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Page 4 — Wednesday, October 10, 2012, TheTrue Citizen
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Looking Back
Don Lively
UP
JO years ago - October 9, 2002
Reverend David Fite and his wife returned to Waynesboro for a
visit 33 years after he was released from a prison in Cuba where he
had served as a missionary. His father, Rev. Clifton Fite, had been
pastor of Rosemont Baptist Church at the time of his imprisonment.
Burke County Commissioners imposed a tipping fee at the county
landfill for anyone disposing anything other than household garbage.
Thomson defeated Burke County 49-14. The Bulldogs were the
number one ranked AAAAfootball team in the state. The EBASpar-
tans defeated Briarwood 13-12.
25 years ago - October 8, 1987
Threats of a school bus drivers strike brought television crews to a
meeting between the drivers and school administrators. Superinten
dent James D. Smith refused to discuss personnel problems with the
television reporters.
The Georgia Public Service Commission stood by its decision to
allow an 8.3 percent hike in Georgia Power’s rates.
A beautification committee set up by the Waynesboro City Council
began work on a master plan for the city with along County Agent
Bill Craven. The University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Ser
vice provided horticulturists and other experts to assist in developing
the plan.
50 years ago - October 10,1962
Burke County voters were scheduled to vote on the creation of a
county-wide industrial development authority in the November 6
General Election.
Two engineers from Perfection Products successfully developed a
furnace which could be converted into an ah - conditioner in 30 min
utes. Lyman Kimball and Garth Stickney had been working on the
project since the previous February.
P. Austin Rheney of Wadley and Milton A. Carlton of Swainsboro
were set to face off in a special primary for the 21 st District seat in the
Georgia Senate. The district had been created by a reapportionment
bill recently passed by the Georgia General Assembly and mandated
by a federal court decree.
75 years ago - October 8, 1937
There were reports that efforts would be made in the next legisla
tive session to abolish the poll tax in Georgia in order to expand
participation in elections.
Manager A.L. Sheppard announced that the Grand Theatre was
now equipped with a new Western Electric Mirrophonic sound sys
tem, the newest and best in the entertainment business.
The Waynesboro Boy Scouts, led by Scoutmaster Holder Watson,
had Mr. John L. Bolton as a visitor at their regular Friday night meet
ing.
Cr« CMuett
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I wondered what they were, those rectangular light formations
I kept seeing down below. They seemed to be visible every time
we flew over a city of any size. From six miles high and clip
ping along at six hundred miles an hour, population centers pass
underneath pretty fast but no matter where
over the U. S. of A. we happened to be
those same groupings of lights were vis
ible, at least one in most small towns and
usually several in the metros.
What were they?
Then it hit me.
It was Friday night.
High school football fields, all the exact
same size and shape.
All over America the Beautiful teenage
boys were doing battle on the gridirons that dot the landscape
from coast to coast while I and a couple hundred of my closest
friends, all of whom were total strangers, winged toward Cali
fornia.
I was on the first leg of my trip that would take me to see all
three of my younguns and both of my grandchildren. My kids
are scattered to the three winds, three different states, three dif
ferent time zones. I suppose I’m scattered to the fourth wind.
In our family it’s a chore to keep up with what time it is at their
homes. On major holidays, getting to talk to everybody on the
phone requires a flow chart and the patience of Job.
But, I digress.
Flying is one of my favorite modes of transportation along
with road tripping, ocean cruising, horseback riding, kayaking,
hiking and rickshawing. I guess the only mode that I really don’t
like is bicycling. Bike seats fit my butt about as well as O.J.’s
tampered with glove fit his hands.
Sorry, more digression.
Jim Shumard
My cousin sent me an article written by Tanya Luhrmann,
who studied a particular segment of people labeled evangelicals
who worship at a church called The Vineyard. There are a num
ber of Vineyard churches around the country and they are known
for their informal style of worship and their conversational rela
tionship with God. Spending time in intentional conversation
with God and with one another is one way
they discern the voice of God. This seems
to be an extroverted version of Quaker meet
ings where believers sit together in silence
until or unless one or more hears God speak
to them, in which case they share that mes
sage with the larger group.
I think back to times in scripture when
people experienced the voice of God: Elijah
hearing the still small voice reminding him
that he was not the only faithful Israelite left;
Job hearing God’s voice come from the whirlwind reminding
him that his heart and his mind were too small to comprehend
the heart and mind of God; Jonah resisting the call to go where
he did not want to go and to preach to those he preferred not to
preach to; Moses hearing the voice of God from the burning
bush to take off his shoes for he was on Holy Ground; God, in
the beginning, speaking Creation into the Chaos, the void, the
darkness; God speaking to Adam and Eve seeking them out and
asking why they disobeyed His commandments; and God speak
ing from the cross, “Father forgive them.”
I found myself remembering times when I thought I heard
God’s voice. There was one time when I was seeking guidance
and another when I was grieving and distraught. I heard what I
believed to be God’s comforting and guiding still small voice in
each of those situations. It came after a lengthy time of prayer,
once from days of prayer and another from hours of prayer.
It imagine that God is still speaking to us and may be asking
some of the same questions and saying some of the same things.
Too often we mav not hear his voice. Luhrmann’s book sneaks
I love flying over places I’ve been to. Shortly after we were
airborne on that first leg the pilot announced that our route would
take is directly over Lubbock, Texas, a city where I only lived
for a year but one that holds a great deal of my personal history.
We flew over at night but I knew the layout well enough that I
recognized it. I wondered in exactly what part my old friend
Terry and his lovely wife Rhonda are now living. The city catches
a lot of teasing for its flat terrain, yearly dust storms and con
stant fragrances of your choice of cattle feed lots or crude oil
wells. But to me it holds fond memories because none of my
kids would exist had I not ventured to Lubbock one year and
married the pretty church secretary.
My mind goes back when I fly and this trip included six sepa
rate flights so there was a lot of time for reflection.
One flight took me over New Mexico where I looked down
and spotted a long, meandering spine splotched with white fields
that were either early snow or year-round glaciers. The Rocky
Mountains. Right down there somewhere I rode an insane horse
across the Continental Divide.
Another flight I gazed down from the port side of the aircraft,
at least I think it was port, port is left, right? Anyway, I could
see way off in the distance the natural spires and peaks and cliffs
of Monument Valley, to me one of the most beautiful and myste
rious places on Earth. It’s where I met the ghost of John Wayne
a few years ago. I guess I need to tell you that story one day.
Flying from L.A. to Austin, around midnight, I looked down
and saw a large city still totally lit up with lights of every color.
No mistaking Las Vegas, known Out West as Lost Wages, from
way up high. It really does go on all night there. They say that
what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Personally, I’ve never
done anything there I couldn’t share. Well, except for that once.
- See Lively, page 5
of how the practice of listening and of conversing with God
helped people to imagine God’s voice and to hear it. It reminds
me of when I was working in the mountains, clearing right-a-
way for Georgia Power as a young man and I was asked to clear
away the volunteer trees that sprung up through tons of moun
tain laurel. I could not see them until I had done the hard work
of seeking them for several days. Suddenly my eyes were opened
and I could see them everywhere.
I have a feeling that we must do the hard work of practicing
the presence of God day by day if we are to hear the voice of
God in the midst of the chaos, in the midst of many voices vying
for our attention and in the midst of competing desires within
each and everyone of us.
For what it’s worth.
Dr. Jim+
“For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face.”
I Corinthians 13.12 KJV.
Rev. Shumard is rector of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in
Waynesboro. You may contact him atjshumie@aol.com or at
stmichaelswaynesboro. org.
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HEARING THE VOICE OF GOD