I am a retired pastor after serving in the same church for 30 years in Creston, Iowa. Adjusting to widowhood and retirement in the same year has been rough, but I'm traveling more, visiting my kids and grandchildren, and enjoying my photography hobby (www.cspindlerphoto.com).
I’ve always enjoyed watching the flag of the United States of America unfurl and flow in the sky. I often feel a little patriotic pride whenever I pass a Perkins Restaurant as their large flag waves at me. While there isn’t a standard “Perkins flag size,” they often go for the most massive flag possible, at times exceeding 30 x 50 feet. It’s just beautiful! Additionally, my father’s military service fostered a sense of patriotism as he enlisted in the Navy in WWII and continued as a reservist for 25 years of military service. The flag given to my mother by the Navy Honor Guard at my father’s graveside is in its display case in my home.
My fascination for the U.S. flag likely developed from my grandfather coming to live with us when I was eight years old. He moved from California and must have left a flag behind. As a result of Big Pop’s request, my dad put up a rudimentary flagpole fashioned out of galvanized steel pipe with a pulley mounted on top and the halyard laced through it. He set the pole in a concrete-filled post hole, and a sturdy, stitched, 100% cotton flag flew from that 8-foot pole. Every morning my grandfather raised the flag and lowered it each evening. I often sat with him on the front porch and enjoyed our conversations, watching my Toy Fox Terrier chase squirrels and feel the gentle breeze as it lifted the flag in our shaded front yard.
We headed for church one Sunday morning before Big Pop raised the flag. A short time later, a church member arrived and, having passed our house on the way to church, asked if everything was okay at our home. Confused, my mother said, “Yes. Why do you ask?” He responded that the flag was flying upside down, a sign of distress. Mom quickly called to check on my grandfather, and the flag was right-side up when we returned home. In his remaining years, Big Pop never made that mistake again. After he died in 1969, we continued to raise the flag, but not with the consistency he did.
In my late twenties, I took a church position in Memphis and had the opportunity to move back into that childhood home. The flagpole still stood, and the flag was stored in the living room closet. I was astonished that the flag’s colors were still vibrant (likely from never flying in direct sunlight), and its stitching remained intact. It was a treat for my daughters to raise the flag occasionally. My wife began to make birthday flags to fly on the flagpole to commemorate each year’s noteworthy milestones. Unfortunately, at some point in our nine years in that home, a child (who will be nameless) was holding the halyard as she walked in circles and wrapped the rope around the pole. At some point, the fatigued metal at the base of the pole snapped, never to be reinstalled.
The old flag traveled with us to Iowa in 1994, and it continued to fly on holidays in special memory of my grandfather, whose hand so lovingly cared for it all those years ago. It last flew on July 4, 2024, but I forgot to bring it in that night. The next morning, I retrieved in only to find several tears and a large hole in the field of blue. I wrapped it back around its wooden pole and placed it in the closet to never fly again.
As Memorial Day approaches, I want to resume the tradition of flying the flag for at least the patriotic holidays. I researched and purchased a well-stitched and reinforced flag that is appropriately “Made in the U.S.A.” The flag arrived today, and it is on my deck railing. While the local V.F.W. and Boy Scouts have an annual flag retirement ceremony, I’m not sure I can let go of this cloth that is truly our family’s nearly 60-year-old “Old Glory.”
The new flag from Allegiance Flag Supply will hopefully give me another 60 years of patriotic good vibes. Well…I won’t push it that far.
I was driving through West Texas yesterday and listening to the radio. Since it was February 13, there were a lot of references to Valentine’s Day, which made me especially miss my lifelong Valentine. As I listened to the love songs, I felt regret that I had never written a love song to/about Myra. While she loved to hear me sing and play my guitar, the songs I sang to her were written by others.
Our life together and love would have generated a song if I had just committed the time to it. Myra could have been a collaborator because she was the resident lyricist. While I always knew the tune, she was the one who remembered the lyrics to fill in my lapses. When I thought about our life together, several key thoughts came to mind, and I quickly recorded them on my iPhone’s “Notes” app.
I opened that app this morning and thought, “I wonder what AI would do with these memories. I found a site that had me pick a genre (Country), write a brief description of the song’s theme, and then click “generate.” Within seconds, a three-verse, choruses, bridge, and outro emerged. With a bit of tweaking of the first two verses, this was the result:
Startin’ Our Life on a Sunday Night
(Verse 1) I remember that church, On a December Sunday night, With poinsettia arrangements, And the candles burnin’ bright. You wore my sister’s dress, You didn’t mind that it’d been worn, You didn’t want a diamond, Just love in simple form.
