Christmas Photos

We had a Great Christmas. Notice the dinner hats, a rising tradition.

A Parable

As we approach Christmas and recall the birth of our Lord, i.e., His full humanity, it seems appropriate to share a parable I wrote several years ago. (I intended for it to introduce a chapter I wrote for an edited book on ministry with children. The editor liked the chapter except for this parable. Thus, the parable has never been published.) The love of God can be clearly seen in the eyes of babies like Natalia and Charlie. Our God of unlimited power and majesty placed Himself in our hands and spoke, "What you do to the least of these you have done unto me."

THE STRANGER FROM WITHIN

The stranger stumbled into the camp of pilgrims only half alive. Her journey had been long and perilous. Crossing through the great barrier, she had survived but had lost everything in the process. Only the shadow of a memory of being cuddled in a blanket of love remained, and all she knew was that she wanted to live. Every ounce of her energy was focused on this one thing, nourishment, and she didn't care from whence it came. She had nothing and now she was in this land of traveling giants who spoke a foreign tongue. She was helpless, unable to protect or provide for herself.

The giants rejoiced at her arrival. For them it was a marvelous event. They had hopefully awaited her presence, having watched her journey from afar. A celebration was planned. She would be cared for as an honored guest. But these giants were different than most. Some tribes seemed to fear these little people, often sending warriors with sharpened spears to destroy them on their journey. Other's simply abandoned them to the wolves, while others made pets or slaves out of them.

This stranger was a chosen one. It was not her will, nor chance, that had swept her through the wilderness to this tribe of God-fearers. These so-journers saw every new arrival as a gift from God, a promise of their own destiny. Serving the strangers was at once a sacred privilege and honored duty, an opportunity to share in what their God was doing in the world. This helpless individual was a gateway into their own future. She would keep their hope alive. It was their joy and responsibility to nurture her to strength and to pass on to her the sacred promise.

She was also a reminder of their past. Each of them had made the journey. One by one they had traveled from nothingness to existence, from despair to hope. They had been strangers themselves but now they shared an identity and a purpose. Now, they belonged. They were one people with a common future, a family traveling to the city of God. The stranger was no stranger at all. She was their daughter, an heir of the promise. She belonged with them just as they belonged with God. --- JDJ

Welcome Natalia

Christina, Ronnie & Katherine
Darlene & Thurman



Congratulations to my niece Christina Jennings and her husband Ronnie on the birth of their second daughter, Natalia (8 lbs. 4 ozs., 20 inches), yesterday afternoon. Katherine is excited about a baby sister, I'm sure. My sister Darlene and her husband, Thurman, are in route from Jacksonville, Florida to Iowa Park, Texas to be with them.

My Dad: Muscle, Mystery & Tease

My Daddy was six feet of muscle and mystery. He kept his emotions under careful control. Pleasure and displeasure were seen in his eyes. He didn’t laugh out loud (often), raise his voice (hardly ever), or cry (ever). On the other hand, every time he left for work he gave each of us a kiss on the cheek and told us he loved us. Momma was always last and her peck was always on the lips.

Dad was a tease in the truest sense of the word. He would set a trap and methodically lure the unsuspecting into it. Often there was a truth he was trying to help the other person discover, but sometimes he just loved to tease. He took great care not to hurt or offend; he innately understood that the best humor was that which helped us all to laugh at our shared humanness.

When my cousin Alice Pearl was a teen and had begun wearing makeup, upon her arrival he would always say, “Alice, looks like you got too close to that stovepipe again. We’ve got soap and a rag back there if want them.” It seems to me he especially liked to tease my brother Jimmy. At least I paid extra attention to those events.

On his sixteenth birthday Jimmy received a set of exercise weights, the simple barbell and dumbbell kind. With all of the disks balanced on the barbell it weighed 110 pounds. Three or four of his friends gathered on the front porch like young bucks to see who was the strongest. Each had had several turns when Dad walked in from work. Seeing what was going on, he bellowed out, “who’s the best man? Who can press it the most?” Jimmy named his nemesis reporting how many times each boy had pressed the bar. The winner had gotten it full length above his head twelve times.

