HOLD TIGHT!

HOLD TIGHT because we live in challenging financial times that feel out of control.

Our attempts to spend our way out of this sluggish economy didn't' work. We owe 18+ trillion.  The young cannot get jobs.  The (ahem) older retirees feel their savings hedge on the future melting because savings accounts no longer deliver interest payments.  There is more governmental dependence and less free enterprise.

Into that scenario, what can help us dig out of our hole?  Can you think of any economic success story these days?  If there were one, wouldn't it be in all the news?

Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin has a comeback model that has proven results.

The Governor's conservative policies saw considerable opposition.  He is a "red" governor elected in a "blue" state.  Wisconsin is strong in public teacher unions and they came against him with guns blazing.

The unions intimidated loudly and imported protestors, flooding the capital.  That didn't work.  They tried to recall him and funneled more than $80 million into the recall election (as compared to $37.4 spent on the 2012 election).  There were threats against the Governor and his family.

But Scott Walker stood firm throughout.  And the people in Wisconsin who had voted 52% for him the first time... voted 53% for him in the recall election.

Now the state has a $1 billion budget surplus and an unemployment number far below the national rate.  As of December, it was 6.2% and is falling.  He is proposing a $504 million dollar property/income tax cut to return some surplus to the people.  HIS POLICIES HAVE WORKED!

If you didn't know about this, ask yourself...why?  Why wouldn't the media pick up this bit of good news so it can be celebrated and copied?  Don't we need financial solvency?

Ask yourself something else.  Why was this good man (and his family) threatened during this whole process?  What is WRONG with opposition that tries to destroy "the other side" because of differing political views?  Is their position so indefensible that it can't stand or fail based on its merits?

Conservative values WORK.  But there has not been a conservative able to articulate our position since Ronaldus Maximus, The Great Liberator.

Next weekend a meeting is scheduled at Amelia Island in Florida to gather Republicans (John Boehner, Eric Cantor,  Kevin McCarthy and 25 other members of Congress) to collaborate with a group dedicated to defeating conservatives in Congress.  Shame on them.

Conservative principles founded the Republican party and conservatives are not the ones who have left the tent.  We need policies from grown-ups like Governor Scott Walker, not more watered-down Republicans.  We are desperate for leadership and a firm hand on the tiller.

This VIDEO offers a breath of fresh air and the possibility that (as Bob Dylan would have said) "the times they are a'changin".

ROSANNE

Mike and I can finally agree on a Cash!

Friday night we went to see Rosanne Cash at the Walton Arts Center and the show was a delight!  We LOVED her...and her strong voice that filled the room.

Rosanne sure got her Daddy's love for telling a story in song.

How would we describe Rosanne's music?  Her style is more varied than just country; we heard everything from blues to rock-n-roll to slow ballads.  Her band had some of the best guitarists we've seen and it was fun to watch her guitar war with her talented husband and with another band member on the lap steel guitar.

At 58, Rosanne Cash seems to be at a "making peace with the past" place.  She and her husband, John Levanthal, chose a tour through the South and wrote songs about their impressions.  Here is a LINK to the CBS Sunday Morning segment which explains her journey.

The evening's first set played through her new album called "A River And A Thread".  Here are words from one of the songs:

I'm going down to Florence

Gonna wear a pretty dress

I'll sit on top the magic wall

With the voices in my head.

Then we'll drive on through to Memphis,

Past the strongest shores

And on to Arkansas

Just to touch the crumbled soul.

Rosanne has that pathos that she inherited from her Daddy, eh?  When she introduced that song, she said she couldn't wait to sing the word "Arkansas" IN Arkansas.  She had the crowd eating out of her hand and they roared their approval.

Another thing we particularly liked was the way Rosanne set up each song.  When she introduced "The Sunken Lands" (her song about the Delta where her Daddy was raised) she made reference to the 1811 New Madrid earthquake which caused the Delta to drop and the gumbo soil to be filled in.  Their homeplace in the Delta near Dyess, Arkansas, is where Rosanne is working in conjunction with ASU to redo her Daddy's small frame home.  This is the front porch of the Cash house.

If you saw the movie WALK THE LINE, you know that this little girl was raised in California after her parents divorced.

As an adult she lived in Nashville, but remarked that city felt like a fishbowl.  She and husband now live in New York City.

