with emphasis on occasional

So there went February, and it didn't even slow down to enjoy its extra day.

Here's the update:
--Research at DCHS keeps a perky pace, new requests of all sorts coming in all the time. Tremendous variety of inquiries; I'm learning a lot while trying to keep up with them all! Being away for a while didn't help!...
--Washington DC: I spent two weeks at the National Archives and Library of Congress for a crash course in all things archival (titled the Modern Archives Institute): from the general overview to appraisal to processing to arrangement and description to preservation and lots more in-between. I'm preparing a report for a staff meeting this next week; I'll post more when my report is polished, including the rare manuscripts and books we saw in the Archives II facility (in maryland) and at the Library of Congress.
--I resigned at Central Church last week. Laura and I feel that with a new baby on the way in the summer the time was coming. The new minister starts in March (I guess its March now, see how quickly February went!), so we went ahead and did it now rather than waiting a few more months. I deeply loved teaching, but a man can only do so much in a week. I honestly don't know how we managed two children, my two jobs, my coursework at Lipscomb, Laura's piano lessons every evening. I do know that we will never try to balance all of that, or as much as that, again.
--Yes, a new baby. Girl or boy remains a mystery, but we'll pass along the news when we find out. Speaking of, cheers to the Cotten's upon the birth of twin girls yesterday (a fine birthday if I do say so myself)!
--With the baby on the way, my study will relocate downstairs to what is now our dining room. The partitioned wall between the dining and living rooms will get a built in bookcase facing the living room while the dining room (sans table and chairs) will get floor to ceiling shelves. The dining room table will go in our bedroom sitting area as a desk for Laura and the chairs will be scattered to the four winds and who knows where in the house they will land.
--My study will lose about 1/3 of its books. Deep sigh and long, tearful pause... So when I say we are simplifying our lives, I'm putting some teeth in it by culling out some books.
--Still have all ten fingers in spite of the table saw, and we have (BIG thanks to my Dad for helping out a couple Saturdays) a new floor in the kitchen and sun room. Perhaps photos will be forthcoming.
--Next up are those shelves, daunting task, but I can do it.

and so to bed.

grace and peace.

this and that

My days have been full preparing our 2008 program of public services. My colleague Sharman Hartson and I have been working hard to get some things on paper as a first step. We've got lots going on, and lots more planned.
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Our evenings have been full of homework and books and stories and evening meals and the rhythms of life lived by the school calendar. I'm enjoying experiencing kindergarten as a parent. Laura and I had lunch with Darby and her class last week. Great fun. Ella is gaining daily in personality (no shortage of that), verbal skills and vocabulary. It is at once hilarious and precious.
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I'm nearly finished with Romans (on Sunday mornings) and Galatians (on Sunday evenings). I've got more bulletins articles coming when I can cut-and-paste them into blogger. I've not done full manuscript sermons, only handwritten notes, so you won't be seeing the sermons. On the horizon: parables from Luke in the AM and miracle-stories in the PM.
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And I've rolled up my sleeves for a winter project consisting of new flooring in our sunroom, kitchen and living room-dining room, basically the entire downstairs. DIY laminate flooring. So far so good. Our sunroom is 98% finished and the rest will go more quickly since A) I know now what I'm doing, and B) there's no more heavy furniture to contend with. Maybe I can post some pictures. Power saw notwithstanding, my finger count stands at a robust and articulate 10. Let's hope it stays that way.
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I'm returning to some earlier research on Nashville Churches of Christ; I've got some more data to collect as I revise the paper for a conference in April.
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Stay tuned for Washington DC.

grace and peace.

Merry Christmas from the Ice's

Big weekend

This weekend looks to be a full one: Laura's big Christmas piano recital at McKendree United Methodist Church downtown, our one day of shopping per year (I haven't been in a mall since last Christmas), Laura's folks will also be in sometime later tonight. Top it all off with a full day of teaching and preaching on Sunday. And it might snow.

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Our girls are doing a fine job of getting us all in the Christmas mood. Last weekend was non-stop decorating and tree-trimming. I really like driving through the neighborhoods looking at Christmas lights and decorations with the girls. I try to take a different route home so we can see what folks have done. We did that when I was a kid and it is one my stand-out childhood Christmas memories.

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My favorite Christmas songs: O Little Town of Bethlehem, Silent Night, O Holy Night, Gloria..., probably in that order.

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Then there is Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, that awful hippopotomus song, and Jingle Bell Rock. I loathe those. Elvis' Blue Christmas and the Porky Pig version of the same are ok once...only once.

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I've got another prayer by Karl Barth to post; if you liked the one below, you'll really appreciate the next one. Get that little book of prayers if you can find it.

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Back to sermon prep.

grace and peace.

