David Crowder’s thoughts

David Crowder posted these comments on his blog yesterday. They’re in response to the passing of his friend and pastor Kyle earlier this month. I thought it was a very thoughtful commentary.

it really is just perfect. it’s the most beautiful cemetery i’ve ever been in. i realize it sounds like a juxtaposition to use “beautiful” and “cemetery” so closely but it’s immediately serene; peaceful. just what you’d hope. completely cinematic. the grave itself was a pile of flowers. i had expected to see dirt. that red texas-clay-dirt that i’ve seen covering every other newly covered grave i’ve stood beside. early morning, kids laughing and a mound of flowers. i’m certain the mound of dirt was somewhere under the flowers, but driving up to it it just looked like a 3 foot high pile of flowers, perfectly mirroring the rectangular shape of the hole he is in. i’ve never seen flowers piled 3 feet high in the shape of a rectangle. there were potted flowers that outlined the perimeter of the rectangle and they were all leaned over and inward, none of them sitting up properly, resting against the mound as it rose from the grass. it was so strange, absolutely foreign to look at. the slightest bit unnerving. these flowers leaning against flowers. it gave the appearance that as he went into the ground his beauty had drug all this on top of him. as if you’d spread a cloth over a table that had a rectangular hole cut in it and then placed something with weight over the hole and let go. it would drop past the surface of the table pulling the table cloth through the hole with it as it sank. this is what had happened here over night. the weight of his passing pulled at our surface, and the flowers filled the hole and piled up to keep the world from caving in on itself. it was the weight. i had felt the weight. there were six of us surrounding him, carrying him down the steps, slidding him into the car and it was all impossibly heavy. the flowers didn’t have a choice in the matter. this is where they had to be, they had been pulled by the force of his departure and wanted to be near him and saved us all in the course of their aspired proximity to him. it was beauty summoning beauty and falling, laying on itself until the hole was clogged. grace is a bunch of flowers falling over each other to be near a beauty that is too terrific a weight to keep on the surface for very long. we will miss kyle but we might be ok. for now there is grace enough to keep breathing.

UMHB to host first playoff game

This is from the UMHB Alumni office

Greetings from UMHB!

The Crusader Football Team has made it to the playoffs once again, and on Saturday, November 26, they will play their first-ever home playoff game. The “Purple CRUsh” began the post season last Saturday in San Antonio, beating the Trinity Tigers for the second consecutive year.

This week the Cru will be taking on the Wolverines of Wesley College from Dover, Delaware. Kickoff is set for 12:00 noon CST at Belton Tiger Stadium. Tickets go on sale today, November 22, 12:00-6:00 p.m., for current season ticket holders. The remainer of reserved seats will be available to the general public on Wednesday, November 23, from 8:00
a.m. – 2:00 p.m. Ticket sales will take place at the Mayborn Campus Center Ticket Office, located at the front of the Mayborn Campus Center (University Drive side of the building). All reserved seats cost $8.00.
General admission tickets will be available at the gate, along with any unsold reserved tickets. General Admission tickets cost $8.00 for adults and $4 for students (3 years old and older).

If you are in the area, come out and support the Cru as they make a run at a return trip to the Division III National Championship game in Salem, VA., on December 17. If you do not live in the area, you can listen to game via the internet by clicking here
You can also email the Cru and our coaching staff at kgoff@umhb.edu, letting them know you are pulling for them.

For complete information on the Crusader’s season, click here.

We hope to see you in Belton on Saturday!