(Chorus) Oh, we made it simple, Just love and a song, In the glow of those candles, Where we both belong. You didn’t need the jewels, Just a heart that sings true, In a world full of chaos, It was just me and you.
(Verse 2) Your smile was like sunshine, As I strummed my old guitar, Singing love songs penned by others, They came right from my heart, Though I never wrote a verse, Just for you to hold near, But in that quiet moment, Your laughter filled my ear.
(Chorus) Oh, we made it simple, Just love and a song, In the glow of those candles, Where we both belong. You didn’t need the jewels, Just a heart that sings true, In a world full of chaos, It was just me and you.
(Verse 3) Your eyes sparkled like starlight, As the preacher spoke slow, With our friends all around us, And the sweet scent of hope. You’d have eloped in a heartbeat, But my folks had their say, Yet we danced through the night, In our own special way.
(Chorus) Oh, we made it simple, Just love and a song, In the glow of those candles, Where we both belong. You didn’t need the jewels, Just a heart that sings true, In a world full of chaos, It was just me and you.
(Bridge) Now every time I play, I catch a glimpse of your smile, In our little world, Babe, We’ve traveled every mile. No diamonds, no big wedding, Just a love that won’t fade, In the echoes of that night, Our sweet memories made.
(Chorus) Oh, we made it simple, Just love and a song, In the glow of those candles, Where we both belong. You didn’t need the jewels, Just a heart that sings true, In a world full of chaos, It was just me and you.
(Outro) So here’s to the moments, The laughter, the tears, In our simple love story, We’ve conquered our fears. With no diamond in sight, Just soul’s pure embrace, In this simple forever, You’ll always find your place.
There are still a few things that I would change, but overall, I was amazed at how this captured the simple essence of our relationship. I sent the lyrics to my daughters and received a quick response from my middle daughter: “Well, I’m already crying after the first line!”
AI’s impact on society is hotly debated. My oldest daughter is a creative writer and enjoys the process of crafting her words. Thus, she avoids the help that AI might give her. My youngest daughter is in a corporate management role where quick correspondence and decisions are frequently needed. She often utilizes AI, from generating emails to comparing annual employee performance reviews to quickly analyze changes in performance. As I did with the above song lyrics, she uses AI suggestions as a springboard for her spin on things.
I can somewhat rationalize the use of AI in this songwriting endeavor. My original thoughts prompted AI’s first draft, which served as a springboard for my revisions. Most musicians collaborate in song development. However, the problem is, who would know AI was involved in the first place? How many songs are already being generated by AI?
What are your thoughts about using AI in the area of creativity?
NOTE: I started this account four days after our 46th Wedding Anniversary on December 18, 2023. Myra died five days later. It sat in my draft folder for a year and I post it now on the 1st anniversary of Myra’s death for the sake of documentation and as an account of our Parkinson’s journey.
Myra’s grave decorated for Christmas 2024
On Tuesday, December 18, 2023, my wife, Myra, and I celebrated our 46th Wedding Anniversary. I use “celebrate” loosely since she was in bed all day, and I was addressing Christmas cards. You see, Myra was at the end of her 30+ year battle with early onset Parkinson’s Disease. We always knew that a time would come when she would succumb to the degenerative brain disease that impacts motor functions.
Still, she had several other symptoms, which we were not expecting with the initial diagnosis. She was spared the common symptom of tremors but had stiffness, slowness of movement, and uneven and unstable gait…sometimes resulting in falls. In fact, complications from falls are a leading cause of death in the disease process. She had several trips to the hospital for falls, resulting in lacerations, a fractured nose, and a concussion. Our friend and physician once said that Parkinson’s patients seem to fall in slow motion, which was true of Myra. Once, while she was still ambulatory, I left her for a bit only to find her after a tumble at the bottom of the basement stairs. Amazingly, her only injury was a hyper-extended finger.
A walk on the Big River Crossing of the Mississippi River in Memphis.
She also developed orthostatic hypotension, a medical condition that results in a drop in blood pressure when standing up. This condition led to occasional fainting episodes. While generally controlled by medication and compression stockings, it was never totally mitigated and resulted in her first significant loss of independence: driving. Additionally, the condition made her more uncomfortable holding her infant grandchildren for fear of fainting while they were in her arms.