Home again

Blogging from home tonight. A big thanks to the Darby's of Westerville for fine hospitality and hearty eats. The big adventure Friday was the the Cosi Center in Columbus. Think massive kid-friendly science center with everything from aquatics to mechanics to physics to biology to anatomy to technology to history. I was impressed. The only downside were my allergies, which made breathing a torture and sleeping more off than on.

We made good time yesterday; I marveled at the change in and around King's Island north of Cincy. By far the highlight of the return trip was the Louisville gas stop: $2.66. My little Ford Escort is good to me as far as gas mileage goes, but not the least bit comfortable for long drives (and by long drives, I mean anything more than a trip to our neighborhood Aldi's). Some mornings I'm sore by the time I get to the castle (the girls refer to DCHS as 'the castle'). So for 8-hour multi-state holiday excursions with children...the ride can get long. But when you have wonderful children (who really were quite good if I do say so myself) and a groovy vintage CBS orchestra Christmas CD, the long road from Ohio to Tennessee can be made bearable.

Today had me back in the pulpit at Central Church in Romans 9-10. I need to make a few edits (I always add/delete/change/rearrange/rephrase at the last minute) to the sermon before I post it.

This week: golly what wonderful things are in store for me this week! Stay tuned boys and girls.

Seen in a church bulletin this last week: "You may have pains, but you don't have to be one." (Can't we do better than that? Just imagine the ruckus if someone were to suggest that we scrap the bulletin altogether! It's late, I better not get started).

And so to bed.

10.5

Grandad would have been 98 today. I have blogged about him before. I have cooking several more posts about him that I would like to post in the future: an essay I did for a college English course, a few memories, some biography, photographs.

In a few weeks we’ll head north to Columbus for a Thanksgiving weekend with Laura’s brother and family. On previous trips north Laura has not only indulged me but insisted that we drive by the house where my father and his siblings were born and grew up. The last trip Darby was old enough to understand somewhat of the significance of the visit. The farm of my father’s childhood was then 9 miles outside the city limits, near Reynoldsburg, in a hamlet called Brice. Now the city surrounds it as suburbs replaced farmland. No longer in the family, it now sits empty and awaits either a buyer or a backhoe. I’ve not been to Grandad’s grave; I think this year I will go.

The Ohio air will be crisp in late November. The trees will be bare, save for a few remaining leaves which refuse to fall. The black dirt will be spongy and wet, perhaps even blanketed in snow. The sky will be grey. In short, a perfect day for corduroy pants, a tweed jacket, a hot cup of coffee. On that crisp November day I will miss Grandad, but I will relive many happy memories. I will remember seemingly endless drives north to Columbus when I was a boy (many of them for Thanksgiving). I will remember walking up the bricked path to the house and the squeak of the screen door. I will remember the moment of first entrance into that century-old farmhouse, sans central heating and plumbing, to be greeted by its symphonic atmosphere of smell, sight and sound. I will remember seeing Grandad in his rocking chair. Chances were good he’d be reading one of three things: this week’s Christian Standard, this month’s Word and Work or a Louis L’Amour western. About his head and hovering across the room would have been the hazy and sweetly aromatic cloud of Granger, Prince Albert, or Half and Half.

Such good memories.

Dr. Ice

Dr. K. C. Ice and the little frame building which housed one of his earliest practices. He looks proud doesn't he?

The fourth of six boys, he was born into poverty, yes, in a log cabin, in the hills of central West Virginia. His father and grandfather were veterans; they fought with the Union troops in the "Late Unpleasantness" as it is known in the state of my birth (or, if you prefer, the War of Northern Agression). His father was a boy of fourteen when that War began, and was still a boy when it was over. When K.C. was six, his father dead of appendicitis, he and his siblings lived for a time with his grandparents Ice and Roberts. Mary Ann Roberts Ice had six sons to raise, ages 12 to just a few months. So a natural gas well discovered on the Ice property was no doubt a God-send. It provided the funds to send KC and at least one of his brothers to Salem for school (what we would call High School). The well also sent him to Hiram in 1897. By 1900 it either stopped producing or the residue went to the younger boys.

The same family stories which have young KC with his heart set on foreign missions also have him pressing his clothes between his mattress and and springs in order to save money while in medical school. No doubt he kept in touch with brothers and both the Ice and Roberts families while in St. Louis from 1900-1903. Not only did he keep in touch, he went back. Though born in the woods, he was educated in the cities and had a world-wide vision sparked within him. Yet he returned to the hills. To Rockport, West Virginia, circa 1904, where he set up practice and took up the ministry of the healing of bodies.

Having his own practice, a place to hang a shingle and engage in a honorable profession, really meant something. I'd be proud, too.

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Comments are back up.

