A Few Thoughts About Uncle Harold

(This will seem a bit disjunct, just a few memories)

My uncle Harold passed away today.  My heart breaks for my aunt Patty, who lost a fine husband and friend; my cousins Eric and Richard, who lost a wonderful father; their wives, Tiffani and Stephanie, who lost a kind and generous father in law, all of their children, who lost a caring grandfather, and also Harold's father, Ron, who lost a cherished son.

My family and Harold's have always been connected.  I remember the first time I ever saw Harold.  I was out in the yard at my Grandma and Grandpa Fisher's house, as I often was, when Harold pulled up into the driveway.  I asked my uncle Robin who that man was.  He replied, "That's Patty's boyfriend............Crazy Harold."  I was probably 6 or 7 years old, I guess.  I've got lots of aunts and uncles who've come into our family.  I don't really remember my first encounter with any of them...........except for Crazy Harold. 

Within a couple of years, my family had moved to Holden, MO, about a half an hour's drive from Warrensburg, MO, the location of the campus of Central Missouri State University, where my mother was studying.  Patty and Harold had married, and lived in Warrensburg, MO.  We spent some time with them back then.  They were family................and, man, they were fun.  Aunt Patty, Crazy Harold, and his crazy sister, Lenora.  I remember very little about her from my childhood, just that she drove a red V.W. Bug.  And I thought that was way cool back then.  My parents allowed me to invite someone over for my birthday back then.  They assumed I would invite friends from school.  Nope.  I invited Patty and Harold.  On another occasion, I remember that Harold came over and took my older sister and me trick or treating one Halloween.  He was a lumberjack.  I think I was Batman.  He was there for us.  When my baby sister decided to make her 1st appearance in the middle of one auspicious March night, my parents dropped me and my older sister off....................at Patty and Harold's house first.  Again, there for us.

Harold always had the coolest stuff.  The morning after my baby sister was born, my older sister and I were still at Patty and Harold's; but they had left the house for something.  I think they went to get us more kid-friendly breakfast cereal.  We found this room full of miscellaneous coolness...........and there we found 2 fencing foils.  And we had our first official sword fight.  Harold wasn't actually there; but in that very detail............he was there for us.

Harold and Patty drove a cool blue Trans Am.  And I mean cool.  T-top, leather interior, engine that roared like a lion.................and an 8 track tape player.  I remember riding in that car hearing, for the very first time, Jimmy Buffet's "Cheeseburger in Paradise" on that 8 track player.  Eventually, I grew to love Jimmy Buffet of my own volition.  But Harold introduced us.  Again, there for us.

Harold's birthday was within a couple of days of my Dad's birthday.  Whenever we would get together for a celebration, we'd celebrate both of their birthdays together.  Always connected, always intertwined, our families.

In 1990, I moved to Joplin, MO to attend Missouri Southern State College (University, now).  By that time, Patty and Harold had settled in.............Joplin, MO.  My parents had decreed that each of their children must live in the dorm for their freshman year.  My older sister had just completed her dorm sentence, and moved into the lovely home of Patty and Harold.  I'd get a home cooked meal there every now and again.  But my sister lived there for a year with Patty, Harold, and their 2 boys.  A few years later..............I moved in for 2 years.  There for us.  When my parents left Butler, MO to work at East Newton Schools, about a half an hour from Joplin, they had some difficulty selling their house.  For a couple of months, during the work week, they and my baby sister lived............at Patty and Harold's house.  Those 2 months occurred during my 2 years there; so they had a full house, for sure.  There for us.  A few years later, my baby sister needed a place to lay her head for a couple of months before her wedding.  And she lived.................with Patty and Harold.   There for us.

If you lived in or around Joplin in the 1990's or early 2000's, then you likely knew Harold's truck.  It was an old Ford with a rather distinctive paint job...............camouflage.  Ironic that camouflage could make something stick out so much.  A lesson in context, I suppose.  I'm not a hunter.  Nothing against it, at all.  It just isn't me.  But one year in my early 20's, I had made up my mind to go deer hunting.  I didn't have any more experience than having passed a hunter safety course a decade or more prior.  So..............Harold loaded me up in that camouflage Ford several days that fall to target shoot and get me ready for the hunt.  Ultimately, I decided that I didn't have the heart to kill a deer.  So, I stayed a non-hunter.  But he was there for me.

I remember my 2 years living at Patty and Harold's house.  I lived in a really nice room in their basement.  I went to school during the day, then worked late hours at the hotel, usually getting off at 11pm.  Most of the time, nobody was up when I got home.  But sometimes.............Harold would be sitting at the kitchen table, usually with some historic do-dad, gizmo, or Civil War relic, or perhaps devising a war game strategy.  We used to have these marathon talks about the Civil War, or World War I or II.  He was a walking encyclopedia about those topics, and could talk about them for hours, and did.  There for me.  Sometimes way too late into the night...........but there for me.

