Thoughts and Musings on Faith, Music, Family, Life

I SO want to stick the letter "O" at the end...

Church marquee down the street from us.

Hey, we're all friends here...

Don't usually blog more than once a day, but had to pass this along.

My lovely town of Mount Airy (a.k.a. Mayberry) is one of six finalists in the running for the "Friendliest City in America," in a contest sponsored by Rand McNally and USA Today.  This past weekend, Jason and Nikki Wynn came to check us out.  As you'll see from the video, they got a royal treatment and a pretty good sampling of what life in our town is like.  You may also recognize a gigging pastor briefly playing a Jack Johnson tune at the 6:40 mark ;-)

Thanks to Mayor Deborah Cochran and all the folks who helped make their stay an enjoyable one. The winner will be announced sometime in July - keep your fingers crossed!

Best of the Road Mt. Airy NC from Gone With the Wynns on Vimeo.

Speaking out for curbside recycling

This evening my family and I attended a public hearing held by our city commissioners.  The topic: curbside recycling.  Our wonderful little town of "Mayberry" doesn't have it, and after years of egging our community leaders on, they finally scheduled this forum.  Strange as it is to say, this has been a contentious issue in our community, as there are some who are vehemently opposed to the idea for a number of reasons.  Cost is one of them (and a reasonable one, I confess); but a significant group who view such an initiative as "government intrusion" and even those who see curbside recycling as a not-so-veiled form of socialism (as I highlighted in this previous blog post).

The forum lasted just under two hours.  Those who spoke were overwhelmingly in favor of curbside recycling.  I didn't keep track, but I would guess that for every one person opposed, four or five were in favor.  A lot of the vitriol that had surfaced over the past few weeks in the social media world over this topic was nonexistent.

Both my wife and 8-year old son spoke, as did I.  In my comments I approached things from both a pastoral/spiritual angle, as well as a city resident and taxpayer.  Below is what I said. 

**************

My friends – tonight I come in two capacities to express my support for curbside recycling – as a pastor and a resident of this wonderful town.  As pastor, I come not representing the church I serve, but representing many people of many faiths who understand that the call to take care of God’s earth comes first and foremost from this – the scriptures.  In the book of Genesis, which serves as the foundation for some 2.2 billion Christians and Jews worldwide, the scripture says this:

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth, and over the earth itself.

Sadly, over the years that word “dominion” has been misconstrued to mean “do with the world as you wish.”  When in fact, the Hebrew here actually describes a scenario where a servant is entrusted with the care of their master’s possessions.  So the world does not belong to us – it belongs to God.  Like the Psalmist says in Psalm 24:1: The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.

People of faith all over the world understand God’s mandate to care for creation – including many here in our community, represented in these signed petitions, stating that curbside recycling is not only a civic calling but a spiritual one as well.  I submit these to you for public record on their behalf.

The second capacity in which I come tonight is as a citizen of this town – a citizen who recognizes that waste disposal comes at a cost to the taxpayer, no matter how we go about doing it.  We can either continue purchasing additional land for the landfill – land which will eventually fill up and cause us to purchase more land – or we can enact a curbside recycling program that, in the long run, will cost the taxpayer less.  If we are going to talk about cost in this discussion, as some people are so eager to do, then let us be open and honest about all costs involved.

It’s become apparent that, if curbside recycling is going to happen in Mount Airy, it’s going to require some "forward-thinking" on behalf of you, our city commissioners.  Which is why I’m grateful that this is something you all have demonstrated in the past.  Five or six years ago, you will recall, Reeves Community Center was in danger of shutting its doors.  It would've been easy for you, our elected officials, to have said, "We can't afford to get involved." Instead, you wisely recognized that you couldn't afford NOT to.  So you chose to take over Reeves and keep that vital community resource intact.

And, you know, it strikes me that the city didn’t have to hold a public forum back then to discuss this, even though it came at an additional cost to the taxpayer.  So why is this issue so much more contentious?  The real reason, I would submit, is not about money.  The real reason is about doing something new and different; something we’ve never had before.  It’s about change.  And as creatures of habit, we humans are not very fond of change.  But sometimes doing the right thing, doing the smart and sensible thing, doing the economically viable thing, requires that we do something we’ve never done before.

