Kill Me First

Posted on June 20, 2014 by enthusiasmiscontagious

I am a music lover but even Mozart sounds obnoxious when it’s played at the levels that would make a jack hammer proud. I was driving my car recently and all of a sudden I felt a horrible vibration. It was different than anything I’d ever heard before. Usually after 150,000 miles the car makes sounds like a cheap Styrofoam cooler as you drive down the road, but this was different. My car almost seemed to moan in a rhythmic low hum. I thought all my ball joints were going out at the same time. It was only as a dark sedan with tinted windows sped by that I noticed the sound lessen and go away. It dawned on me, it was his blasted radio, literally. It was then that I began to wonder if the kid driving that car would need a Whisper 2000 ear amplifier by the time he was 25 due to deafness.

I don’t begrudge music styles if people would keep it to themselves, but a torrent of questionable words coupled with what sounds like a walrus getting a root canal is not my preference.

The story is told of two men, sentenced to die in the electric chair on the same day. They were led down to the room in which they would meet their maker. The priest had given them last rites, the formal speech had been given by the warden, and a final prayer had
been said among the participants. The warden, turning to the first man, solemnly and asked, “Son, do you have a last request?” To which the man replied, “Yes sir, I do. I love dance music. Could you please play the Macarena for me one last time?”

“Certainly,” replied the warden. He turned to the other man and said, “Well, what about you, son? What is your final request?” “Please,” said the condemned man, “kill me first.

I can’t speak for others but I do believe most of us would feel that same way.

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My Edelweiss Moment

Posted on June 18, 2014 by enthusiasmiscontagious

The town of my birth, Lawrence, Massachusetts does not look the way it did 100 years ago. Large brick textile factories that once dotted the Merrimack River now sit mostly empty and decaying with the lucky ones being converted into low cost housing. This once proud bustling mill town was once made up of numerous neighborhoods of immigrant families. Italians, Polish, Irish, and German immigrants who worked in the mills and tended to live sequestered in the their own neighborhoods. Fierce rivalries would sometimes occur between the children and adults of bordering neighborhoods.

My grandfather Anthony with his older brothers Vincent and Giuseppe “Joe” and younger brothers Arturo, Guido, and Horace found themselves the recipients of a frequent bully from a non-Italian neighborhood. It didn’t matter how much they tried to avoid the “large boy” (as my grandfather called him), he seemed to find them every day to hurt and harass them. After many episodes with nary a letup in these tense meetings, it was decided among the boys that the next time the bully was alone, they would fight back. My grandfather gave the instructions that each would work together as a team. Guido and Horace would go for the legs and knock him down, my grandfather and Vincent would get his arms while Arturo “Arthur” and Joe would do what they had always wanted to do; clean his clock.

Walking home from school one day towards their neighborhood, the inevitable occurred, the bully came like Goliath to taunt and hit them. Unlike the past when each would run and yell in differing directions, the signal was given. As the two younger brothers went behind the bully, each grabbed a leg and held on. It was then that my grandfather and Arthur pushed him backwards and the whole lot of them fell in a flailing heap. With arms and legs pinned down, the once mighty warrior got a dose of his own medicine. He was pummeled from all directions. Punched, kicked, and sat upon, the boys worked in tandem to inflict a lesson that would not be soon forgotten. As the boys tired, Goliath finally scrambled free. As he staggered away, Joe jumped up and kicked him in the seat of the pants for good measure. He ran off bloodied, bruised, and humbled, never to wage war on the Lumenello brothers again.

As I reflect on what’s been happening on the world stage lately, I equate the bully in my story as those countries who want to inflict hurt on us, and the immigrant boys are America. In the past, it used to be when speaking of my country, one had better think twice before they dared bully America around. Yet in the past few weeks, our country’s soul seems bruised and battered. We’ve negotiated with terrorists, we’ve opened talks with our enemy Iran to help us fight the “surprise” insurgency in Iraq, our unchecked borders are being overrun by illegal immigrant children, and if that isn’t enough, everyone of us is learning that our own government is spying on us multiple ways.

In the classic movie, Sound of Music, Captain Von Trapp with children in tow, sings before his countrymen for the last time before he is forced to join the German Navy to fight in World War II. The song he chooses is one Austrians know all too well, Edelweiss. With great emotion and holding back tears he sings of a mountain flower. It reminded everyone present of a kinder gentler time, an Austria that once was, that would never be the same again. The words of the song ended with, “Bless my Homeland Forever.”

This week as I heard my country’s national anthem sung at a ballgame, I was filled with emotion. I never thought in my lifetime when I sang about my own country, I too would experience my own Edelweiss moment.

