GOOD??? Friday

Why in the world would a Friday such as this be modified with the word GOOD?

I've seen enough passion plays, read the scripture and heard many, many sermons about the activities of this day - the one we remember when Jesus "endured the cross" (such an inhumane way to be killed) - to know that this is not a good day!

Don't stop reading.

So why is it called GOOD FRIDAY?. 

I did a little research and found suggestions such as in early modern English, the meaning of "good" had the sense of "Holy".  I know that this is Holy Week and in some traditions the word Holy is placed before Friday.  Three different dictionaries weigh in on the word "good".  Oxford says pious, devout, tending to spiritual edification. Webster espouses the etymology of the word good to be  "from its special sanctity", and the American Heritage Dictionary includes pious in it's explanation of Good Friday.

As I have thought about this over the last few days I remembered a song that was a part of an Easter Cantata that I sang in as a teenager.  One of the songs in John W. Peterson's No Greater Love is He went about doing good..  More research and I found the words to that song --

When our Lord was here, Our Savior dear, He gladdened each neighborhood;
For the Bible tells, The message spells,"He went about doing good."

He went about doing good, And helping where'er He could;
Our example is He,And like Him we should be,

Who went about doing good.

A very simple song - but one that has stayed with me for 50 years.  Why?  Because the principle makes so much sense to me. 

Jesus went about doing good!

That's it.  According to scripture, Jesus died for the sins of all mankind.  What greater thing could He have done?

I personally have no reason to do any more research as to why this day is called a GOOD one.

Only a thankful heart and a firm belief that it happened.

The only thing better it that while it's Friday - Sunday's coming!

 
 

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"He ain't heavy..."

On this day in history, March 26, 1920 - Theodore James Huffingham, Jr., was born to Lonnie Burton Jones and Theodore James Huffingham.  Just 19 months later, Ted, Jr. would get a little brother - Earl Ray. This is their story.

According to the recollections of my mother, the Huffingham boys were very close.  They also had another brother, Charles, who died when he was 16 years of age, a brother, Donald, who died as a toddler.  And they had their "Sister", Gloria.  The three of them. Uncle Ted, daddy, and Aunt Gloria remained close through many trying and difficult days - days that included their mother being ill, losing their brother Charles, and their dad being diagnosed with tuberculosis in the late 40's and then their parents divorced and both remarried in a time way before people were doing that.  

I have often said that my children have a strong sibling support system.  I think I must have first seen that in the lives of my dad and his siblings as I watched them while I was growing up.

My mother tells me that it was Uncle Ted who first made fudge (something my daddy became legendary for among our family and friends).  Daddy really took care of anything he owned.  Uncle Ted drove daddy's prized possession, "Betsy" after daddy enlisted and wore it out.  Uncle Ted was drafted.  Daddy married within his faith and Uncle Ted did not.

Uncle Ted and Aunt Frankie followed some of the same steps of his parents - two boys within about 18 months; many moves, many different jobs.  One thing that was different - their lives included much alcohol and prescription drugs.  In many ways, their lives were tragic.  I cannot tell you the number of times that my parents helped them.  And I will never forget the afternoon that I heard my Uncle Ted tell my mother - "Frankie is dead".

Very sad.

And yet - we (my siblings and our cousins, Debbie and Diane) absolutely adored him.

After many, many times that he had gone for treatment to try to get sober, we saw him finally get into a Bible Study while he was living in Florence with Aunt Gloria and this time ... it worked.  Only to find out that he had developed bone cancer and he had just a short time to live.  My parents brought him and my grandmother to their home and cared for him during the last few weeks of his life.

When he died, early in the morning of March 17, 1985, our family (including my parents' 7 grandchildren) stood at his bed and sang "Jesus Loves Me" - an experience that all of us still value greatly.

It would soon be time for a grandchild #eight to be born in our family and my brother, Jonathan and his wife, Julie, could choose the date for delivery - they chose March 26.  Later, my brother, Lester and his wife, Jennifer, had a son and they named him "Theodore James Huffingham" and he is called Ted.

So what's the deal?  Why did we value Uncle Ted so much?  One reason is that Grandma Lonnie really loved him and we respected her.  One reason is that he teased us and always made us feel special.  But the biggest reason - our daddy loved him.  And he was the greatest example I know of these words, "he ain't heavy...he's my brother".

Sing Hosannah

It is Palm Sunday, 2013.

There never is a Palm Sunday but that I remember singing The Palms by Jean-Baptiste Faure when I was a child. 

I don't remember how old I was.  I do remember that Glendale Community Church looked like this:



Glendale Community Church (circa 1955; painted by Iva Huffingham, circle 1990)



I have loved to sing since I was a little girl and this particular Sunday we got to sing with the adult choir.  The arrangement called for the children's choir to bring in the palms as we sang a counterpart to what the adult choir was singing.  I think they were singing "Hosannah, praise to the Lord" and we were singing, "Join all and sing, His name be praised...".

This morning as I was thinking about what I wanted to say, I did a little googling and I found a small church doing exactly what I remember.  Well sort of.

The important thing to me is that I do remember.  I remember singing and I remember worship.