On a personal note: I’ve had the honor of getting to know each of you on a number of levels.  I’ve served with you in Rotary and in ministry.  I’ve shared the stage with you for shows you were running sound for.  I’ve coached your children in swimming, taught them at the college, officiated your daughter’s weddings.  I know you love this town and want very much to do the right thing.  My friends, this is the right thing!  And, contrary to our local newspaper’s editorial yesterday, this is also very much the right time.  I implore you, as a fellow citizen and colleague and friend, to once again engage in “forward-thinking” and bring curbside recycling to Mount Airy.   Thank you!

**************

I welcome all comments and thoughts, both those who agree with me and those who don't.  Here's the deal - this is my blog, so I reserve the right to delete comments that do one of two things: 1) engage in namecalling, belittling, excessive vitriol or other such nonsense, and/or 2) do not contribute to the dialogue in a meaningful way. If you don't feel you can abide by either of these stipulations, you probably don't need to comment (or just don't get all bent out of shape when I delete it).  If you can abide by it, please, comment away.

Telling only one side of the story

There are many, many things I love about the small town my family and I live in.

And then there is this.

Where to start?  Obviously the guy is entitled to his opinion, although it certainly is based on hearsay and lines drawn with the most random of connections.  Without diving into a full-on political debate, I simply cannot understand how someone could equate "socialism" with "sustainable living" so completely.  Nevertheless, he is entitled to his opinion.

My concern lies with those who make the agenda for our city commissioners and those who report for our newspapers.  I am friends with a number of city commissioners and individuals at the local newspaper, so I do not say these things lightly. But how this individual got on the docket of our city commissioner's meeting is troubling to me.  Obviously, armed with powerpoints and a formal presentation, this was not something out of the open public forum.  This gentleman was invited to speak.  Fine.  But if you're going to extend him an invitation, you must invite someone from the other side of the argument.  And there are plenty of people in our community who would be more than willing and qualified to do that.  Such as Joe Gardener, a nationally-renowned expert in sustainable gardening and living who lives a mile and a half from the city building where the commissioners meet.  He's an intelligent guy, a good Presbyterian, and he kicks butt on the Stairmaster at the community center.  Someone majorly dropped the ball by not making arrangements for a counterpoint voice to be heard.

But that's not all.  I understand that the reporter's job is to report what happens, and the city commissioners did not give the newspaper a counterpoint to report on.  And I know the print dealine looms large every day and a story must be turned in for publication.  Still, I can't understand why the reporter did not take a few extra minutes to pick up the phone and call any number of people to provide another perspective to balance the article.  Reporting is about sharing what happened, but it is also about striving to present a full picture, especially when the facts presented here are so skewed and one-sided.

I am not a fan of socialism.  I am a fan of sustainable living.  And I cannot see how one could possibly lead to another, unless you succumb to a radical perspective based on something other than just the facts.  Which is why I fear there is more going on here than meets the eye. I've said this before and apparently it bears repeating: when we live by our fears and not by our hopes, when we use scare tactics to get our way rather than presenting a complete picture and the facts at hand, we only hurt ourselves.  And that's not something this small town - or any town - ever needs.

I welcome your thoughtful and respectful comments below, whatever your perspective might be.

**************

UPDATE: Here's a wonderful letter to the editor from my friend David Petri, who lives in Mount Airy and works with a local company in the area of sustainable living.

Rainbow over Mayberry

The rush-rush of a weekday morning - getting dressed, getting the boys off to school.  And as I pulled into the church parking lot and walked up the handicapped ramp, I turned toward downtown and saw this:

Thanks for the reminder.

http://www.stevelindsley.com

The Lindsley Racers

Younger ran the 1/4 mile Fun Run, Elder ran the half-mile Fun Run.

And a special shout-out to the wife, who ran her very first 5K!

First day, all over again

Things got going a little earlier at the Lindsley house this morning.  Our oldest son came bouncing into our bathroom as I was shaving. He was completely dressed – not uncommon for him, except for the collar shirt he was wearing.  See, it was his first day back at school and he wanted to make a good impression.