A candid photo of Myra after being told by the neurologist that her driving days were over.
Another problem in advanced PD is swallowing difficulties, resulting in choking or aspiration. A weak cough prevents clearing aspirated liquids/food and can lead to pneumonia. Pneumonia is a more common cause of death among people with PD than the general population. While Myra struggled with some aspiration of liquids, we, fortunately, had only one serious choking incident in which a large piece of beef obstructed her airway. I was able to remove it, avoiding a horrific death experience.
But the hallucinations, the imagining of children playing outside or sitting in the bedroom, were an unexpected and disconcerting part of the journey. While the sightings were primarily non-threatening, they were so prevalent that she often didn’t even inform me of the apparitions’ frequency. Usually, they were our own daughters as children, who appeared at night in bed with her. When two of our daughters traveled from Texas for a surprise visit, she was genuinely uncertain when they appeared at the door and asked, “Are they real?” Another time, I was in a neighboring community when I received a cell call from one of the women attending a Bible study that Myra was leading in our home that night. When Myra took the phone, she told me a woman was dancing in the backyard and igniting the grass on fire with a torch. She was assured by the women at the house it was not real. I arrived home after the Bible study, but a few women remained with Myra. After they left, she confided that a “man” had been standing in the corner of the room all evening.
In the final years, we began dealing with dementia. Myra began to think there were “three Chucks: Chuck the husband, Chuck the pastor, and Chuck the photographer.” She would often talk about one of the other Chucks in my presence. We were driving back from visiting our children in Texas one late night. I pointed out an airliner that was on course to transit the moon. I commented that I would have liked to capture it if we had not been on the turnpike. Her response was, “Chuck likes to get those pictures.” Another time, as I left to take care of a ministry responsibility, she asked the caregiver, “Which Chuck was that?” One night, as I got her ready for bed, Myra looked at me and said, “I haven’t seen you for six months. I’m glad you’re back.” I’m unsure which Chuck had taken care of her during the preceding months…but I am pretty sure it was me.
Over time, there was a growing loss of recognition of her family. It was only occasional, or Myra covered it well (which I think she did), but by August of 2022, it was more apparent. Two of our daughters and families were in town, and when we returned from a day at the Iowa State Fair, Myra implored her caregiver, “Don’t leave me with those people.”
It was hard to see her grapple with the confusion that set in. She was uncertain where she lived for years, thinking it was an institution rather than our home. She would ask how long she had lived in “this place,” who was in charge of it, and how many others lived there. She was very concerned about our marital status and was uncomfortable sharing a bed with me if we were not married. I put our marriage license in a frame so she would know we were “legally and morally upright.” She repeatedly asked if I had a brother, having previously known I only had four older sisters. I finally asked her if another man who looked like me cared for her. Myra replied, “Yes.”
God provided a wonderful an incredibly knowlegable and caring neurologist, Dr. Lynn Struck, who treated Myra for decades. Additionally, a group of volunteers from our church stayed with her Sunday morning while I had church services and other occasions when I needed to be engaged in evening ministry activities. When we came to a point that Myra could not be alone, we contracted a paid service and excellent caregiver, Janet Webb, who came in for 20 hours a week, giving me additional time to engage in ministry outside the home. Finally, home hospice care was a timely resource in Myra’s last year and a half of life, bringing in a nurse, massage therapist, and a bathing aide several times a week, as well as making available supplies as Myra’s condition worsened.
Janet Webb, Home Sweet Home Care and Services owner, was an invaluable help for almost two years.
I had made a commitment to care for Myra at home. Thus, I was genuinely grateful that I could fulfill my pledge to her. After staying up all night and monitoring her condition, I dozed off between 5 and 6 a.m. on December 27, 2023. I awakened to find Myra had passed peacefully by my side.
There is no way to fully prepare for that transition of one’s spouse from the mortal to the immortal. Having lost her over time, our family often spoke of the grief we had already experienced in not having Myra as she had been. Even though she was still present, she was not the creative and fun grandmother to her grandchildren as she had been to her daughters. She could not be the gifted Bible teacher to children and women as she had been even as late as her early 50s. We lost our dreams of retiring together and traveling to see family and the sights we always longed to behold.
