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    God, Cornbread, and Elvis: Ponderings on Ordinary Graces
    God, Cornbread, and Elvis: Ponderings on Ordinary Graces
    God, Cornbread, and Elvis: Ponderings on Ordinary Graces
    Ebook157 pages1 hour

    God, Cornbread, and Elvis: Ponderings on Ordinary Graces

    By Joe E. Pennel JR.

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    About this ebook

    Do you wonder how God is present in your ordinary, everyday life?

    Joe Pennel has a gift for recognizing God at work in life's events, both large and small. He tells how, when, and where he has encountered God's grace. His down-to-earth, insightful reflections make you aware of how God surrounds us with hope and love.

    Step away from the busyness of life, pull up a chair, and listen to this winsome, folksy storyteller weave his simple tales about being fully alive to the mystery and wonder all around us.

    Pennel's stories are organized by themes, which include:

    • Belief
    • Christian Living
    • Fear
    • Forgiveness
    • Grace
    • Life Lessons
    • Love
    • and more

    This book's message of God's love and hope is profound and encouraging, and it will inspire you.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUpper Room Books
    Release dateAug 1, 2013
    ISBN9780835812252
    God, Cornbread, and Elvis: Ponderings on Ordinary Graces
    Author

    Joe E. Pennel JR.

    Joe E. Pennel, Jr. was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. He graduated from Lambuth University and Vanderbilt University Divinity School. He served as pastor in local churches in Memphis and Nashville over a period of thirty years. Then, in 1996, Pennel was assigned Bishop of the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church where he served for eight years. Now retired, he continues to serve as a vibrant teacher, preacher, and member of the Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville as the Professor of Pastoral Leadership where he shares his experience and heart for ministry with a new generation of church leaders. Joe and his wife Janene reside in Franklin, Tennessee.

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      Book preview

      God, Cornbread, and Elvis - Joe E. Pennel JR.

      INTRODUCTION

      In 1977 I started writing a few paragraphs for my weekly church newsletter. I made an effort to set aside time every Monday morning for this purpose. During the week I would try to take notice of life as it unfolded around me. When some person or situation would catch my attention, I would make a note on whatever piece of scratch paper I could find. These notes would inform my Monday morning writing routine.

      One day a member of my congregation said, Joe, this week’s article is worth pondering. Her comment stayed with me, and the very next week I called the article Ponderings. The title stuck, and since then, I have yet to use another.

      At the urging of my wife, Janene, and my friend and colleague, Dr. Douglas N. Norfleet, I decided to select a few of these ponderings for this book.

      In writing these pieces, I tried to connect to the reader by following two guidelines. First, I wanted to reflect on life from the vantage point of the Christian faith. Second, I hoped to help the reader ponder, in a much deeper way, the meaning in everyday matters.

      Not all of these meditations were received positively. People disagreed with my opinions, and they said so. From time to time, this lack of concurrence opened the door for honest, nonjudgmental discussion. In every instance of opposition, I found some grain of truth that I needed to hear. That is what happens when we speak the truth in love.

      I am grateful for the moving of God’s spirit through the lives of friends, family, and others who inspired me to think about those ideas that are worth pondering and those that are not.

      LIFE

      LESSONS

      LIFE’S CHANCEL AND NARTHEX

      Every Sunday morning I take a walk. After offering the benediction, I walk from the chancel to the narthex of the church. It is a short walk, but it can be exceedingly painful.

      Inside the chancel rail, life is ordered and poised. Hours and hours of preparation have gone into making the service full of warmth and dignity so that God may be worshiped. It is here that the scriptures are read and the word proclaimed. The old story is told and retold. The routines at the table and font exhibit God’s grace and providence. The choir leads the gathered voices of the congregation in the singing of hymns, the saying of prayers, and the recitation of psalms. God’s word is shared and affirmed. Life is supported and reflected upon by the traditions of the church and the Christian faith.