We slid into our school morning routines as if we had never left them back in early June.  Breakfast for the boys, feed the cats, give the cat his insulin shot (yes, we have a diabetic cat).  Lunches and book bags were packed.  Teeth were brushed.  Younger brother was heading to Kindergarten this year but wouldn't start for another day – they stagger the little ones. He would have one more day with Mom to himself.  I'm pretty sure this means as much to Mom as it does to him.

We parked the minvan along the road and walked around the corner to the school we've grown to love. You could feel the excitement and energy emanating from the place before you even got there.  Mrs. Johnson was greeting folks at the front door; she was our oldest son's teacher assistant last year.  They couldn't have picked a better, more welcoming person to be in that place on this day.  As with so much about our school, they got it right.  We waved and said hi to teachers, parents, kids all about the place.  Everyone wore smiles.

We got to his classroom – we'd already been there a few days earlier for Open House, so it was familiar.  And yet it was different, too.  Students were already at their desks quietly writing in their notebooks.  Without a hint of hesitation he walked right in, sat down.  We lingered, for just a minute, and then suddenly we knew we shouldn't be there anymore.  This was his time, not ours. We waved and said goodbye.

As we turned the hallway corner I was suddenly hit with a thought that surprised me by how much it surprised me: we were parents of a second grader at a K-2 school.  We were now parents of one of the “old kids;” a primary school “senior.”  Those second graders had always seemed so grown-up, so much older than mine. And yet here he was, one of them.  How did this happen so fast?

Walking back up the hallway – more teachers, more parents and kids.  More smiles.  It had been months, and yet it seemed so familiar.  Because it was.  The school that we love; the people there we love even more.  It was the first day of school, and everything felt right.  Everything was going to be fine.

A yard sale with a purpose

I am not much of a fan of yard sales, either going to one or having one.  The last yard sale we hosted was back in 2003, right before we piled our cars with the stuff we wanted to keep and headed north on Highway 52 from Davidson County to Mount Airy.  It was such a memorable experience that my wife and I swore we'd never do it again.

As they say, famous last words.

But you can't blame us, can you?  I mean, what would you do if your 7-year old son came to you one day and said he wanted to have a yard sale because our family had lots of stuff we didn't really need and there were probably others out there who needed it more than us?  And what if he also said he thought it'd be a great idea to give all the money away to help the wildlife suffering in the Gulf oil spill, as well as the children in Haiti still dealing with the ill effects of January's earthquake?

So there we were, Friday afternoon, filling our living room with an abundance of "stuff," making signs on neon poster board, labeling items with pre-marked price tags.  We got up at 6:30 (me after getting home from a Mediocre Bad Guys gig at 2:30) to get ready for the yard sale at 8. As fully expected, they started coming at 7.  We were literally dragging things out the front door as people were perusing and purchasing them.

In the genre of contradictory statements there is probably none greater than "enjoyable yard sale."  But that truly was the case here. And I am fully aware that the planets aligned in a way they probably never will again to make it so.  The local newspaper had come the day before to interview Elder about his yard sale and where he got the idea to give the funds to Gulf oil spill and Haiti relief, and the article (which you can read HERE) was the lead story in Saturday morning's paper, plastered at the very top of the front page - complete with a picture of two adorable boys seated in a mass of yard sale goodies. (picture & article courtesy of Mondee Tilley & The Mount Airy News)

So not only did we have a steady turnout of people all morning, but we also had a lot of very generous folks.  Generous with their willingness, on the most part, to not haggle so much on the price, a staple of most yard sale experiences.  Generous with their praise for our boys, reaffirming the good thing they were doing.  And even generous with their own stuff.  Over the course of the week we had invited friends to donate any goods, which they did.  What we hadn't anticipated were complete strangers bringing things that morning for us to sell.  These were items they could've easily taken to Goodwill on the other side of town for a tax write-off.  Instead they brought it for us - well, for our 7-year old, really.  Just another reason we love living in this great little town.