But that final “loss” of her presence has been different. The aloneness is palpable. Even though a day may be filled with friends or family, there is always a sense of something missing. I remember walking into the funeral home with my mother as she went for the first viewing of my dad after 62 years of marriage. Though she wanted to view him alone, one sister and I insisted that we accompany our 85-year-old mother. As she stood there, weeping at my dad’s casket, she said, “I feel like a part of me has been ripped out.”
I get that now.
When God brought the first man and woman together, the biblical idea was that they became one flesh (Genesis 2:24). Jesus reiterated that idea when he said regarding a husband and wife, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:6). God’s ideal point of breaking the one-flesh union is “til death do us part.”
My consolation is that I know I will see Myra again. Her faith in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior guaranteed her eternal life even before she breathed her last breath. John 5:24 says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” That hope sustains me, my children, and all who loved Myra.
A family celebration of Myra’s 1st Birthday in Heaven -August 2, 2024
While I have some vague remembrances of Christmas Eve as a child, they are mostly family gathered by the tree, my father reading the Christmas story from Luke 2 and heading off to bed with great anticipation of what the following day would bring. I don’t recall our Southern Baptist Church ever having a Christmas Eve service.
Even after I became a minister, neither of the two churches in which I served had Christmas Eve Services. So, Myra and I had our own traditions of always being home on Christmas Eve, enjoying a BIG Christmas Eve dinner, driving around town to see Christmas lights, allowing the girls to open one gift, and reading the Christmas passage from the Gospel of Luke. For our last Christmas in Memphis and for the first time, we attended a Christmas Eve service at First Evangelical Church, where Myra taught Precepts Upon Precepts (a women’s Bible study developed by Kay Arthur). The following year, I was in seminary in Fort Worth, and our church also had a Christmas Eve gathering. Little did I know my next pastoral posting would come with the expectation that I lead that annual celebration of the Light of the World.
Upon arriving at Crest Baptist Church in August of 1994, I found the membership had various denominational backgrounds, with most having had some experiences with Advent, the four-week season in the Church calendar dedicated to anticipating the arrival, or “advent,” of Jesus of Nazareth, the long-awaited Messiah and King. I was the ONLY “cradle roll” Southern Baptist. I soon discovered that the celebration of Advent and a Christmas Eve service were expected responsibilities of my ministry. While I had no theological objection to this expectation, they were out of my wheelhouse from previous church leadership roles. I searched for resources to guide me in discovering the themes of Advent and colors of each candle in the Advent wreath. Ultimately, I found this addition to my Christmas celebration, merging my family and church family traditions, very fulfilling.
However, as much as we tried to continue some of the family traditions we began in Memphis, we discovered the realities of an Iowa climate changed things. Having had a busy schedule and no chance for Christmas shopping, we were planning a late shopping trip to Des Moines on Monday, December 23, 1996. We awoke to an ice storm and could not make the 60-mile trip to the malls. The girls were devastated at the idea of no presents under the tree, but I assured them we would leave before dawn on Christmas Eve and go to the early opening stores before going to the mall.
The following day, at 7:00 a.m., we found Best Buy, Kohl’s, and Target essentially vacant and were at the Valley West Mall when they opened at 9:00 a.m. Around 10:00 a.m., I took up residence on a comfy couch by the escalator and was the touchpoint for Myra and the girls to bring their loot as they continued their forays into other shops.
After completing our shopping by 11:30 a.m., we had lunch and returned to Creston. The afternoon was filled with the busyness of gift wrapping by Myra and the girls while I made the last-minute preparations for the Candlelight Christmas Eve service. The feeling of accomplishment after finishing our shopping and the anticipation of the upcoming service filled us with a sense of satisfaction and joy.
What seemed like a huge risk in waiting until the last minute to do the bulk of our gift buying became a point of family bonding as we went on an adventurous trek in the dark of Christmas Eve morning. It was a tradition that we maintained for the rest of the years that our girls were in Iowa for Christmas.
So, when Anna told me last night that her family was going shopping at 7:30 a.m. this Christmas Eve, I thought I’d pass and sleep in. However, I was awake and ready to go on the shopping adventure. Happily, I treated the Harrison family to Cracker Barrel brunch at 11:30 a.m. as we rekindled some of our special Christmas Eve memories.
