have done that). The second time was when I was scheduled to lead a closing prayer Sunday or Wednesday night. (I was in junior high at the time) I stayed out in the foyer area pondering my thoughts during the closing song. In the end I ended up chickening out and ran out the doors and sat in my parents’ VW Rabbit feeling ashamed of myself. I doubt that anyone remembers that I chickened out of that. But to this day I still remember that and feel disgusted with myself over it. But on the positive end of things this is a story I tell the younger boys who are anxious about serving publicly at church. Anyone can get scared about doing that type of thing. You just have to make yourself do it. This seems to give them some sense of reality.
I also distinctly remember once praying to God in church – thanking Him for the sick – a huge mess up… But more on that later on.
The 10Cs again
I’m kinda dreading things tomorrow. I’m supposed to stop by and show a computer novice how to update their website. What the likely scenerio is I’ll show them how to update it, the person will initually understand it, but forget how to update it when it comes time to make changes on their website later on. Nobody ever said webdesign was fixed up in a nice neat little package. There are so many steps and variables involved in it. If a person doesn’t necessarily understand computer OR is unable to follow specific directions, then it doesn’t really do me any good to show them.
Then there’s the 10 Commandments controversy again. A friend and I had a long instant messenger discussion on the whole subject. My friend’s justification for it was the 10C’s historic precidence…that our basic western laws are based on it. Something that I would probably be likely to lean toward. However specifically only 30% of the Commandments are laws are in our country. The others are either overtly religious or just good positive living (thou shalt not covet). If our laws are based on it, then 100% of the 10C’s would be found in our laws, and that just isn’t the case.
I’m not for taking morals out of government. I guess its the package in which these type of morals are put in place. You don’t need a 5,280-pound monument and a state justice saying he’s the new MLK to have morals or God’s laws in government. My problem is that I think those supporting the 10C’s in the Bama Court are doing it as a knee jerk reaction. Like sheep being told what to say and what to do, they stand up there and make a huge show over it, without actually sitting down and thinking why they are doing it. If you have a good reason (such as the historic precidence) for supporting the display of Ten Commandments in a public place, good for you. Otherwise if you are just following the crowd then you are doing it for the wrong reason.
I think there were about as many protestors as cameramen up there. The Commandments monument was originally put up there overnight. If something is so right, then why would it need to be placed there in a clandestine sort of way? Judge Moore may indeed be a publicity seeker.
I do take part in a discussion board run by some conservative friends of mine. Lately the entire discussion board has been more or less news about the 10C’s. I’ve thought about posting my thoughts on the matter, however I figure I’d probably be jumped all over for espousing an opinion different from the usual that you’d hear on Foxnews. Ever since I was called hypocritical for listening to instrumental music in my everyday life and worshipping with accapella music, I’ve shyed away from posting there.
I guess ever since I was threatened to take this website down, I’ve always been kind of skeptical toward religious matters. I find myself questioning things alot more often. Why is it wrong? Because you say its wrong or because God says its wrong? Its sorta sad because a certain amount of trust has been lost in the dogfight. I question people’s inner motives alot more these days. It may be something that I never stop doing.
[update 8/29/03]:
“Get your hands off God, God haters!” Ah yes. Somehow the 10C monument has become God in some people’s eyes. Isn’t there something against this in Exodus? Golden calf? Does that ring a bell?
It’s Back to School Time
The kids are back in school. So that means that everyone is always online yet doesn’t usually have time to talk. WiFi seems to be quite popular at UTK. That’s wireless internet for those of you who care. Wayne seems to be IMing me from classrooms lately on his laptop. Is it not considered nerdy to carry around one’s laptop to class? I would have judged otherwise.
And Lipscomb is still blocking AIM and all the other instant messengers, causing great pain and suffering among the incoming freshmen at Lipscombland. Instant messaging is so fickle anyways. Kids these days grew up on IMing. I didn’t. I just starting doing that type of chatting in 2000, if only to keep up with friends. Otherwise I consider it a cheap form of communication. Never had it when I was in school. We survived on email and phone calls. And campus mail. And face to face meetings.