This week’s column: Sarah had a mighty pen

Sarah Josepha Hale was born October 24, 1788 in Newport, New Hamsphire.
She was the third child born to Captain Gordon Buell and Martha Whittlesay Buell.
Her early education was from her mother, but later on she was an autodidact, or self-taught.
She married Freemason and lawyer David Hale in 1813 and continued her self-education.
She was widowed in 1822 with five children, four under the age of seven.
But in 1823 she published her first collection poems entitled, “The Genious of Oblivion” with support from her husband’s Freemason lodge.
She then went to work from 1827 to 1836 as the editor of Lady’s Magazine.
She later served as the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, publishing only American manuscripts, from 1837 to 1877.
She was a champion of equal education for women and was the first to start a day care nursery for working women.
Before her death in 1879, she published over 50 differnet volumes of her work, including her most famous work, the nursery rhyme entitled, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
Hale wrote the poem in 1830 and most believe the nursery ryhme was based a true story about a young friend of Hale’s who owned a pet lamb that she took to school at the suggestion of her brother.
Although some debate has been given as to whether Hale wrote the entire poem or if part of the poem was written by a schoolmate, Hale is still credited with its authorship.
In 1877 Thomas Edison recited the first stanza of the rhyme while testing his phonograph, making it the first audio to be recorded and played back succesfully.
But despite her many accomplishments, her greatest and possibly least known accomplishment was in persuading President Abraham Lincoln to create Thanksgiving as a National Holiday.
In her letters to President Lincoln, Hale encouraged him to have the, “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.”
Hale had championed the cause of Thanksgiving from as early as 1827.
“Thanksgiving like the Fourth of July should be considered a national festival and observed by all our people,” she wrote. “There is a deep moral influence in these periodical seasons of rejoicing, in which whole communities participate. They bring out . . . the best sympathies in our natures.”
Before war broke out in 1861, Hale believed Thanksgiving would help bring the country back together and keep us from the insanity of fighting each other.
“If every state would join in Union Thanksgiving on the 24th of this month, would it not be a renewed pledge of love and loyalty to the Constitution of the United States?” she wrote in 1859.
But President Lincoln did not declare the national holiday until 1863, after the War of the States had ravished the country.
Yet still, Hale had accomplished the goal she had set before her so many years before.
With thousands of handwritten letters, one lady made a difference in a country torn by war.
And now as we look back, maybe this Thanksgiving we’ll remember to give thanks to God and pray that He will continue to heal our nation and keep us from the insanity of fighting each other.

not this week’s column

I’m scrapping this, but figured I’d post it here first for all the world to laugh at.
I decided against it for my column. Just didn’t have the same interest, flair and handiwork I laid out in my head on the way home from work.

You know something, if I’m not mistaken — I believe Thanksgiving is this week.
I only know this because our Thursday newspaper is printing a day earlier than normal.
But if you visited your local stores I doubt you’d have a clue — that is unless you bought $50 worth of groceries and got a free bird.
I think America has officially skipped Thanksgiving this year.
I turned on my radio last week and two stations in the Metroplex were already playing Christmas music 24/7. I think they may have even skipped Halloween.
But despite the rest of America overlooking turkey day, I happen to enjoy the holiday.
I’d love to see us all return to a day when more emphasis was placed on giving thanks, rather than dreaming of how much money we’ll save at Early Bird Sales on Friday at 4 a.m.
So in order to give each of us more time to enjoy the holiday I’d like to propose a change.
Let’s move Thanksgiving to the second week of August.
After all, what is there to celebrate in August?
Canadians celebrate Civic Holiday on August first, but I can’t see Americans getting to psyched about that one.
And an August Thanksgiving would give us a welcomed break between the Independence Day parties and the unofficial end of summer, Labor Day.
An August Thanksgiving would give us one more reason to fire up the grill and hit the road to see relatives one more time during the summer.
With Thanksgiving in August we could waste the post-Thanksgiving Day lunch by lounging at the pool, lake or floating down the Guadalupe River.
An August Thanksgiving would also give us another two days off from work in the summer. One for the holiday and one for calling in sick because of the bad sunburn you got while lounging at the pool.
Of course with an August Thanksgiving it wouldn’t seem right to watch the traditional Home Alone on T.V. Thanksgiving night.
And an August Thanksgiving just wouldn’t be the same without the Cowboys.
John Madden giving a turkey leg to a baseball player just seems un-American somehow.
But with an August Thanksgiving, each of us could say, “Thanks” and never fear that Christmas would try to steal our day away.
But until that day comes, I’ll just dream of a better time and place — when Thanksgiving really meant something.