Yard sales are transitional moments of sorts, primarily for the seller, as it has been determined that some item has outlived its usefulness in that particular setting and should find another home. This can be a bit of a bittersweet moment.  At one point I looked out on our front lawn and saw signs of a past chapter in our family's life.  There was the crib in which both our boys slept every night in their early years, a changing table where you-know-what was changed, an infant car seat, our first stroller, and the nighttime camera we had in the nursery. I'll never forget waking in the wee hours of the morning to see my wife intently watching that tiny TV screen strategically positioned inches from her face on her nightstand, as if the life of the newborn baby displayed depended on it.  Our boys are 7 and 5 now, long past the need for such things. And there's a tinge of sadness to that, to be honest; to finally let go.  But we are glad that someone else can take them and get use out of them as we did (although we didn't sell the crib, so if anyone's interested, let us know).

Later that afternoon, after the huge thunderstorm roared through just minutes after we packed everything up and hauled the very few remains to Goodwill, our 7-year old and his mother sat at the kitchen table to meticulously count all the dollar bills and change.  And when all was said and done we had a grand total of $490.33, an amount unheard of in most yard sale experiences.  My wife sent out an email announcing the good news and promptly received a half-dozen responses from folks saying they'd donate the remaining $9.67 to bring the total to an even $500 - something the boy had expressed in the newspaper article as being very important to him. 

So the final tally is still undetermined, but we do know that our son will be able to make a pretty sweet donation to two very important causes. And perhaps more importantly he's learned that when you get an idea on how to help someone or something and act on it, and let others know about it, folks will be more than happy to jump on the bandwagon with you. We got rid of a lot of stuff yesterday, but honestly, I think our family got so much more than we let go of.

One last cup of the Good Life

When my family and I moved to Mayberry a little over seven years ago, there were three things I required of the community in order to make it my home: an indoor swimming pool, a good Mexican restaurant, and a coffee shop.  I was just kidding, of course, except that I wasn't.  Coming to this place I took comfort in the fact that two out of three wasn't bad and that I could get by without a place to enjoy my beloved java.  Mercifully, the coffee house gods took pity on me; and within a few months of our arrival a local entrepreneur (and fine Presbyterian, I might add) chose to dedicate a chunk of the first floor of his Main Oak Emporium retail store in the heart of downtown Mount Airy to a brand new coffee shop.  And that is how the Good Life Cafe was born.

The thing is, the Good Life has been so much more than just a place to drink coffee, as it is with most good coffee houses.  It's where my young family would lunch on Fridays, my day off, munching on scrumptious chili and toasted jalapeno pimento cheese (still the best I've ever had).  It gained fame as a live music hotspot; a comfortable home to many an Acoustic Blend and Mediocre Bad Guys show, as well as the place where Abbey Road was brought back to life this past fall.  Every second and fourth Wednesday mornings the window loft area of the Good Life - what we affectionately labeled the "Upper Room" - was home to our church's Bob Chilton Bible study, providing a place for us to meet outside the church walls in the heart of our community.  A few years into its existence the coffee shop introduced this wonderful thing called wireless internet - now as common and prevalent as cell phones but back then a cutting-edge luxury that created quite a buzz in Mayberry-land.  Oh, and it also had some pretty darn good coffee too.  It has been a large part of many of our lives; a staple for our little town.

Which is why I, along with many others, was crushed this past week to learn that the Good Life was shutting its doors.

It's not a total shock, really.  This wasn't the first time that the "GL" had been on shaky ground.  The economy's tough these days, especially for small towns like ours.  And coffee houses are in perhaps one of the more difficult businesses when it comes to making a profit, having to support hefty costs of space and staff by selling a product for just a buck or two at a time.  But each time the Good Life started to take a fall, like a cat it always managed to land on its feet and continue serving the jo.

But not this time - it's closing for good.  And this is a very sad thing, for a lot of folks.  Because in truth it never really was about the coffee, as good as that coffee was.  That may sound strange, but it's true; a well-kept secret with all successful coffee shops.  It's really about the people - the people who work there and the people who happily give it business, and how those groups of people are brought together.  Like Cheers on the iconic sitcom of the 80's and 90's, the Good Life was a place where everybody knew your name.  And even if you didn't know their name, or even recognize them, they still felt like family.

