STORIES FROM THE STEPS, VOLUME 2, CHRONICLE 21, The Helpers, be more like Joe, less like Greg: This morning, as I made my way to Sunday School, I took the pic of the church aisle. At the end of our church service, I walked down that aisle with an offering plate at the conclusion of “Just As I Am”. Fifty years ago to the day during the playing of “Just As I Am”, I walked up it.
       None of the helpers from ‘75 are around anymore except my mom & due to dementia, present doesn’t always mean here. I thought about those helpers as, if you stick with this, (& please do stick around, my agent needs eyeballs on my work & my backlog of stories you don’t like is shrinking) a newer staff member of my church that fits the “good men” category, read from Psalm 96 & proved David as good with a pen as with a slingshot or lyre.
         Look for the helpers, say thank you to the helpers. Don’t be like Governor Greg in Texas & thank everybody for the help but Mexico, who not only sent help but some of the best they had, to aid with a federal disaster that our own politicians couldn’t discern what federal meant.
       Be like my Sunday School teacher Joe. Be remembered, be present for someone when you’re no longer here, be a helper. And if you’ve been a victim of someone’s helper gene kicking in, thank ‘em while they’re present.
      In the thanking while you’re present department, thanks to all that continue to support my writing addiction. In June, mike-thornburg.com saw a 68% increase in visitors & a 44% rise in views, numbers impossible if you didn’t take time to visit, to help. What follows is words & the pictures of a little girl & a house from two years ago today, July 13, 2023. I didn’t see any need to change a thing. The two years since I wrote it have been an amazing display of God’s application of his colors & brushes to my canvas or as the legendary Snowman said to the equally legendary Bandit, “…Hoss, you ain’t gonna believe this…”
       
JULY 13TH, AN ANNIVERSARY OF HELPERS & WET GRASS: This pic right here from VBS ’23 is why. Why I’ll continue to take my place(s) on Sundays & Wednesdays. While I’m extremely partial to the little one with curls, that rising freshmen behind her & students like them, are another reason I’ll do my part, offer my help.
      We’ve had two good men, & I mean good, follow God’s lead to other churches & left us lacking staff but not lacking leadership. Some things are certain in the Baptist world when staff turns over or testing arrives, attendance will fade & criticism will rise, ’cause Baptists are gonna Baptist, y’all & there’s no testimony, good or bad, without a test. Alabama coaching legend Bear Bryant, in what may be apocryphal, once replied to his TV show’s host on his comment after a loss of, “…well Coach, the good Lord just wasn’t with us…”, with, “…the Lord expects us to block & tackle…”.
       Everybody wants to score touchdowns, only one can, no one wants to be one of the other ten blocking, no one wants to help once they find out their hands might get dirty & there’s no recognition of their effort. But always, always there are those in a crisis or tough spot that Mr. Rogers said to look to, to look for, the helpers, those not looking for greener grass but watering what they have.
      That young lady is giving their time, watering, helping so my granddaughter can smile that smile. Me & 3 other ladies, mostly them, are spending our time with the Toddler Mafia, including my other granddaughter, & their outbreaks of tears, sudden attempts at breaking out, & extortion of goldfish for good behavior.
      We do it, like those serving in the kitchen, security armed with walkie talkies & golf carts, & those with towels drying spilled juice, so others like that teenager, like the storytellers, like the table of 20 somethings at the table behind me at the pregame meal, the 30 somethings like my son & daughter-in-law, toting kids, backpacks, & a long day’s work to stand at a sign in table or stand on hot asphalt leading games, & all the other helpers doing their share, can show the love of a Middle Eastern carpenter.
      VBS ends tonight, & we’ll still have church on Sunday. I’ll still deliver a mediocre lesson, be told I’m so old that my blood type has been discontinued or get my Sunday fist bump from a senior & be called a legend (the comments even out, it’s when teens ignore you that you’ve bought trouble) & occupy my place in a pew & Wednesday nights, I’ll be tapping into my sweet & gentle nature & tapping a middle school boy on the shoulder & asking(?) him to be quiet, because leaders & children need helpers, not critics.
        On Saturday, July 12, 1975, my grass got wet in the light of that big picture window & in the light of Rev. Marshall Vaughn, his helpers & my mom, I found a rock to stand on when I was face down in the greener grass of critics & myths & convenient truths. Grass I fell into tripping over my own feet, following the wrong footprints, or pushed down by life. On Sunday, July 13th, I took my daddy’s hand in front of the church after his preaching & one of the helpers, my Sunday School teacher Joe, cried.
         Today, lost in the myths & convenient truths of our church’s growth in people & 3 building additions from the late ’90s to mid 2010s, is the fact that in 1994, when that smiling little girl’s daddy was the same age, our VBS was about the same size as this year’s edition. The first of those buildings wasn’t yet completed & some weren’t sure how we’d pay it off. We did, because of more helpers & less critics & last night, as our pastor has duly noted, every night, I sat with my part of the Toddler Mafia in the 2nd addition on the spot where a 1994 VBS carnival was once held & I held her daddy’s hand, because there were helpers. If you need me, I’ll be here with other helpers, in the third building addition, watering the grass…