The Pastor’s Piece – Kevin Cernek, Chaplain -September 7, 2024

FCFI

September 8, 2024

FYI – Humpty Dumpty was pushed.

My wife and I had the opportunity to spend last weekend in Nashville, Tennessee with our daughter. We made arrangements to stay at an Airbnb. Before we booked, we read the  comments section on their website and it was full of nothing but great comments and five star ratings. Nonetheless, we were a bit skeptical.

When we got there, everything was exactly as advertised. Our suite was an upstairs bungalow complete with snacks, water, juice, antiques, and homey-ness. The first night we were in Nashville, my wife and daughter made a delicious home-cooked meal for our enjoyment. The next day, we booked a “Hop On Hop Off” bus tour of the city. We got on an open air, double-decker bus which made 13 different stops at various places around Music City. It was a live-narrated tour that took about two hours if you chose not to get off the bus. The advice of the ticket salesman was that we ride the full tour without hopping off just to make sure we saw all the sights. Then, after we had a complete oversight of all the attractions, we could ride back around and get off at the places that fancied our interest. That was good advice.

It was hot that day, but with the open-aired bus, a nice breeze was blowing and it was very comfortable. The narrator did a good job of dispensing all the interesting information and facts one could ever want to absorb while playfully interacting with the crowd on his bus. In fact, there was so much information, early on we gave up trying to remember it all. We saw studios for just about every major artist past and present. On Music Row, we saw the recording studios of Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Dolly Parton, Faith Hill, Jewel, Miranda Lambert, Lady Antebellum, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan, Lionel Richie, Jimmy Buffet, Peter Frampton, Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Ray Price, Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, Bob Seger, Willie Nelson, Tom Jones, Emmylou Harris, B.B. King, Kenny Chesney, Hank Williams Jr., Amy Grant, Rascal Flatts, and many more. I’d recommend the tour to anyone going to Nashville, though it’s not cheap.

Back at the B & B, our host was a Super Host and he knew how to make us feel at home. The neighborhood we were in was (is) a haven of wokeness. We weren’t sure where he stood and he was not sure of us. Rather than open a hornet’s nest, our conversations only went so far as hello and goodbye and how are you? But, after one or two of those, we wanted to get to know him so, as we walked by, we engaged. We talked about the weather and asked about good restaurants. During our conversation, he asked us a very vague (but intentionally probing) question on where we stood “governmentally.” He had not indicated to us what his leanings were, and we had not given him any indication of ours, but I figured since he asked, we were going to talk. Turns out he is a comrade in arms (literally he is a conceal/carry advocate and participant). He’s disgusted with the current state of affairs our country is in, the state of our economy and the cultural abyss we are floundering in under the current political landscape. He said he’s an island there in his neighborhood and even in his own family he cannot have a peaceful, logical conversation expressing his views and opinions without getting shouted down. So he was happy to have some compatriots share his house for the weekend. We made a new friend and though he is admittedly, in his words: “not an overly religious man,” he got some religion last weekend.

When we came home from church on Sunday, he “happened” to be outside in front of his house and wondered where we had been “all dressed up like that?” My wife said, “We went to church!” And then we proceeded to bombard him with a playback of the entire sermon which happened to be preached by Kirk Cameron that day – (the regular preacher was on vacation – they could have asked me, but for some reason they wanted Kirk). And so here we are, praying for yet another friend who God has given us the privilege and joy of knowing.

That afternoon we had a warm, summer thunderstorm move through the area. We watched the rain fall from the second story deck of our suite. It was beautiful, relaxing, and inviting. Later that evening before it got dark, we went for a four-mile walk around the park. Then we walked two more miles to a sweet little Mexican Restaurant for dinner. It was all well-worth the effort. The next day, we left early, long before sunrise and made the trek back home. Life is good.

(Kevin Cernek is Lead Pastor of Martintown Community Church in Martintown, Wisconsin).