40th Birthday Poem

This past Saturday, April 9th, I turned 40, and there was a wonderful gathering of some friends and family to mark the occasion. Some folks from far and near wrote letters and other creations to mark the occasion. Here is a poem by Henry Golson:

On the Occasion of the Fortieth Birthday of the Reverend Max Blalock

Life starts at forty, they always say,
And Max, for you that is today.
Leave behind your struggles and sorrows.
Then forge ahead into your tomorrows.

We first met Max a long time ago.
He was seeking 'Southern scholarship dough.
Studying at 'Southern he performed phenomenally,
Now all he wants is to deliver a homily.

Name a profession that Max hasn't tried
From pre-med to ASP and serving what's fried,
Teaching and coaching and youth work as well,
And a few other jobs that we won't tell.

Back to Lester to minister to youth,
He saved me much anguish, and that's the truth.
From there to Claremont for his MDiv,
Then back home to teach, and date, and live.

When Lester needed a bright young Associate,
Max re-returned which was appropriate.
But the lure of the campus was too seductive,
Kentucky and Mississippi would be productive.

Yet home is where heart and friendship abide,
So, "Come on back.," Bishop Willimon cried.
We echo his sentiments, Max, old Bud,
And pray your new appointment won't be a dud.

We join your friends as you celebrate.
Hope the next forty years won't have to be celibate.
We love you, Max, and always will.
May God bless you and with all joys fill.

Carol and Henry Golson

In Honor of the Students of the USM Wesley Foundation

Everything that I did in my life that was worthwhile, I caught hell for.

---former Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Earl Warren

Wendell Berry on Christianity

Berry says that Christianity in his area of the world "has encouraged people to believe that the world is of no importance, and that their only obligation in it is to submit certain churchly formulas in order to get to Heaven. And so the people who might have been expected to care most selflessly for the world have had their minds turned elsewhere---to a pursuit of 'salvation' that was really only another form of gluttony and self-love, the desire to pepetuate their lives beyond the life of the world. The Heaven-bent have abused the earth thoughtlessly, by inattention, and their negligence has permitted and encouraged others to abuse it deliberately. Once the creator was removed from the creation, divinity became only a remote abstraction, a social weapon in the hands of the religious institutions. This split in public values produced or was accompanied by, as it was bound to be, an equally artificial and ugly division in people's lives, so that a man, while pursuing Heaven with the sublime appetite he thought of as his soul, could turn his heart against his neighbors and his hands against the world.

from his essay "A Native Hill"