And that's a rarity in our world these days, don't you think?  I mean, we all know the landscape is changing, or has already changed.  I know I can get a much better deal on a book by logging on to Amazon.com and securing the item of my choice with a few clicks of the mouse and a credit card.  I can surf the web and get pretty much anything and everything I'd otherwise find in a mom-and-pop store on Main Street without having to leave the comforts of my living room recliner.

But there's one very important thing that I will never be able to get in this manner - a sense of community.  A sense of associating myself with a group of individuals who share the same town, same space and air that I do.  A sense of feeling that I am part of supporting a local business, one that is owned by a fellow church member or a neighbor down the street.  It never fails - I go into the coffee shop and run into my son's first-grade teacher, and the guy who lap swam two lanes next to me that morning, and the Young Life leader doing his daily study, and the church member whose daughter's wedding I officiated last month.  That's what community is all about - it is rare and it is precious.

The Good Life's demise isn't the only business in early 2010 that's calling it quits - a day or two after this announcement one of our hometown newspapers shut its doors; two days later the owner of a one-of-a-kind train store decided to retire after having tried in vain to sell.  From what I hear there are more similar closings on the way.  And while my head knows that the Good Life really didn't set all those other things in motion like some sort of chain reaction, my heart can't help but feel it happened like that.

I got one last cup of coffee from the Good Life yesterday, it's final day of operation.  I'd just swum a few laps at the pool and needed something to warm me up from the sub-freezing temperatures we've been having around here as of late.  I needed a last "fix," in more ways than one.  I walked in to the familiar sound of the bell that rings when the door is opened, making my way past the retail clothing (which will now take over the Good Life space) to the main counter.  I placed my standard order: house blend, a little room for cream.  The lady on the other side of the counter (who I confess to not knowing as well as I've known many of the others who've stood in her shoes) filled my Good Life travel mug and handed it to me as I passed her a few dollar bills.  Keep the change, I said.  It was such a simple sequence of actions - pour some coffee, hand it to me, take my money, ring it up.  And yet there was a beauty and a grace about it each and every time; one I and many others will sorely miss as we stumble through the Good Life-less days that lie ahead of us.

So what's the moral here?  The obvious one: support your local businesses and restaurants whenever you can, even when you know you could get a better deal somewhere else.  There are people whose livelihoods depend on our choices.  And not only that, they are people we know.  We serve on community boards with them, we sit in church pews next to them, we coach little league soccer with them.  They need and deserve our support.

But perhaps the main lesson in all of this is simply being thankful for those places where community forms and where we are brought together.  For that is precious time, the sacred ground of human life.  For over seven years a whole bunch of us have had the pleasure of encountering this at the Good Life Cafe on Main Street in Mount Airy.  It sucks it won't be there for us anymore, but all those wonderful memories will continue to live on and remind us how something as basic and simple and wonderful as coffee can help create community.  In our segmented, technology-saturated and individualistic world today, that truly is a gift we can take with us long after the "OPEN" sign is turned off for the last time.

Yea for crystalline water ice - FINALLY - and for a good Plan B

I remember some pretty decent snows during my growing up years in Raleigh - usually one or two a winter that would enable good sledding, snowmen (and women), snowcream, and most importantly getting us out of school.  There was one that dropped a good foot of the white stuff in the Triangle area of North Carolina and stuck around for nearly a week.  Ah, those were the days.

Seven years ago, when our family moved to the foothills in Mount Airy, we figured we were guaranteeing ourselves some serious snows - the Blue Ridge mountains, after all, were right within view and get tons of snow.  So we're a shoe-in, right?  Not so much.  Other than our first winter here, we have been sorely lacking in the snow department.  Apparently when the storms come from the north down, as most of them do, the mountains act as a buffer for our little town, shielding us and sending the snow elsewhere.  Winston-Salem, just half an hour south, will get pounded; and we'll get nothing.  This has happened over and over and over again.  For the past five years.  Our measuring stick for this snow drought is the fact that our second son, born in 2004, had yet to experience a real snow - and by "real" I mean a snow that's more than a dusting that evaporates mere hours after its arrival.  It's been sad, trying to explain to your kids why they can't build a snowman with 1/8 an inch of the white stuff on the ground.  It's sad, and it's wrong.  No kid should be deprived of at least one winter wonderland in their childhood.