I stay out of the political fray on social media. It’s not that I don’t have convictions about the best (or lesser of two evils) candidate, but I prefer one-on-one conversations that are more respectful in dialogue. But, I have not missed voting in a Presidential Election since casting my vote for the losing candidate (Gerald Ford) in 1976 after he had served as Vice President and then President following Nixon’s resignation due to the Watergate scandal. He lost to Jimmy Carter with a margin of 1,678,069 Popular Votes and 297/240 Electoral Votes. Carter’s Georgia roots and Southern Baptist “Born Again” Christianity won over many Republicans evangelicals that election cycle.
However, a Washington Post article credited Carter for starting the lengthy campaign trend following this year’s election. “He [Carter] announced his candidacy for the 1976 presidential race in late 1974. Previously, candidates spent far less time on the campaign trail. Dwight D. Eisenhower, for example, only began campaigning full-time in June 1952, shortly after resigning from his role as NATO commander. He did not resign from his position as president of Columbia University until after his victory.”1
This lengthy campaign process requires more financial resources, with much going to media saturation. “In a record-setting election season, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, spent nearly $1.4 billion on political ads in their bid for the White House, according to a report from ad analytics firm AdImpact. This staggering figure means that the Harris-Walz campaign, along with Democratic allies, outspent former President Donald Trump and Republicans by almost $460 million, as per a Fox News report.”2
The amount of money spent on a Presidential campaign is obscene! How could this be remedied? There are no easy answers because too many people benefit from the billions of dollars spent in our national elections every two years. However, a shorter campaign season might limit the need for excessive media, robocalls/texts, and postal advertising while providing a level playing ground for worthy candidates who don’t have deep-pocket contributors or PACs. Living in Iowa, which holds the first presidential caucus in the union, we receive intense media attention from all candidates a year before the general election.
Other countries limit the campaign season to months. This week, a Washington Post questioned why U.S. elections are so long when neighboring and allied nations can have short campaign seasons, giving this information:
Mexico – begins 93 days before the election and ends three days before — a required end-of-campaign cool-down Canada – a minimum of 36 days, and they traditionally don’t run much longer. Britain – the official campaign period is 25 weekdays or roughly five weeks. France – campaigns last two weeks before the first ballot and end the Friday before the Sunday elections. Australia – mandates that an election must be held on a Saturday between 33 and 58 days after the calling for elections. Israel -campaigns run for the 101 days before election day. 3
The current length of campaigns and the negative attack ads are some of the factors that lead to the polarization of our citizenry. A report from the Polarization Research Lab compiled studies in the last two decades on the effects of negative campaigning. They summarized that “beyond being generally unhelpful for attackers, there is a growing consensus in political science that negative campaigning is detrimental to the American social fabric and democracy writ large.”4 These attacks reduce trust in the effectiveness and satisfaction of the government, causing voters to question the legitimacy of political institutions in general while engendering troubling stereotypes related to gender and race.
I have little hope that such a reform will take place, but it is obvious that we need some serious changes in our election process. It should not be a partisan concern. We need to do better! Can there be a grassroots movement to effect change?
The first time I saw Myra, I was sitting in the Jones Hall dining room at Memphis State University with friends, including her then-current boyfriend. Barry and I were a part of Young Life Leadership, a para-church organization devoted to introducing adolescents to Jesus Christ and helping them grow in their faith. Interestingly, Barry had piqued a curiosity in Myra to know more about Christ. But, that particular day, she stormed up to the table and gave her a piece of her mind about something he had done that made her mad. She left and he laughed it off…but that was the beginning of the end for Barry. However, I didn’t know that.
A few months later, I began to see her at my home church. I later learned that a young adult member of the church and Myra’s co-worker, Lisa Woods Cannon, had been fielding some spiritual questions that Myra had. Lisa got to a point where she said, “You need to talk to my pastor.” So, Myra came one Sunday morning and told Herb Hodges that she would like to visit with him. He told her to come back for the evening service and she did. However, that night a missionary spoke, and she was bored to tears. She said if he had spoken in the morning service she would never have returned. The irony is that a few years later she had a passion for teaching GAs, a girls’ mission organization, and she made three mission trips to Venezuela.
Nevertheless, she made an appointment to meet Herb. Although she had gone to church as a child and early adolescent, she never knew what it was to have a personal and growing relationship with Christ. Myra came week after week with new questions that she had from reading assignments Herb had given her from God’s word.