But it wasn't all Halloween, hunting, houseguests, and Civil War history with him.  One of the most beautiful things I've ever seen revolved around Harold...............and his kidneys.  Harold was a diabetic.  Gave himself shots from the time I was a kid all the way up through the years I lived there in their basement.  His kidneys had been a casualty of the war his diabetes was mounting against him.  And he was undergoing dialysis.  He needed a transplant, and was on the list.  But it was taking too long.  Then Harold's crazy sister, Lenora, re-enters our story.  He needed a kidney.  She had one she could spare.  So she spared it.  I remember the days surrounding the surgery, I was very emotional, not just because it's dangerous and scary, but also because the sacrifice was so utterly beautiful.  I remember crying just at the sheer beauty of that sacrifice.  The surgery was a success.  And Crazy Harold, still a diabetic, was walking around with a functional kidney, courtesy of his sister, Crazy Lenora.  She was there for him.

A few years later, Lenora was diagnosed with cancer.  And it claimed her life.  But Harold still walked around with that beautiful sacrifice in his side.  His late sister's kidney.  Her gift of life to him.  So beautiful.

I'm not exactly sure why I felt so compelled to write a bit about Harold tonight.  There are a lot of people a lot closer to Harold than I was, people who knew him much better, and loved him much better, than I.  But I wanted to say that if you read an obituary that tells you of a pharmacist from Joplin, who was survived by his father, his wife, his 2 sons, and their children............just know that there was SO much more.  There was a Civil War re-enactor with a corny sense of humor, who gave his nephew these cool hand painted 1/2 inch soldier figurines when he was 7 or 8 years old, knowing that he'd likely lose or destroy them, who introduced that nephew to Jimmy Buffet and to the Red Green show, who gave of himself, his time, his home, and his talents, who loved historical novels and deer hunting, who adored his grandkids, and could talk you plumb to morning, who once thwarted an attempted robbery with his knowledge of handguns (the robber had a fake), who went to the jungles of South America on mission trips, who left us way too soon, and will be remembered always.  There's always more, just below the surface.  And if all you knew of my uncle Harold was the surface...............then I hope, for your sake, that one day in Heaven you'll have the privilege of sitting at the kitchen table with Harold, and listening to his stories.  But, be sure to have some coffee brewing, 'cause it'll be a good long talk.

Thank you Harold!  See you on the other side.

An Open Letter to Westboro Baptist Church

February 20, the Year of Our Lord, 2014

An Open Letter to Westboro Baptist Church

from the desk of greg fisher,

42 years on this earth, a born again Christian for over 33 years

Dear Westboro Baptist Church,

I would like to quote 1 Chorinthians, Chapter 13, King James Version, though I much prefer a modern translation, as the words of our Savior were not spoken in archaic English, for the Word of God is meant to be understood:

13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
And a bit later in the chapter:

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

The greatest of these..............is Love.

I must ask a question that I'm certain you must be asked frequently. Where is your Love?

In John, Chapter 4, we see Jesus, himself, whom you claim to serve and to emulate, meeting a Samaritan woman, who lived in sin and shame. Did our Lord and Savior rail against her, screaming her sins in her face, shouting that she was bound for hell? No. He met her face to face, in Love, never calling her lifestyle acceptable, but never alienating nor condemning her. No, He offered her Living Water. He offered her Love, and forgiveness:

10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
11 The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?
12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
15 The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.

And she accepted His offer. That's not all, many believed because of the Love Jesus showed the Samaritan woman:

39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.
40 So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days.
41 And many more believed because of his own word;

More believed. The Love He showed and the Living Water He offered to this sinful woman were an open door to many more believing. Are your protests such an open door? There are so many instances where Jesus met “publicans and sinners” in their element, and He met them with Love. For the greatest of these.............is Love.

I ask you again. Where is your Love? The world is looking to you and seeing, only and always, condemnation, taunting, harassment, even hate. Jesus showed none of these attributes. So I ask you again. Where is your Love? Call a sin a sin, I concur completely. But meet the sinners of this world, and that includes you and me, with Love. It was and is the Love and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ that Saves. Not hatred and vehemence. When you met the Savior, if you've met the Savior, was He screaming in your face, railing against you as you grieved the loss of a loved one? I'm certain that the answer to that is an emphatic No. In Ephesians 4, we are told to “Speak the truth in Love.” In Love, I say again. So speak the Truth......yes! But speak it in Love. And I ask again. Where is your Love?

I have heard that you are planning to protest the Candlelight Vigil in honor of 10 year old Hailey Owens, stolen from her street in Springfield, Missouri, and murdered a few days ago. So many in that city are deeply in mourning over this unspeakable event, many of them, heartfelt Christian men, women, and children. Heartbroken in this hour. So, I ask you again. Where is your Love? How many of your protests, as this one would be, are protests that greatly grieve your own brothers and sisters in Christ? Many. From John 13:

34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Many you'll be harassing Saturday are passionate, devoted Christians. Will you show them Love? You must see that you've lost your way, lost your calling, lost your mandate. What you're shining is not Light. You are not seasoning as Salt. You are not only encouraged in the inerrant word of God to Love, you are commanded to Love, by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Commanded. I ask again, with tears in my eyes, tears for you in my eyes, Where is your Love?

Please do not come to Springfield Saturday to protest the vigil. There's no Love in such an act. None. Where is your Love?

greg fisher