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My Church Gun

Posted on May 26, 2014 by enthusiasmiscontagious

I served for many years as a Pastor in eastern Appalachia. One thing I became most familiar with is that people there can be very passionate about a lot of things. I had been helping a family who had been experiencing marital conflict and a third wheel had been added into the mix. One of the spouses had added a lover into the fray and it was coming to a head. I had driven out to the couple’s old home in hopes that somehow the relationship could be reconciled. The coal pot belly stove kept the place warm as they talked and shared hurts and frustrations that resulted in their present estrangement.

The spouse who had been unfaithful was perplexed. The illicit relationship filled the emotional hole in the unfaithful spouse, but the spiritual side of the estranged spouse knew the relationship could not be sanctioned of God. The husband and wife professed they wanted to work it out so they decided to take a trip to iron out their differences. It then fell upon me to address the lover and tell of these new developments. I chose a central location for us both and as we sat down to talk, I told the individual that my role as a Pastor was to reconcile families not to help tear them apart. I offered, since it was the Thanksgiving holiday, to put the person in a hotel room in order to give the couple the necessary means to pack up and go without added stress and anxiety.

As I sat on the bed in the hotel room, I chose my words carefully. I shared with the lover what God’s ideals and expectations were for marriage. I said, the vows they took stated, “What God brought together, let NO MAN tear apart.” I urged the individual not to incur the disfavor of God by trying too break the marriage. As I prepared to leave, a cloudiness of reason overtook the individual and an anger showed visibly on their countenance. Shaking a finger at me clearly to intimidate me the heartbroken individual stated, “No one will come between us. If they do,” the rest was unintelligible as their voice trailed off.

The warning was clear. A sufferer of Post Traumatic Stress from military service, the individual feared nothing except separation from their chosen “love.” I offered a quick prayer and made my way home. The state of mind I left the individual in, I prayed God would soften their anger. As I lay awake that night, I wrestled with the individuals state of mind. Now that the couple was away working on their relationship, what anger would be manifest in the jilted lover?

Kentucky law is unique. Early on in the Commonwealth’s history, lawmakers had made provision in the law that preachers could carry a weapon to church. The reasoning was based on the frequency of robbers lurking about. They didn’t want offering plates to be easy pickins. Even biblical precedent came to mind from the Bible in Nehemiah 4, when the children of Israel were admonished to keep their weapons at their sides while rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem due to a frequent lurking enemy.

So for the first and only time in my life, I came armed to church. Prior to the service, I gathered my leadership team together and told them to be on the lookout for this individual. Alarmed, they proceeded to tell me that the one person who always carried a weapon was not in attendance today. I allayed their fears then alarmed them anew, when I pulled my revolver out of my pocket. Wide-eyed they asked, “Have you ever used it before?” To which I replied with a wink, “Only at an occasional board meeting.”

I’m glad to say the church service commenced without incident. I never did see the individual again. However I did garner one thing that day that was unforeseen; I never did have any problems at any future board meetings again. I can’t figure out why?

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The Fireproof Pine Needles

Posted on May 19, 2014 by enthusiasmiscontagious

I was like every other kid growing up; I loved fireworks. We lived on a little cul-de-sac in Ballardvale, Massachusetts. My twin brother Jim and I were most anxious for something to do one hot summer day. Just down the street from us were two brothers our same age. As we gathered together in the woods across from our house, one mentioned he had the mother of all firecrackers. Instantaneously that pronouncement piqued our interest. As they ran home to retrieve it, my brother and I ran to our house to secure the matches. They always hung in a black tin on the kitchen wall. We grabbed enough to start ten fires without being noticed and headed quickly back to the woods.

As the boys approached us, one of them held the explosive device in his hand. Upon closer inspection, we learned it wasn’t a firecracker but a large bullet. Never having seen one before, I asked the boys, “Well, how does it explode?” To which they stated excitedly, “You have to put a fire under it.” It had been a dry week so the heavily carpeted forest was full of a boundless supply of dry pine needles. We hurriedly gathered bunches together in a pile and placed the bullet on it. Being all of six years old, I was breathless with the excitement of hearing a big BANG! As I tell this story I can’t help but shudder what we did next. Gathering on all four sides of the pine needles and the bullet, we each took match after match and tried unsuccessfully to light them. It was useless, they would glow for a second and quickly die out. I knew how easy pine needles caught on fire, so why not now? Why didn’t they burn like they always did?

I’m convinced today that it was the hand of my angel that was watching over me. There was no reason in the world why a parched tinder full of pine needles wouldn’t ignite. Dejected that our experiment failed, we went home never to try a repeat of that foolish thing again. Weeks later as we mentioned the dud in passing to my parents, I could see the color drain from my Mother’s face. One of us (my brother and I) could very well have died that day.

I’m reminded again and again the truths in Psalm 91:11, “For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” I’m so grateful that God is so faithful and to this day still covers stupidity.

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