As a result of those meetings with Herb, she professed her faith in Jesus as he Lord and Savior. He explained that she should be baptized in obedience to Christ’s command to give a public response or an outward symbol of her new inward commitment. He suggested, what better time could there be than the upcoming Easter Sunday morning to announce to the church her intent to be baptized and also give her testimony of coming to faith in Christ. She didn’t know that the testimony component was not the regular practice in our church when one walked the aisle…so she just did it. At the end of the service, she stood at the front of the church and a long line of members welcomed her into the church family. I wanted to make a connection with her by mentioning the mutual friendship we had with Barry. Fortunately, the Lord thwarted that comment because when I took her hand, I lost my prepared speech. Instead, I stammered out something like “I’m Chuck Spindler and I have a friend who is a friend of yours.” I walked on, thinking “stupid, stupid, stupid.” I even told my sister, Mary how foolish I felt in that encounter. However, it was just peculiar enough of a church pickup line to generate some curiosity later, for she asked Lisa, “Who is Chuck Fenton?”
Myra did not immediately merge into the young adult (collegiate) group. She often sat by herself in our large sanctuary. But one Sunday night I got the courage to invite her to join our group for pizza after church. She accepted, and we began to hang out in group settings over the spring and summer months of 1976. We developed a strong friendship without the pressure of romance for the next six months. We prayed together, we talked about what we were learning through our personal Bible studies, and we memorized scripture together. And when we started dating in August those habits continued into our marriage on December 18, 1977.
Myra was involved in the collegiate Navigator ministry with a strong emphasis on discipleship, reproducing believers after the pattern of 2 Timothy 2:2. She took seriously the call to entrust to faithful people what she had learned, so they, in turn, could teach others also. Whether it was the milk of the foundational, elemental Bible truths in children’s Sunday School or the solid food and the word of righteousness for the maturing woman of faith, her goal was as the writer of Hebrews says, to train them to discern good and evil. (5:12-14).
Along the way, many of you have been her disciples, you might not have known to put that word to it, but you were. Just as Paul said “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” you have discerned in her those winsome ways of Christ that were demonstrated in her lifestyle and teaching and by which you find yourself imitating Myra’s words and actions.
Psalm 90:10 says, “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.” Now this verse does not say God caps our life at the age of 70 or 80. Nor is it a promise that we will live that long. However, it does speak of the toil and trouble that we endure in life and that all too soon it is finished, and we fly away or die. Coincidentally, Myra lived exactly to the age of seventy and struggled with Parkinson’s disease for over 30 years, initially with just weakness on her right side but finally with the inability to verbally communicate, ambulate, and personally take care of her own needs.
My sister, Mary, wrote of the losses that we all experienced over the year of her disease:
“I’ve missed the talks alone with Myra that Parkinson’s Disease (PD) robbed. I hate that PD robbed Mackie’s grandchildren of the fullness of her creativity, quiet humor, and open expressions of delight in children. I’m sorry that Bethany [our Associate Pastor’s wife] couldn’t draw on the years of experience as a pastor’s wife: with all its ups and downs, disappointments, joys, misunderstandings, and spiritual breakthroughs. I hate that Chuck will not have a couple’s trip to the beach or the Grand Canyon. But oh, Myra is restored. She’s living with sight after faith. She’s absent – but present with the Lord. Thank you, Jesus: for my sister, for her sharing, for the love and acceptance and welcome she always showed me. And thank you that she introduced Denny [her husband] to Culvers.”
POSTSCRIPT: Myra and I celebrated our 46th wedding anniversary on December 18. It was a non-event for at that time she was bedridden and had begun the process of active dying. refusing food and water. Early on December 27, I awakened after dozing off for about an hour to discover she had made the transition from mortal to immortal, from the temporal to the eternal.
While there is and will continue to be sadness in her absence, there is joy in the assurance we know she is whole and healed and in the presence of her Lord and Savior. We have the hope that we will see her again and our grandson, Silas [see My Birthday Present]. We grieve with hope!
5 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, 3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. 4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. 6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight— 8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:1-8, NASB)
2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. (1 John 3:2-3, NASB)
It’s not often that i’m stopped for long on a Facebook post as I casually scroll through the family, food or fun pics of friends. However, this morning a post from a complete stranger stopped me and impacted me in a way I didin’t expect. The comment, “Rest in Peace, Uncle David,” with the inclusion of three pictures of my old friend put an immediate pall over me, a flood of memories, a sense of regret, but also a knowledge that I’ll see David Hughes again.