The internet is becoming so prelavent, it’s hard to imagine life without it. What did we do with all this time we would have used surfing the net? Watching TV? Talking with friends and family? We stare into these computer monitors hoping to find satisfaction in what is otherwise a drab society. Well, maybe not drab. Just uninteresting.
I remember asking friends if they had email in 1994 and I’d get the old deer-in-the-headlight stare at me. Some of them thought they had it. This was the time when AOL and other ISPs were not prelavent. So if you had email it was through your school. I spent a great deal of time searching for friends’ email addresses at their respective school databases.
Something happened right as I got out of school. The internet exploded. Somehow something that no body knew about in 1993, was a dire requirement for happiness on earth in 1999. Funny how things work.
And somehow I really had an idea for blogs or something like it in 1998. I wish there was an easier way to update my webpage without having to get out the old Netscape Composer and FTP the thing to the server. There had to be an easier way to do that. But nobody ever thought about that until 2000 or so. I read about Blogger in Yahoo Internet Life. Seemed like a cool idea at the time. Now everyone is doing it and it doesn’t seem that unique anymore. That makes me wonder about the people who read this stuff. Is it because I update this thing semi-frequently? Or is it because you’re bored. Maybe a little of both. New information is kinda interesting, even though it usually rambles…like now.
Meanwhile, this makes me worry. I just need to get a hold of some of those lifetime CDRs (do they even exist?).
High School Band news in Church Bulletins
Here is an interesting article which I found while going through some old church bulletins. I’m not sure why this belongs in a church bulletin.
Mountain Climbing
by Steve Hale
November 5, 1989
Congratulations to members of the Mt. Juliet High School Band for their great sauces in the recent Contest of Champions held at M.T.S.U.
25 bands from Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee participated. Mt. Juliet made the nine band final, and finished fifth overall. Two of the top five were Kentucky bands, so Mt. Juliet finished 3rd in the State of Tennessee!
This is the first time Mt. Juliet has ever made the finals in this contest. To my knowledge, ten of our young people are in this band. They are: Brett Bawcum, Chad Bawcum, Leanne Copley, Teresa Fleming, Cheryl Holland, Philip Holland, Jeff Mullins, Tina Mullins, Bryan Thomas and Melissa Whittle.
I am tremendously proud of the faithfulness among these young people after long nights (often Saturdays) traveling back home. Most of them have not missed services in spite of being exhausted. Congratulations! We’re proud of you.
The mayor of Mt. Juliet has declared Saturday (Nov. 4) Mt. Juliet Band day!
I think the article was ghostwritten by my mom, a band booster. Ok whatever. It was a big deal to make Contest of Champions back then. But in retrospect, I don’t think such a large article should have appeared in what otherwise is a religious publication.
The Ten Commandments
I think it is my time to weigh in on this Ten Commandments controversy. Let me explain it this way.
What you’ve got in Alabama is a Christian majority – which aspires to obey the Ten Commandments. Somewhere in Los Angeles you might have a Korean majority in a locality who aspire to some kind fo Taoism commands. Elsewhere in Hawaii you might have a Japanese majority who espouses Buddism values. In New York City there’s probably a large group of people who look toward the Koran as their holy book. If I were in the minority at any of these places, and a religious document foreign to my beliefs was to be put up in the local courthouse, I would feel uncomfortable.
Similarily, I just don’t think the Ten Commandments have a place in a public building. The pro-commandments camp would say that this country was founded on Christian values. And I would agree with them somewhat. However in today’s society not everyone is a Christian and therefore would not agree with one religion being held above all others in government buildings.
I do believe in the Ten Commandments. Most of them are still in effect today, except for maybe the Sabbath one. I certainly don’t see anyone not working on Saturday.
