Jody Vickery

Years ago, in a restaurant parking lot, my brother-in-law rebuked a woman he didn’t even know. “Rebuke” is a real Christiany-sounding word but he’s a Christian and he did vigorously point out her error, and since that’s what rebuke means, it fits. We were walking to our cars when he abruptly stopped and began to wildly motion to a driver who was backing out of a parking space. She stopped and cracked her window just enough to hear what he was trying to say, which is a lot more than I would have done if a stranger wildly waved at me. Here’s what he … Read more…

I’m not a big fan of trigger warnings, but they seem to be all the rage these days. So if you are uncomfortable reading about death, then you should probably skip this post. Or maybe you shouldn’t. When I was a kid, the dead weren’t always carted off to a funeral home and laid out in elaborate caskets under rose-colored mood lights. Often, they were stretched out on a bed in the living room where they rested for days while family and friends confronted the undeniable fact. That’s how it was with my paternal grandfather, Belton Hayes Vickery. I was … Read more…

I’ve read it a million times, but whenever I get to the part in Matthew 16, where Peter takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him, I cringe. I want to reach out, grab him by the robe and say, “Mr. Simon, sir, don’t. Just don’t.” It’s not that I think I’d be any less uppity. It’s just that I know how this story turns out. We are wise to extend a measure of grace to the patron saint of putting your foot in your mouth. And wiser to humbly acknowledge that it is hardly fair for those who reflect on a well-published past, to … Read more…

Why is it so many life lessons are best learned at a table? For example, I have a couple of dear friends who, like me, love to eat. I’ve probably sat at a table with these two guys hundreds of times. Oddly, though, I don’t remember ever sitting down with both of them at the same time. That would be a memorable event because they both insist on picking up the check. If we all three met for dinner, I have no doubt that it would be a marvelous time of fraternal association. Until the server brought the bill and they both reached for it. Eschatological … Read more…

I had an epiphany while I was standing in the Sams Club pharmaceutical section holding a can of “Joint Juice” at arm’s length, trying to read the microprint on the label to figure out how many milligrams of glucosamine were in it versus how many were in its nearest competitor, “Jogging in Jug.” The reason I was holding the “Joint Juice” at arm’s length was because I’d forgotten my reading glasses. The reason I was reading the label is that whenever I go up or down stairs, fall into or labor up from a sitting position, or walk forwards, backwards … Read more…

It’s 3:30 in the morning and I am sitting in a booth at a Waffle House near my office. Unlike the other patrons in this establishment, I am freshly shaved, showered and dressed for work. They, however, are not, having just finished the night’s work or play. We eye each other suspiciously. They wonder why anyone in his right mind would be up this early. I silently nag them about getting home at a decent hour. Perhaps they feel judged by the crisp creases in my khakis, convicted by the scent of Old Spice and sentenced by the starch of … Read more…

We attended our church’s senior banquet last Sunday night — the one for seniors graduating from high school. May means that a lot of moms and dads are preparing for one of the hardest parts of parenting; letting them go. Hard is hardly an adequate word for it, but phrases like Emotional Water Boarding, Psychological Evisceration or Heart-rending Relational Histrionics take up too much space when you’re trying to keep your word count reasonable. When we drove away with our older son standing on the steps of his dorm, we wept all the way back to the hotel, through the packing and checkout, … Read more…

One after another, plush chariots pulled up to Herod’s opulent palace in the city of Sephorous, dropping off high officials, military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. These people, the powerful, the wealthy, the important have come to see and to be seen. True, they are far less interested in Herod than they are in being seen with him. But the food will be incredible, the wine will be free and something interesting always happens at one of Herod’s parties. Jesus could see them from the boat, traipsing along the shore, meandering across the hillsides, ambling among the rocks, dozens, hundreds, thousands of … Read more…

I know a lot of people who love everything about the church. They spend their time in its ministries, give their money to it, and schedule their lives around it. Sometimes, they even choose to live in a particular neighborhood because it’s close to the church they love. I know a few who are more ambivalent – they can take it or leave it – but mostly just hoover around the periphery. I could be wrong about this, but I think it’s easier for these folks to stay marginally affiliated than it would be to completely disconnect. Family pressure, local … Read more…

When you’re seven years old and your dad owns a carpet store in town, that’s where you go in the afternoons when the school bell rings. Whether you like it or not. When he wasn’t selling or installing carpet, Dad worked at the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, which would have been an infinitely cooler place to hang out after school. Seriously, can you imagine the unbridled awesomeness of watching military aircraft practicing touch-and-goes while you’re not doing your homework? That’s probably one of the reasons I landed among the shag carpet samples every day instead of the grassy hillside near the runway. Anyway, on the … Read more…