I met David in the Messick High School lunchroom. He was a stitch, a natural comic, who could, as an observer of life, quickly turn almost any situation into a joke. I was immediately drawn to him and wondered why he was drawn to me, but we became fast friends. We weren’t exclusive because we still had other friends with whom we would hang out, but we hardly missed lunch together, weekly Young Life meetings, Friday night football/basketball games, after-game gatherings with classmates at Danvers, or cruising.
I came to realize that maybe I was more of the sidekick who unwittingly helped David carry out his humor. One day we were walking down the hallway just after David stopped at the water fountain. As a classmate walked toward us David squirted through his teeth a sideways, stream of water, passing in front of me and hitting the boy as he was almost even with me. It was a direct hit to which David immediately pushed me and said, “Chuck! I can’t believe you would do that!”
Underclassman, Ken Bennett was often a part of our lunch bunch. After lunch, we would retreat to the stairway landing between the second and third floors. From there we could watch the seniors return from their off-campus lunch. One day the Jr. High band returned from marching practice, entering the door right below us. David took a quick drink from his water glass and spewed the water on the kids below. In a flash, the band director, Tom Swayzee, came running up the stairs, and shouted, “What was that?” David non-chanlantly replied, “Water.” Mr. Swayzee shouted back, “What kind of water?” Appearing non-plussed by the question, David quickly replied, “H2O water.” Mr. Swayzee huffed up the half flight of stairs to the band room, and we erupted into laughter.
I think because neither David, Ken nor I were fraternity affiliated, David named us “The Window Sill Gang” in keeping with our after-lunch hangout. Just as fraternities and sororities had a car horn honk as they passed members’ homes, we had one, too! David and I typically did the driving anytime we cruised or went to games. If we were in my dad’s ’67 Mustang, David would always call “shotgun,” taking the passenger seat. That left Ken to sit on the center hump in between the bucket seats. After leaving a game at Halle Stadium, we hit the red light at Mt Moriah and White Station. The intersection was crowded with game traffic and David bent over at the waist to make it appear that Ken and I were more than just “friends.” Of course, Ken was then doing his best to lift David back to an upright position.
When the 1973 Messick High Yearbooks came out, I noted to David a picture in which it appeared his hand was between the legs of cheerleader, Penny Heck. Even her expression gave some sense that David was up to one of his spontaneous antics. However, closer inspection revealed that they were Penny’s hands. However, David said that he drew stripes on Penny’s sleeve to match his own, further accentuating the optical illusion. Only Penny can verify that story.
We remained friends in college at Memphis State University. During that time we both worked at a grocery store, with David recommending me to the manager. We also served in the Young Life ministry and would hang out in the upstairs office on Southern Avenue, overlooking the Southern Railway tracks that separated the main campus from student parking and the Rec facility. Because there was no pedestrian bridge or tunnel, walking across the rails was the only way to get to your car or recreation class. From our picture window, we would often watch with amusement as students began running, hoping to beat the train as the locomotive blew its horn at the nearest crossing. We would take bets on who wouldn’t make it across the tracks in time.
David had a life-altering diving accident in which he was shallow diving from the beach and hit the bottom of the lake with his head, breaking his neck. After months in the hospital and rehabilitation unit, amazingly David was able to walk again. While he lacked some feeling due to the injury, the casual observer might notice something unusual about his gait. However, one would not have known of the paralysis that he originally experienced.
We both got married. I finished college and took a job with the Tennessee Department of Human Services. The last time I saw David, he was working for his father-in-law (as I recall), spray-painting the bridges that were a part of the newly completed I-40 northern perimeter. I pulled over, we had a quick chat, agreed we needed to get together and then we both got back to work. That next January, I was pursuing my ministry call at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. We never talked again.
Over the years, these stories and others have been passed down to my kids and friends. I tried to find him on the internet and eventually, a former classmate gave me his phone number. I called but didn’t reach him. Then I found out he was on Facebook and he accepted my friend request, but there was never any dialogue.
And so…today I grieve the loss of a friend with whom I had so many significant high school and college experiences. And although we lost touch, I remain touched in what was a relatively short-term relationship…seven years. Because of our common faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, I am grateful that our hope in Christ allows me to face this loss and others with the hope that I’ll see David again and comfort.
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (NASB)
Thanks for the laughs and the demonstration of faith and perseverance in suffering. See you later, David!
My daughter had been telling me how much fun it was to have The Cowtown Marathon pass right in front of their house the last Sunday of February. We decided to take some vacation time that coincided with that event in 2019. It really was a blast! I returned in 2020 just before the pandemic shut down the world. We returned for the resumption of the full marathon in 2022 after they went virtual in 2021.
