I just returned from Sunday morning services at Southern Hills C o C in Abilene. It was a very enjoyable, uplifting, thought provoking service. Phil was absent, he is in Peru with a mission group from Southern Hills, so a Black minister named Sherwin Grottis brought the message.

There was a lot of shouting, lots of hollering, and oodles and gobs of emphasis. No doubt, Sherwin is excited about and for JESUS. He did an excellent job.

Southern Hills also announced the hiring of Brian Randolph as the new worship minister. I did not attend the day he led services in a working audition as I was at a family reunion, but a friend did and said he was awesome.

I think this makes three new ministers on staff this year.

The other day I was talking with a friend and I was asked what I was doing, I didn't want to say because I figured I would be ridiculed. After a little badgering I told her I was downloading the Meriam-Webster Dictionary on my smart phone. Hey, it was free! However my friend told me it made me a little nerdy to have a dictionary on my phone.

Last evening I was sitting in my chair, playing with my phone, when I made my one and only application purchase to date. I bought and downloaded the NIV Bible. It was really pretty neat to use at church today. I just need to become more polished at bookmarking multiple scriptures during the lesson.

I may ask my friend if the dictionary makes me a nerd, does the Bible make me a Christian?

I couldn't help but think about my up bringing a little during worship and afterward. I idolized my Gon Gon McLeod. The attachment we had through the land was very strong. However one thing some don't know and something that I am not proud of is that he was a very prejudiced man.

Most of his farm hands were either Mexican's or "Niggers". It was probably more of the times that formed his prejudice. Most of the time he had between three and five full time employees, and I remember every Monday morning he left with a pickup seat full of coffee thermoses to try to sober up the crew.

Of course today it would be more correct to say Hispanics and Blacks or African Americans.

I actually think that the slang terms were more of a group classification than a race classification. I know we have "white trash", I don't know why we wouldn't have "black trash" or "brown trash", but for whatever reason, when I was growing up we had Mexicans (or meskins) and niggers.

Thinking back I can remember Pete, and Valentine and Richard, three of the Hispanics, and Hill, and Fred T. and Charlie Horne, three of the blacks.

Hill and his wife, Mineola, lived just down from my grandparents, on a small hill. (Ironically). They lived there with their eleven children. It was a big old house with no indoor plumbing. I can't remember what age I was but the first naked girl I ever saw was when I was a passenger in a vehicle driving by that house. Those kids never wore clothes. I remember that periodically Gon Gon and I would go to their house to look at needed repairs, or take measurements. It seemed that a rite of every spring was getting new screens for the windows as the old ones were rusted out from the young males peeing through them. The kids for most of their education attended a segregated Booker T. Washington School in Sweetwater.

A nephew of Mineola's and his wife lived with Hill's family. That would be Fred T. and Florence. Fred T. aspired to be a Baptist Preacher. I guess all of his hard living was "research" for the ministry.

Valentine was a wino. He lived in a small travel trailer, also with no indoor water or plumbing. but as long as he has a bottle he didn't require much. I think that Valentine secretly was obsessed with "Flora" (Florence, Fred T's wife).

Hill's family's claim to fame was that the oldest son was the warden's house boy at Huntsville during at least two of his sentences there.

I am sure that these men only fed my Grandfather's prejudice. But I'm not making excuses for Gon Gon. Although through a long process I do know it was wrong.

I also remember probably the one time in my life that I have been ashamed of my Mother.

When all of us worked for the family farm, we would take a few trips together each summer. Multiple outings to lake Brownwood, and an annual excursion to Arlington to go to Six Flags (before it became a trashy roller coaster park). We would spend the entire day at the park, eat out, stay in a motel, go to church the following morning, and return home.

It was standard procedure on Sunday morning for my Mother to get a phone book out and begin looking for a church of Christ to attend.

The year I am speaking of, she got an address, we all got ready and had a motorcade procession to the selected church. When we arrived there, we exited the multiple cars and began gathering to go into a church when we observed that all of the people arriving for church were black. My Mother refused to go in.

I have always felt we missed what could have been a tremendous experience. I would have loved to have listened and participated in the singing.

Over the years my Mother has mellowed. Often I will pour salt in her wounds and remind her of her refusal, but she has come a long way. It is not uncommon now for her to feed a variety of races in her home.

We are a melting pot.

Reminds me of this joke.

A man was sitting outside GOD's office awaiting his judgement when he asked the receptionist, "What is GOD like?"

The receptionist paused before replying, "First of all, SHE is BLACK......."

That will make you think.

Regardless, after the tremendous worship this morning I can only wonder what we have missed due to pettiness.

All I can say is sitting in services today I sat with Blacks, with Hispanics, with Asian Pacifics, and with Whites and we all were worshiping the same GOD. Reminds of the old Sunday School song JESUS Loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white ............... . Of course, it has undergone a re-write as well.

But for the grace of GOD there go I. As if it matters.

FATHER, forgive us when we are small. Expand our boundaries.