Jody Vickery

I am pleased once again to share this space with my sweet wife. In recent weeks, we’ve been waiting for the Father to answer some prayers. This post is the fruit of some of her conversations with God. I was blessed by it. You will be, too. ~~~ For longer than the eighteen years I lived at home, my dad did shift work at a steel plant. When he worked first shift (7 a.m. to 3 p.m.), I would wait for what seemed like hours for that 1962, yellow Ford F-150 to come around the curve and roll into the … Read more…

Here’s a thing I bet everybody wants; friendship. Deep, real and lasting friendships. Well, almost everybody. There’s always that one person who just wants to be left alone, to sit quietly night after night in a little room that smells like over-ripe bananas and sadness. He or she probably has a cat because cats don’t want friends either. You probably know someone like that. I know such a person. He only listens to NPR and doesn’t even like bacon, so there you go. But most of us want friendship. There are, however, some impediments to developing deep friendships. You are … Read more…

Frank Graeff was a Methodist minister in the early part of the Twentieth Century. He was, one friend said, “a spiritual optimist.” Some even called him the Sunshine Minister. Graeff was a prolific lyricist, too, writing over 200 hymns. His most famous, though, was anything but cheerful. During a period of intense physical suffering when he felt God had abandoned him, he read a passage toward the end of the Bible – Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you, (1 Peter 5:7). The last four words of the passage inspired the classic hymn, Does Jesus Care? … Read more…

This week’s post was written after the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille (and with them in mind), but before the deaths of DART Police Officer Brent Thompson and Dallas Police Officers Patrick Zamarripa, Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol and Michael Smith. For a long time now, we have been clinging to a fragile calm while a simmering anger boiled beneath us. Not all of it, but more of that anger than many of us want to admit, is justified. I have friends and relatives (because my extended family is not all the same color) who fear for themselves and … Read more…

In the afternoons when I head home from work, especially if I’m in the mood for a little political schizophrenia, I’ll spend the first half of my drive listening to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. If NPR was honest about it, they’d title it A Few Politically Left-leaning Things Considered because, c’mon, man – that program is about as objective as a group of Little League Baseball parents hissing from the bleachers at the umpire who just rung up their kid for a called strike three. I actually like listening to NPR. It makes me feel smarter, though a … Read more…

It has been awhile — too long, in fact — since my editor, best friend and faithful wife agreed to author a post. I think you’ll be blessed. She has an eye for the spiritual and a heart for people. ~~~ So yesterday, I was sitting with my mom in the hematology/oncology waiting room. We were in Gadsden, Alabama for her routine checkup and I was practicing my deep-breathing relaxation technique because we were almost late for the appointment. (It is increasingly difficult to get my octogenarian parents out the door and into the truck, especially when their pentagenarian daughter … Read more…

Back in the day, dads did not ride shotgun. That’s not necessarily because father drove best. Now, we’d say it was a feature of an oppressive gender hierarchy or hegemonic masculinity. In those days, we didn’t know what those words meant. That’s just the way it was. So, except for those couple of years we drove an Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, the one with the awesome rear-facing third row seat, a substantial amount of my interaction with my dad was reflected in the rear-view mirror. When you think about it, a car is not a bad place for a father and … Read more…

Awkward moments. Everyone has them. Sometimes, they’re mild, like when you wave at someone you thought was waving at you. Except they weren’t. Or you and Celine Deon are just killin’ it. Until you notice the guy in the car next to you at the traffic light is staring. And of course there’s the left-hanging high five. But sometimes, those awkward moments are mortifying. Like when you hit “Reply All,” and “All” did not need to see that reply. It occurred to me that the Bible has a lot of moments like that. In Genesis 18, Sarah overhears a mysterious … Read more…