Dad asked if they minded if “the old man gave it a try.” “Sure, go ahead” was the choral response. Setting his satchel down beside the weights, Dad grabbed the bar firmly, exhaled and took a deep breath. He jerked the weights up over his head with great effort and began to strain toward the record. By the time he got to eleven he was red-faced, eyes-bulging, and muscles shaking. With all of his might he tried for the twelfth but dropped the burden in mid-air, guiding it as it bounced on the cement floor.

With the young bucks grinning and jabbing at each other, Dad began to speak of his puzzlement. “Boys, I don’t understand that. When I was y’alls age I cut pulpwood and it was my job to throw those logs up on the truck.” As he spoke he was motioning the act of throwing a log up to his invisible partner. At the apex of his thrust, he suddenly jerked, snapping his fingers, “That’s my problem. I threw those logs up with one hand.”

Leaning over he grabbed the barbell set with his right hand, smoothly raised it over his head and without any sign of exertion began rapidly pumping, “one, two, three...” Effortlessly he continued on to “… thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.” Then, with one motion he gently lowered the bar to the floor, and saying nothing, picked up his satchel and walked into the house. The boys just stood there, eyes following Dad, jaws dropped. After a long silence, one exclaimed, “Wow, did you see that?” Briefly they chattered in amazement, but none bothered to pick up the weights again, at least not that day.

From Momma I Learned: Part One

When my mother died (March 30, 1998), as part of my grieving process I wrote a series of vignettes about her. The common theme was what I had learned from her. When my father died (July 3, 2003) I reflected much on the same topic. I was blessed with two wonderful role models. I plan to post some of those reflections from time to time. What follows is the first piece I wrote about Mom.

From Momma I Learned to Pray

In between my fifth and sixth birth dates is one of my favorite years, the year I learned to pray. We had moved to a small house in the suburbs. Darlene was a newborn; Shirley and Jimmy were in school. I had mom almost to myself. After a regular breakfast of grits, eggs, and bacon, Jimmy and Shirley left for school. It was then that Momma prayed. She always knelt next to the small table on which the telephone sat near the kerosene heater in the hall. Sitting on the floor near her morning after morning I came to know the routine well as I waited for her to finish so I could watch TV. She would open her big old Bible and read briefly. Then she would lay the Bible open on the small table and begin talking to God. At first it was as if she was straining to make a connection to be heard by someone too busy or distracted to help her. She would ask for His help in understanding the Bible, in teaching Sunday school, and being a good wife and mother. "Oh, God help me raise my children for you. I don’t know how but you can help me. Help them to grow up and serve you, to be soul winners.” About that time her prayers became fervent pleas. She would earnestly beg for the salvation of her loved ones. “Oh, God save my daddy, don’t let him die and go to hell. He’s a good man, a good father. He needs you. Father, save Clyde, .. J.D…, J.W…, Buddy.” As she named lost loved ones there was a building intensity in her voice. “Lord, save Ellis, he’s a good husband and father. He needs you. Keep him safe on those highways. Dell let him die without knowing you.”

As her intensity grew so did my expectation. The Lord was about to enter the hallway. I knew when He came; Momma’s countenance and voice were transformed. No longer was she straining, grasping for an audience. In an instant her voice was mellow, her posture relaxed, and her face radiated love, joy and peace in His presence. So pronounced was the change in her I knew without a doubt he had just walked into the room. My head would pop up as I scanned the hallway for a glimpse of Him. I never did see Him or hear His side of their conversation, but never have I doubted my Momma talked with God not just to Him.

Now her prayers shifted in and out of the languages I did not know. They were conversational in nature, laced with silence as if she was talking on the telephone to her dearest friend and I was only hearing her end of the phone call. Her heart exposed, she drifted from plaintiff argument, to unknown tongues, to acknowledge agreement, to sobs of desire for His will. Then she would present her petitions again as if she were now laying them down at his feet and to the first set was added every need she could remember: church members, the pastor and his family, missionaries, those in authority, neighbors, strangers, friends, anybody and everybody. It was during this listing I lost interest and hungered for her to stop so I could watch television. The excitement was over anyway and I hadn’t seen or heard God, maybe tomorrow. On a good morning she would finish in time for me to see a few minutes of Captain Kangaroo. Usually, however, it was somewhere in the middle of I Love Lucy. But neither was it unknown for her morning prayers to stretch out to lunch time and even beyond. I draw encouragement from the certainty that Momma is now in the presence of God continuing her conversation and that from time to time she earnestly calls my name before Him.

