Hugh’s Notebook

When the urge strikes me, I write short stories. Mostly they are drawn from my life and events I have witnessed; however, they may be slightly embellished and the names changed to protect the guilty.

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Our preacher was from the old school; he believed in hard preaching, potluck dinners and the Democratic Party. However, lately there had been some grumbling from the congregation about Brother Gene, with some hinting he was out of date, and the Sunday attendance (and worse, the Sunday offering) was beginning to suffer.

Being a good Methodist, he was a subscriber to The Advocate, the house organ put out by the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church, and one day, he saw an ad for an upcoming conference that would put the sizzle back in your sermons, or so the ad said, anyway.

He was gone over the 5^th Sunday that month, leaving us in the hands of a young Seminarian from Emory University. The story of that weekend is one I am not yet ready to tell as some key players in that story are still alive and are given to litigation - it not costing them anything since their oldest child is an Old Miss Lawyer.

Anyway, Brother Gene came back from the conference all recommitted and glowing with piety and Vitalis. That next Sunday he was just waving his arms and almost vibrating with the power of the Holy Ghost and whatnot, going so far as to introduce some new songs (I hesitate to call them hymns, as by definition you can not clap along to a hymn) that were definitely not in the approved Cokesbury Hynmal.

That Sunday, after the hand-clapping music and the new liturgical dancers that he brought in, he called the children up for the children’s sermon, which in our church took place a few minutes after the offering hymn and before the main sermon, where the preacher would call the children up to the front of the church and gave a mini-sermon, relating to the main sermon, but somewhat more simplified.

The scripture reading for the day was from the Gospel according to Mathew, the beautiful story of the first miracle performed by Jesus, namely being the turning of water into wine at the wedding in Canna. The children all gathered around his feet as he sat on a chair kept in the closet off the stage for just that purpose.

As he told them about the turning of the water into wine, he illustrated it (the conference had emphasized the use of visual aids) with 2 pitchers, one clear (showing it to be half full of water) and one made of yellow ceramic.

He held the clear one (with the water) in his right hand and poured the water into the yellow pitcher in his left, while telling how the porters in Jesus’ time had poured the water into the jugs, then he told how they had poured it into a glass (he then poured the yellow pitcher back into the clear one) . . .

“How in the hell did he do that?” one old farmer exclaimed from the back of the room.

Apparently, the yellow pitcher had some Kool-Aid placed in the bottom of it, for when the water was poured back into the yellow jug it had turned bright red, thus drawing oohs and ahhhs from the children and the expletive exclamation from the previously mentioned farmer.

“Just how in the hell did he do that?” the farmer repeated, now on his feet and scratching his head.

One of the children, his back to the congregation, turned his head over his shoulder, rolled his eyes at the idiocy of the question, and said “It’s a miracle”.

1 Comment » Posted by Hugh / fun

A story I learned a long time ago that has influenced my life heavily.

Once upon a time there was a king who had a pet donkey. This donkey was his pride and joy and the donkey followed him everywhere.

Now, this king had a trusted adviser who had failed him. In fact, the crime the adviser was so serious, that the king had sentenced him to death. After the adviser received the sentence, he bowed his head and then a thought popped into his head. Raising his head, he said to the king:

“Oh Sire. You are wise beyond words and I accept your decision. It is a pity, however. I have only recently learned the secret of how to teach Donkeys to talk. Had I but 12 more months, yon Ass could speak as plainly as you or I.”

The king said “I do not believe you, but I have nothing to lose. You have 12 months to live in the castle and teach in the stable. At the end of that 12 months, if the Ass can talk, you will go free and additionally, I will reward you beyond measure. If, however, as I suspect, the donkey cannot talk, then you will die the most horrible, most prolonged death I can imagine.”

The man was set free. When he arrived home and told his wife, she called him a fool.

She said, “You had the chance to die quickly and painlessly; now you will die a horrible death and bring shame to us all”.

The adviser said, “Nonsense! I bought 12 months of freedom. Much can happen in a year. The king might die. The Donkey might die. I might die. Or… the Ass might talk!”.

No Comments » Posted by Hugh / @me and fun

Imagine I own a house on the beach.

It is a nice house, with a beautiful beach view and wide screened in porch just perfect for late night conversations. It is a large house; I have a trusted staff that runs it for me in my absence. I have left detailed instructions on how I want the house run and further, I showed the staff by example when I built it exactly what I wanted done. I said “do this” and “do it like that”.

Being as it is a very nice house, you want to stay there when you go to the beach. I tell you no problem, my house is your house. I further explain I am not there right now to run it but James my Butler is and he will take care of everything.

You move in and all goes well… at first. And then one day you find you are missing $20 from your purse. You are convinced James took it while you were out body surfing.

The next day, James tries to grab your butt while you are walking down the hall and you have noticed he is eyeing your 13 year old daughter a bit too much when she is swimming on the beach.

James has now made your life at the beach not fun, but a bad dream. You feel like you cannot stay there and while you know instinctively that I would never have knowingly put you into this position, you can not help but be a little mad at me for not knowing James was a bad guy.

So you leave. And you do not just leave, but you tell everyone up and down the Beach that whatever you do, do not stay in my house, because James is a rotter. Over time, though, the message gets distorted. It is no longer James that is bad, but the story now is it is the house that has problems even though I fired James quickly. Over many retellings, It is not James that is the bad guy but me, the owner of the house.

Maybe James did not start off as a bad guy. Maybe he was just a bit bent and when he suddenly was in a position of power it went to his head. Perhaps he just could not handle the responsibility. Either way it really does not matter. James has hurt both the reputation of my house and me and because of him, many, many people will be afraid of me and my house and will never know the comfort and joy of staying there.

Now what do I do?

No Comments » Posted by Hugh / Jesus

Just a note to let all of you know I survived my whirlwind trip… I literally stepped off the bus about 2 hours ago. After I catch my breath and wade through the backlog that is my inbox, I will tell you all about it. Until then, be well.

No Comments » Posted by Hugh / Raleigh