Which is why I am glad to say that, on Friday December 18th at around 2:20pm, they were deprived no longer.

The reports were coming in fast and furious that this was a "major storm" that would "cause significant accumulation" over the weekend.  I had heard it all before, many times.  I had since taught myself not to get excited or overly optimistic.  Despite the fact that all signs pointed to the predictions coming true, despite the fact that the area schools let out at 11am in advance of the storm (usually the kiss of death, as it were), I remained stoic.  I would be the "Doubting Thomas" of Mount Airy snowfall - I would not believe until I got to see.

When the snow did come, and when I saw it almost immediately sticking to the streets, I finally allowed myself to believe.  So did my boys, which was the most fun of it all.   The snow continued to fall late into the afternoon and evening, which was great as usually our snows come and go pretty quick.  That would not be the case today.  The only bummer about this was the fact that the second Mediocre Bad Guys gig with Rolling Stones sax player Bobby Keys had to be canceled, as the roads were a mess.  However, we got a chance to redeem ourselves - more on that later.

Saturday morning came quick, and after a big breakfast the boys and I headed outdoors.  By some freak of nature our streets were plowed at 6:30am, which is quite strange given that we live in a pretty secluded area of town.  It also messed up a good sledding hill around the corner for us, so we had to go on a hunt.  We found a pretty nice place in a friend's yard, and the boys got to hang out with one of their good school friends.  It was priceless seeing the looks on their faces as they sledded in our area's first real snowfall in five years; especially our youngest, for whom sledding had always been a concept he could only fathom in his mind.  This is the stuff memories are made of - not only for the kids, but for their parents too.

 After some time to dry off and defrost we went back out to engage in another wintry tradition - the construction of the family snowman.  Again, keep in mind that the last time we did this - the last time we were even able to do this - was 2004.  This year's snow was perfect for the cause - slightly damp, packed well.  As most snowman construction begins it didn't look too great at first.  But we persisted in our efforts, and thanks to a snowman kit the wife got a hold of we were able to complete our masterpiece in a little over an hour.  The picture to the left shows our creation - kind of hard to tell, but it was pretty tall, measuring almost even with the height of our boys.  Lots of fun.

So - back to that canceled gig the night before.  As soon as the band made the call to cancel we begin looking at other options to play with Bobby before he headed back to Nashville.  We had such a great time playing with him a year before that we didn't want to miss out on another opportunity.  After lots of phone calls, texts and emails, we finally settled on a Saturday night gathering at the band's practice space - in the basement of an off-the-beaten path warehouse in town.  Sure, it wouldn't be a full-fledged show like it would've been the night before, and one of our guitarists wouldn't be able to make the trek from Winston-Salem to join us.  But it would still be a lot of fun.  We invited a handful of our local friends to come hang out and around 30 folks turned up.  We didn't have a set list - we just called songs out as they came to us, pretty much the same songs we would've played anyway.  And while the big show would've been a blast, there was something kinda cool about the intimate feel of Plan B; just us hanging out with a pretty famous and talented dude playing some tunes and enjoying each others company.

Highlight of the evening - presenting Bobby with his birthday present: a framed poster of the original gig flyer with all our signatures, followed by playing the Beatles' "Birthday."  The plan was to give him the poster and play the tune on his actual birthday, which was the previous night, at the original gig.  But he still seemed genuinely touched by the gesture and joined us for some nice sax playing on a song in which you'd never thing sax would fit.  Which, of course, it did.  All of which goes to show that sometimes the Plan Bs can actually work out as good or even better than the original.

It's Sunday morning now and we had to cancel church because the parking lot hasn't been scraped.  Temperatures are heading upwards and the snow is starting to melt.  No one enjoys playing in slush.  It's always kind a bummer when the crystalline water ice transitions to liquid form.  But we've got pictures and memories that'll stick with us for a while.  Five years wait is long enough for a good snow and all the fun it brings.  Here's hoping we don't have to wait that long again.