A Sad Day

Today I had the difficult task of euthanizing and burying Aaron, momma’s horse. He was almost 30 years old. A few weeks before she died Momma told Dad she wanted Karisa to have Aaron. So he spent his last eight years with us. He did well until about three years ago when he became boney and sway-backed.

Every day when I went out to feed the horses I thought about Dad and Mom. Aaron was a living connection with them. He belonged to Momma, but Dad took care of him. Dad often said, “That’s a good horse.” Dad and Aaron seemed to have mutual respect; they were a lot alike. Dad was always bigger than life, tall, strong and square-shouldered. Aaron was handsome; before his decline he loved to run with his head and tail high. Both projected self-assurance. Both were strong-willed. Both were gentle. Both embodied the essence of dignity and humility.

The last time I visited Dad before he broke his hip he had a cow that needed to be euthanized. We had worked with it off-and-on throughout the day before concluding it had to be “put down.” Dad was suffering terribly with his knees so I offered to do the job. He replied, “No son, she’s my cow and my responsibility.” I went to get the rifle for him and stood by his side as he pulled the trigger. I feel like he was standing by me today.

Aaron on Mom & Dad's farm.

I had a dream

Me with my mother (Ernestine Johns) who is holding Alethea and my grandmother (Maggie O'Quinn) in 1977.


I often dream of my parents. Those dreams are always pleasant but sometimes strange. Two nights before Charlie was born I had a dream about my mother. In the dream she was a middle aged woman and she was very pregnant. With travail she gave birth to a beautiful baby. When I awoke I could not help but reflect upon the irony of the dream. I had gone to bed prayerfully anticipating the birth of my grandson. Somehow, thoughts of my daughter giving birth had transitioned into dreams about my mother giving birth.

There is in each of us an inmate desire to tie together our past with our future. Each of us hungers to hold on to the people, possessions and ideas that gave birth to us. We want to savor them and to pass them (or at least the memory of them) on to our children and our grandchildren. What ever good there is in me, it came by the grace of God through the influence of my mother and my father. When I consider the beauty and the grace of my two daughters I see in them not my influence but the power of my mother’s prayers. In those moments I feel so very inadequate. Have I lived before my daughter’s a life that communicates the love and presence of God as vibrant as I received? Will the grace I have received live on in my grandchildren? From my lofty position as a grand-father, will I project into their lives hopes and dreams that stretch beyond this world? Will their thoughts of me contribute an unshakable faith in God’s loving presence?

As I held Charlie for the first time last Thursday, I prayed silently the same prayer I had prayed when I held his mother and his aunt Karisa and his sister Camdyn for the first time. “Father, keep him safe and well, but above all, may he grow to know You, to love You, and to serve You with all of his heart.” I then whispered into his ear the promise I had given to his mother, aunt and sister, “you can become anything you and God desire for you to be.”

When Camdyn was born I was surprised by one lasting influence on me; I felt, and feel, an awesome responsibility, the responsibility of influence without power. As her grandfather I have no decision making power over her life. Yet, I feel responsible for her wellbeing and future. I was prepared for the unspeakable joy but not for this. Now, I have that same feeling about Charlie. I want to give to them an unshakable faith in the love and presence of almighty God. I want them to know His peace and the joy that comes from serving Him. I want to be a better, more reliable witness to those truths.

Brother & Sister

I took these pictures before leaving Memphis today.

It Is Official

It is now official. We have an engagement to go with a date (June 29,2007). Karisa thought she was surprising Johnmark with a visit, but he actually surprised her with an elaborate proposal.

Home

We brought Charlie home this afternoon. Alethea took this picture of Camdyn and Charlie before we left the hospital. I took the shot of the three women with Charlie. The last shot is their first Christmas photo at home.

Karisa is in USA

With all of our business I have not had time to note that Karisa is back in the USA. (Actually, I did have an entry but Karisa didn't like it and removed it.) Cheryl and I met her in Atlanta for the day on Monday. She flew out to Denver for debriefing. She arrives in Memphis next week.

This picture required a lot of work. The original was almost black.

Charles Ellis Allen

Charlie was born today: 12:47 P.M. CST, 7 lbs 14 oz, 21 inches. All are doing great.