Everyone knows that Johnny Cash had his roots in gospel music.  John Leventhal told Rosanne that a collection of songs about the South would not be complete without a gospel song.

Rosanne told her audience "the two of us are not traditionally religious". But they wrote the song "Tell Heaven", a song full of "spiritual" and emotional words sans good news.

Heavy hearts in empty rooms

Tell heaven

The empty sky will never 

take our burdens

Something good will someday 

come our way

Tell heaven

This daughter of the South talks about being a "Buddhiscopalian", saying  "The Buddhist because I actually studied more about Buddhism than I did any other religion, and it makes the most sense to me - self-awareness, compassion, nonviolence, etc.  And Episcopalian because my girls went to an Episcopal school and I loved the church.  It's in Greenwich Village and they do a lot of outreach to gay, homeless, young people.  So that's a progressive church; they're very ecumenical."

People find it easy (as we did) to fall in love with this passionate woman who is so talented.  Rosanne says people write her all the time with concern about where she will spend eternity.  They ask "Don't you want to be with your Daddy?"  For whatever reason, this poet-from-such-pain hasn't found the Healer.

One of Rosanne Cash's songs is called "The Long Way Home".  I'm praying that her journey will end at home.

  

WHAT'S IT WORTH?

How do we determine what something is worth?  Yesterday was a good reminder of the value of things that are bartered, bought, or given freely.

I did a ridealong with Mike as he delivered something he had sold on Craig's list.  It was a carrying case for a bow/arrow that he bought so many years ago that he couldn't remember what he paid for it.

Yesterday he sold it for $30.  The buyer couldn't have found a case for anything close to that price, so the convergence of value, benefit, and price caused BUYER/SELLER BLISS.

Then we stopped by the Jeep dealership to pick up a part Mike had ordered when a carwash knocked the old one off.  See it over there in the white wrapper?  It was a piece of plastic formed in Mexico...just a black plastic disc about 2.5" in diameter.  It cost $27. REALLY?  I looked at it all the way home.

It put into perspective how much money will buy and inflation will steal.  Our recently acquired $30 flew away in a rather unequal exchange.  NO BUYERS BLISS.

Last night Condoleeza Rice spoke at UofA's Barnhill Arena.  It was FREE, but we didn't go because we didn't want to slosh/slip on the ice.  The Hogs were in town (beating Ole Miss on Seniors Night) and they drew 16,000...so Ms. Rice only drew 3,000.

We read in the paper this morning that she was paid $170,000.  I love Condi and I'm glad she commands that fee.  But isn't it crazy how much things cost?

According to the newspaper article, the former Secretary of State spoke on various subjects relevant to the  student's future/finding a match to how they were made.  But she also made remarks about Russia and about what an "intimidating and ruthless" man Putin is.  She said in their 2005 meeting, the Russian leader abruptly stood up.  So Rice instinctively did the same.  "I'm 5'10"; he's 5'7", Rice said.  "So at that moment, there was a little bit of a standoff.  He's an intimidator.  It's important to let him know you're not intimidated."

In this dance between what something is worth vs. what it costs, the University of Arkansas set value on ideas.  I hope those college students (and adults) who landed on a rare free opportunity...were challenged by this accomplished woman.  I wish we had heard her.

What do you value?  Won't we take ideas over plastic any day?  The best things in life ARE free.

One day when this earth is done, the plastic will melt like snow.  The two preeminent ideas...the ideas that God the Father loves us fully and has the next destination prepared...will rule the day.  Amazingly, that assurance is free (to us) for the asking.  It is pure BLISS to consider amazing grace.  Are you familiar with this older verse from the song "Amazing Grace"?

THE EARTH SHALL SOON DISSOLVE LIKE SNOW

THE SUN FORBEAR TO SHINE;

BUT GOD, WHO CALL'D ME HERE BELOW

WILL BE FOREVER MINE.

OUTSIDE THE BOX

It must have been the late 70's when Mike and I first heard of Fellowship Bible Church.  It was a new church in town and I can remember being curious because it seemed to do church differently. People were engaged and "gung-ho" as if their lives depended on it.

Church for us had been a predictable order of service which could actually be timed (to the minute) when we would stand and repeat the same words.  But Fellowship didn't sound predictable at all.