“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work.”
And if you are thinking Sunday is the new Sabbath, think about it this way. Do you go out to eat on Sunday? Do you buy gas for your vehicle on Sunday? By buying merchandise or services are you making a market where other people would have to work in order to serve you?
What is bothersome is Roy Moore is trying to make himself out to be another Martin Luther King. He certainly isn’t. He has disobeyed an upper courts orders and he’ll have to pay a price for that. The monument itself was installed at around 12:30AM one early morning. Clandistine? Why would you have to sneak around and put up a monument that not everyone is going to agree with?
Decoration Day
My grandparents are buried at Mt. Pisque cemetery in White County, TN. It was decoration day up there. It is a day to bring flowers to the graves and sit around and eat lunch with relatives still living. A reunion of sorts I guess. I was reacquainted with my 2nd cousins and became aware that I had a bunch of 4th cousins (those girls climbing the trees).
My grandparents died in the 1980s and I barely knew them. Being 7 and 8 when they died makes for limited memories of them. I wish I had known them better. Now many of my forgotten memories come from photographs.
Besides my grandparents’ graves, 2 other graves always stand out in my mind at that cemetery. The first one being “Ernest Grant, Chief Lone Wolf.” (1898-1951) So the story goes, the chief had a toothache. He wouldn’t let a dentist pull the tooth and he ended up dying from it somehow. Infection I guess. His picture on his grave shows him in full Indian headdress. I always look for his grave.
The other grave – Horace Nixon Rowland, Jr. (1952-1985) shows a Corvette on the front of the grave. I always wondered how a 33 year old man suddenly looses his life. Was it illness? A car accident? I don’t know. I thought it was cool he had a Corvette on his gravestone.
I was made to feel unwelcomed by the cemetery church. The church is in the middle of the cemetery. They make sure the church is locked up (including the area’s only restroom) during the decoration celebration. This forces visitors to either use the antiquated outhouse or just hold it until they get home. The nearest public flush toilet is a 5 minute drive down the road. Thanks, guys. This annual decoration day is possibly the highest concentration of visitors to the church grounds. Mt. Pisque church could be a very friendly church, however my only interaction with the church is the fact that the church restrooms are always locked.
I Still Care
“I don’t care.” Those words are said most often these days. I remember earlier this week I mentioned in an email to a friend that I’d probably go work retail when my unemployment runs out in October. I ended the email with “I don’t care.” Mostly to show my frustration and hopelessness in the job situation.
Those 3 words prompted my friend to email me back almost immediately and then later on get online and ask me what’s up via instant messenger. He thought it was going to be one of those ABC Afterschool Specials. Don’t worry. I told him that I was just in a bad mood when I wrote the email and was just venting.
I remember being in 5th grade and the phrase “I don’t care” had become quite popular in class. We always had a ton of homework. That phrase expressed our frustration back then too. Pretty soon our teaching chastised us for using the phrase. I remember her saying “Don’t use that phrase,” and told us to change our attitude.
I also remember those 3 words being used in a recent movie: “The River Wild.” In the movie, 2 bank robbers kidnap a family and force them to take them down a whitewater river. The part of the movie which seems to echo in my own mind is when one of the kidnappers is talking to Roarke, the young son. The kidnapper was still trying to be friends with Roarke. He said he didn’t want to be mean to him and that he was just doing following orders from the other kidnapper. (This after attempting to kill his dog and threatening his family) Roarke looked straight at the kidnapper and with a cold dark stare said “I don’t care.”
I think we’ve all had that happen before. Someone egregiously wrongs you, then the next day that person turns around and acts like nothing is wrong.
I still care. It’s just sometimes I get down and discouraged like anyone else. With this endless year of job searching and getting nowhere, I might have helped change some lives. There is a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment there. You see, if I’m not making a difference, then I might as well pack up and go home. It’s not ego driven. It’s more of self-worth. Accomplishments, ya know?