Reflections on my Stone-Campbell Heritage, Part Second

Installment #2

Choosing a college was not a agonizing decision for me. That I would attend one of "our" schools was not really up for grabs (though my parents certainly didn't force it). Late in high school I had determined to be a youth minister (how the path of my life has meandered through a variety of ministries is a different post for another time), and so attending Lipscomb University (DLU then) was a no-brainer. I had entertained going to ACU (and almost did) but a greater academic scholarship and being closer to home won the day.

Both Mom and Dad went to Lipscomb (DLC then): Dad after two years at Ohio Valley (OVC then, still a 2 year school, and he attended in the very early days of OVC); Mom all four years. My mother was the first from her immediate family to go to college. The Ice's have had a much stronger history of higher education.

Grandad Ice attended and/or graduated from more schools than anyone I've ever known. For a few weeks he and my great-grandfather, in a Model T Ford and a canvas tent, toured the South (they were living in southeast Ohio at the time, the early 1920's) to decide on a college for young McGarvey and hit, in geographical order, Harding College, David Lipscomb College, Milligan College, Johnson Bible College, Christian Normal Institute (later Kentucky Christian College, now KCU). As far as I can tell they didn't even stop at Freed-Hardeman or the College of the Bible in Lexington (both of these schools then representing the farther ends of the spectrum of the Disciples). In the end Grandad wound up at CNI, though he did study a semester at Harding in 1930. He finished his BA at Cedarville College (a Baptist school) in Ohio. Then came graduate schools in a couple of different disciplines. I could post on and on about Grandad.

Grandad's father, K. C. Ice, from central WVa, took his BA at Hiram College in northeast Ohio, in 1899. He evidently was awakened to missions at Hiram. Who or what the driving force was I do not know. Family stories have him with eyes set on medical missions in either China or India. He immediately went to St. Louis and took his MD in 1904. From there he headed back east to (cue Handel's Hallelujah chorus...) Bethany College for his Master's in Philosophy. He was the village physician in Bethany while taking his degree and no doubt cared for many notables, perhaps even Campbell family members in their old age. Having finished in 1907 he spent a year in doctorin' and doctrine (ha ha, I amuse myself) throughout West Virginia. Long story short...he married, soon had a son and whatever plans for missions to India and/or China he had were abandoned in favor of missions to the poor of eastern Kentucky, southeast Ohio and southwest West Virginia. Though a medical doctor, he was never wealthy. Often just getting by and thankful to accept payment in kind, whether books, chickens, rocking chairs or garden vegetables.

That's the gist of it. What I haven't been able to do yet is to chase down the influential professors at Hiram and Bethany. The earliest that I can trace my family's (either maternal or paternal side) in the Campbell-Stone Reformation is the early 1860's. More later.

Reflections on My Stone-Campbell Heritage, Part First

The photo to your right is of John William McGarvey, renowned Biblical exegete and scholar of a past generation. His ministry of writing (esecially his Commentary on Acts, 1863 and later reissued in 2 volumes in 1892 and hundreds of articles in papers and journals) and teaching (in the College of the Bible at Transylvania College, University of Kentucky) established him as the preeminent scholar-preacher of the Disciples in the latter half of the 19th century.

A student of Alexander Campbell and graduate of Bethany College, he trained most of the ministers and preachers and missionaries of the Christian Churches from the 1870's-1900's. He was widely read and engaged the larger world of Biblical scholarship. In many ways he typified the Restoration ideal of the latter 19th century: steeped in the English Bible, competent with the original languages, rationalistic, devoted and zealous, and committed to the Restoration principle.

Being an admirer of him, my great-gradfather named his firstborn, a son, after "Brother McGarvey." McGarvey Charles Ice (d. January 28, 1999), my grandfather, was born October 5, 1909, on the campus of Bethany College. My great-grandfather was the town doctor in Bethany for a few years, living just a stones throw from, and in the shadow (both literally and figuratively) of, Bethany's Old Main. I'm really rather surpised that Grandad was named McGarvey Charles instead of McGarvey Campbell!

My dad named me after my grandfather, so I can claim to be a namesake of old Brother McGarvey only indirectly. But I have inherited, and with grateful hope continue, a heritage of scholarship (great-grandad held degrees from Hiram College, Bethany College and an MD), Grandad (PhD) and churchmanship.

I have my heritage. It is mine to do with what I will. I embrace my past. I can neither choose my history nor can I change it. But I sincerely believe there is a nobility to the best of my heritage. So I embrace it, I choose to appreciate the previous generations (yes, I know they were flawed, but I will love them and appreciate them nonetheless), and I choose to participate in the ongoing story. My past has a future and I want to be a part of it.

End part first. More to come.

Grace and peace.