The neighborhood in the Texas Christian University area uses the event as an excuse for a block party. Neighbors gather up and down the street to cheer on the runners as well as give out water, pickles, bananas, bandaids and vaseline (runners know why). One neighbor blasts music complete with professional sound system and d.j. Kids play and parents party. However, I’m on my recumbent trike taking pictures!
Of course! I have to take pictures, and it’s hard to know when to stop. From the first speedsters to the last strollers, I usually get everyone’s pic. However, I was having a camera malfunction last year and shot several frames with my backup when I realized the shots were extremely overexposed. A runner saw my pics on Instagram and asked if I got his pic. As I searched the time at which he passed by, I could only deduce that he was in the overexposed section. We’ve become Instagram friends and I hope to redeem myself this year.
Since I’m not doing this professionally, it’s hard to know if any of the runners see their pics. Because of the overwhelming number of shots, I made a video montage last year, I titled it “Smiles at Mile 17.” I decided that will be my hashtag for photos on Facebook and Instagram this year. We’ll see if that strategy works.
Here is last year’s video.
The 2022 Cowtown Marathon – Smiles at Mile 17
If you’re running The Cowtown Marathons on February 26, 2023, I hope to capture your Smiles at Mile 17!
I haven’t made a post for quite a while (June of 2022 to be specific). I realize that my last post asked for your pick of my pano submission. In reality the grain bin pano was already submitted, and I’m happy to say it was chosen for display.
Edge of Night
While not winning an award, it is an honor to be selected for display. It was among 23 (37% of submissions) in the panoramic category that were displayed, with only seven receiving an award.
In addition to this photo, I entered three additional photos, rounding out the maximum allowed submissions of four. I typically enter the Themed category. “The Open Road” was the 2022 focus. It was my only submission that was not selected for display. Only 12 of 32 entries in the Black and White class were displayed.
Road to Glory
I submitted another black and white in the People class. I took this picture of four of my grands a few years back at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. It was partially chosen for entry because I won the People – Color class in 2021 with my “Bubble Girl” photo, featuring my oldest granddaughter. That precipitated requests from her siblings to have a submission as well. While it was not a winner, it was displayed, and they proudly posed with it when they came up for the State Fair. 38% or the 81 entries were exhibited. A small feature that I loved about this capture is the small rivulet of water that connects in middle foot to the foot in the reflection.
Four on a BenchFour on a Bench
My last submission was in the Animal (Color) class. I felt it was the least likely to go through to exhibition, but it made it! A farm family in my church let me know of a Great Horned Owl nest on their acreage. I went out on a few occasions and caught this photo in the late nestling stage. It was among 74 or 251 entries that were exhibited.
The Better to See You
So with three out of four submissions making it to exhibition, I was very pleased. Only 10% of photographers had three entries progress through the judging process. There is a merit award for those who have all four entries exhibited. Curiously, no one received that honor in 2022.
There is a Youth Division in which the top age is 17. My grandson captured a picture of his dog that I thought would be a worthy entry. He was six at the time he took the picture with an iPhone. His photo was also exhibited, making him the youngest photographer exhibited at the Photography Salon!
Whit with “My Great Dog”
A total of 2,191 photos were entered by 394 photographers with 29% of entries exhibited. The numbers of submissions have been down post-pandemic. It will be interesting to see if numbers rebound this year. So that’s the update of 2022 Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. Entry information for 2023 will be released in April on the Iowa State Fair website. Out of state and international entries are welcomed. The special Theme Class for 2023 is Sunrise/Sunset. It should be a highly competitive class. I’ll drop a few of my potential 2023 entries as the June deadline approaches.
All entries have been submitted to the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. Now it’s up to the judges to go through over 3,000 entries and select the award winners and exhibited photos. Notifications will go out in July to let photographers know if they’ve received an award and/or have photos displayed during the Fair’s run August 11-21. Just to be exhibited is an honor, since less than 30% are displayed.
One of my four allowed entries among 24 categories was in the Panoramic class. Since the one was already submitted, it is included with three other possible submissions. Which one would you pick (if any) to submit. The other three have never been submitted, so your choices may direct a future submission. Thanks for the help.
A – Snowy Retreat
B – The Edge of Night
C – Sunset Reflections
D – Winterset Wreaths
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Rural Iowa Pastor 