      But after fifty minutes have passed, I lift my arms in benediction, promising the blessing of God for the coming week. Then I go to the narthex to greet the congregants as they leave to be Christ in the world.

      In the narthex, life is different. Those who have worshiped make a disorderly reentry into the world of muddled marriages, midlife boredom, adolescent confusion, ethical ambiguity, and emotional stress. In the narthex, I don’t hold the cup of the Lord’s Supper. Instead I shake the hand of the man whose wife has left him for another. In the narthex I do not hold the infant for the waters of baptism, but I look into the eyes of a mother whose teenaged daughter is full of rebellion. The hands that just held the scriptures now touch the hands of those who are tense with anxiety, fear, and pain.

      As I stand in the narthex, I know that in the days that lie ahead there will be deaths no one expected, accidents no one thought possible, illnesses that defy diagnosis, and conflicts no one anticipated. But I also know that in the days that lie ahead there will be joy, peace, and many, many blessings. The narthex, like life, is a mixture of good and bad, pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow.

      I often wonder what the narthex of life would be like without what happens in the chancel.

      It’s worth pondering.

      A FULL BARN OR A FULL LIFE

      After moving to our new home, my wife decided to refinish an old chair. It was not an easy task because this chair was covered in layers of paint of different colors. A combination of sandpaper, steel wool, liquid stripper, and elbow grease has yet to remove all of the heavily sealed paint. The strongest bonding glue that ever came from Elmer’s factory could not have a tighter bond. For days, Janene worked on that old chair.

      It is not a fancy chair—quite the opposite. It is a rather plain rocker with a cane bottom and no arms. The back is slightly curved for a comfortable fit. It sits rather low, thereby making it more appropriate for a person with short legs. It was not made for watching TV or reading. It will not recline in ten different positions. It is not overstuffed; it has no stuffing whatsoever.

      If we tried to sell this rocker at a yard sale, it would bring ten dollars or less. However, Janene would not take twenty times that much. She has developed a strong attachment to that piece of furniture, not because of its market value, but because of the one for whom it was purchased. This chair is significant because it belonged to Janene’s Grandmother Dunavant who used it to rock her young children to sleep.

      Maybe the chair would not mean so much if Grandmother Dunavant had not been such a good woman. From the Dunavant oral tradition, I have learned that Grandmother Dunavant believed that the more you give away in love, the more you have. According to the standards of this world, Grandmother Dunavant never had much, but she was rich. She did not have a full barn, but she had a full life.

      It’s worth pondering.

      CATFISH AND CHRISTIANITY

      He stood alone in the tee box. He was tall, muscular, and bearded, with no golfing companions in sight.

      Bud, I said, is he playing solo? Bud nodded and then invited the stranger to play the next nine holes with us. As we played, I learned he was from Ohio and was going to graduate school in Nashville with the support of the GI Bill. So friendly and engaging was this chap that I decided to tease him.

      After about five holes I said, If you stay in Nashville long enough, we’ll teach you to eat black-eyed peas, grits, cornbread, and catfish.

      I like German food, he responded pointedly. So abrupt was his retort that I carefully put the dietary habits of Southerners on the back burner. As he walked the fairway to the last green, he approached me and asked in a whisper, Do you really eat catfish? I nodded in the affirmative. Really? Again, I motioned in the positive, growing curious at his insistence. How could you? he exclaimed. Back home we throw them back or feed them to the cats.

      Our regional food preferences are but one small indication of the differences that exist among individuals. We are not different altogether by choice but because our backgrounds and cultures have molded us to see life differently. We hold various views, cling to divergent political philosophies, practice certain customs, and accept different images of God. We notice our differences in the global village, throughout our neighborhood, and around our family dinner table. We can no longer afford to run from these differences, fight them, or ignore them. They need to be acknowledged so that we can understand one another.

      Christianity proclaims that God came in Christ to transcend our differences and thereby make us one. Christ came not to make us carbon copies of one another but to bring us compassionately

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