One day our little kids came home from playing with neighbors, asking "can we go to the Orahood's church?" That was Fellowship. We heard of a class that met in Steve and Shay Freeman's house where you could find out more about Fellowship and what they believed.  Finding the Freeman's house on a dark night was way more proactive than just showing up on Sunday morning.  But we wanted to know more and we began to feel like this was the tip of something big.  Here's what we discovered:

MODUS OPERANDI
Fellowship met in Pulaski Academy's gym, and then later in a movie theatre.  It was fun to be exiting the movies while people with popcorn were arriving.  We began to understand more clearly that a church was not a building.  The pastors were paid, but everyone else volunteered.  Teams of men pitched in to pack/unpack trailer loads of furniture and curriculum into a rented space every week.  All that effort floored us.

SHARED PULPIT
Pulpit leadership as a plural responsibility?  All we had ever seen was a "senior pastor/associate pastor" hierarchy.  Fellowship's concept came from a desire for the balance and safety of mutual submission to the Spirit.

COMMUNITY
There was a friendly and engaging reception the minute you stepped into the building.  In fact, it felt like everyone was on the greeter committee.   In those smaller days, there was an early time for donuts/coffee in the back.  Often there was a sharing service where people stood with a mic and told how the Lord was answering prayer or how they had applied the teaching in their lives.  All these things built community and we liked that feeling.

NITTY GRITTY
Home groups were another new thing to us.  We found when you've been in one another's homes and have "done life" together, it helps you belong to one another.  Often people have said "Oh, I don't like a large, impersonal church and I would never feel a part."  That would be true if not for small groups.

Of course, church is just like anything else...you get out what you put in.  If you push past a Sunday drop-in and make yourself go into homes, your circle of friends expands.  Jesus is the thing you have in common and He is greater than any differences.

WORSHIP
Can we "amen" that the worship style and music are huge?  We were made to worship and worship is the vehicle which takes us to God.

Perhaps you have known of churches who have split over the hymnal vs. praise music conundrum.  This is just my opinion, but I think music is the biggest dividing wall in the church hour.  People call it the "segregated" hour, but I don't think the separation is over skin color, but rather music style.

The Lord made us all differently and some worship seamlessly with Southern gospel, some with hymns, others with praise, and others with the more soulful sound of black churches.  Surely the Lord is less concerned with the "how" and more concerned with the "want to".

There are people of every stripe at Fellowship....and the worship team is always trying new things.  One Sunday they might have a hymn which morphs into a praise chorus.  Another day they were just as likely to have a string quartet as a banjo ensemble.  We used to say the music at Fellowship was like Arkansas weather...you just wait.

LEADERSHIP

Our church experience went from a fifteen minute sermon (with an added Bible verse)...to a forty minute line-by-line expository teaching that made the Bible come alive.  Mike and I love these three fine men who taught together for over 25 years...Robert Lewis, Bill Wellons, and Bill Parkinson.

There's just something to be said for the person who brings you closer to the Lord, marries your kids, and buries your parents.  

Robert and Sherard Lewis and family

Bill and Carolyn Wellons and family

Bill and Ann Parkinson and family

Later Dan Jarrett and Tim Lundy were added to the teaching team.  What amazing Bible teachers!  Dan stole my heart when he met with our son for early morning discipleship times.  Mike loves Tim because they worked together closely on FBC's new building.

Dan and Kathy Jarrett (and their five children) now serve at ChangePoint Church in Anchorage, Alaska. 

Tim and Lea Lundy who now serve at Venture Christian Church in Los Gatos, California.

Mike and I were spiritual babies "raised" at Fellowship Bible Church for over thirty years. Fellowship was where all the pieces of the life puzzle fit together for us, bringing heaven to earth.  Now we WANTED to go to church rather than feel guilty if we DIDN'T go to church.  My life today depends on this communion, so I guess now I'm Ms. Gung-Ho, too!

P.S.  All the glory goes to God for His good plans for us and for His impeccable timing.  And I'm also proud of my husband.  Mike counts one of God's best gifts to him as his post-retirement, ten-year job at Fellowship as their liason between the church and their constant construction.   The new building construction (see pics below...with three venues, each designed for a particular worship style) was completed in May of 2009.  Then our move to Fayetteville was two months later.

Main Worship Venue

The Warehouse

The Chapel