It was also in this small church that I learned the little chorus "Hallelu".  The girls would stand and sing, "Hallelu, Hallelu, Halllelu, Hallelujah" and sit down and the boys would stand up and sing "Praise ye the Lord".  Happy memories of my childhood and I am so glad that I learned the value of worship when I was growing up.

And I learned the value of friendship.  My parents were in a Sunday School class that was called "The Truth Seekers" and all these years down the pike some of the children of my parents friends are still my friends - from Bonnie to Linda to Sue to Kay and Connie, Wayne, David, Billy and Cecil, Carol and Clifford...David and Christopher...

Christopher - I just got a message that Christopher (Dr. Chris Faircloth) has died in Memphis, Tennessee where he practiced veterinarian medicine. 

Which makes the value of the memories of singing and praising with my childhood friends all the more meaningful on this day - Palm Sunday, 2013.

PS As I was googling I found a response on one of the YouTube videos that featured The Palms.The words were "this brought me back to the faith of my childhood".  Made me smile!

"Things don't just happen. . ."

December 1, 2011 - It was the Duval County Medical Society's annual meeting.  I was there because as one of the contributors to the book DCMS was having published, I needed to do a little p.r., encouraging physicians who had not yet agreed to participate in the book to do so - or doing the preliminary "selling the book" work.  She was there because she is a Contributing Editor and Senior Writer for Beson 4, publisher of the magazines we often see in a physican's office waiting room (Florida Doctor, Health Source, Mature Matters for example).

I asked her a couple questions and she did me - and before we knew it we had scheduled our first coffee date.

By this time, we have shared lots of cups of coffee, been in each other's homes and we both truly get excited when it's time for us to get together.

It's like Virginia Pillsbury and I have been best friends since childhood - actually my teen aged years and her childhood.

July 22, 2012 - I sat at a table in the Great Hall of the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour.  I had seen a man who had been in a class with me several years ago and thought it good that he had come to this worship/social gathering.  I knew that his wife, a lovely woman who had also been in that class, had passed away a few months prior.  I smiled and got up to greet him as he walked across the room and we chatted.  Maybe I would like to have dinner some time?

By this time, we have shared lots of dinners, laughter, tears, and our latest addiction - crossword puzzles and I cannot imagine what my life might be without Coulter Schmitt in it.

February 27,  2013 - I met my friend, Debra Shelton to walk at Epping Forest.  We were just a couple of weeks away from my mother's 90th birthday celebration and as Deb and I shared a cup of coffee I lamented one problem we were having - my sister had asked for a glass punch ladle.  There was NONE to be found. 

"I have a glass ladle."  It was the voice of a person I had only just met.  A lovely woman whose name is Isaida Sanchez.  Within hours, our mutual friend, Debra has acted as the liaison and I knew we were going to have that glass ladle.

When it was time to return the ladle, Isaida suggested we meet for coffee.  We did.  And within just a few minutes I knew I had found a new friend - a woman with such a great heart for others and a person I look forward to knowing better.

Do I really think God plans these little meetings or do that just happen?  Is it circumstantial? 

Several weeks ago when one of my cousins, Howie, was tragically killed and we (Coulter and I) were sharing in the sorrow that my aunt and uncle were beginning to experience, we learned that the accident had happened in West Springfield, Massachusetts where Coulter had not only lived, but served on a pastoral care team at the very hospital where as it happened, Howie was taken after he was hit while riding his bicycle.  Coulter knew the chaplain, Jack Wolfe and made a call.  Chaplain Wolfe had already been visiting and ministering to my cousin's wife and was very willing to speak with my aunt and uncle.

Was that planned?  If not it certainly was fortuitous as one of my friends remarked.

I know that many do not share my strong belief that all these things are part of a bigger plan for our lives and that's really okay with me.  I don't ask that anyone just automatically accept my way of thinking...the main thing being that whether part of a plan or not - I'm just glad I get to be a part of this!

That's a beautiful dress

I have a talent.

It's not necessarily a good thing, however.  It's just something I do - all the time.  Maybe I should call it a habit.  I just always say this:

"I have a real talent for telling someone that they are wearing a very beautiful dress (or any other thing where I am being complimentary) and it comes out - That is the ugliest dress I ever seen."

I don't know what it is, the inflection in my voice, the look on my face, what I am doing with my hands.

I truly mean it when I say it's beautiful, but I cannot begin to tell you the times in my life when those words have not been perceived as complimentary.

It's worse on line.

Remember when email was first coming into its own and we learned that capitalizing all the letters was rude, that it made us look angry. 

We all had to learn a little email etiquette. Bold and italics works just as well as those caps.

I've recently been reminded that when I communicate via immediate or a text, I need to realize that everyone who reads my words may not necessarily take them the way I send them.  I usually assume (bad practice) they will be able to know what I am trying to say without my having to add extra words.  I have found that often that is not the case.

One of the downfalls of communicating via all the technological opportunities we have at our fingertips is that the recipient cannot see our facial expressions, experience our body language and we have no idea what might be going on in someone's mind.

In writer's classes we learn to use action verbs rather than adjectives.  That's a good idea - so from now on I think I'll try to add a word or two that lets the reader know what I really want to say.

Maybe if I say "that dress matches your eyes - it dazzles"

You think?