November 26 - the day before Thanksgiving 2014

What am I most thankful for this year?  My daughter moved to San Francisco this year and I found out she's homesick for our family Thanksgiving.  I am most thankful for that... that Bridgett is homesick. Knowing that she is a little homesick for Thanksgiving lets me know I might have done something right.

My own family never was too big on Thanksgiving that I can remember.  Fact is, I can't remember until after my grandma died when I was in the sixth grade.  After that we started going to my Uncle Bill's house and I got to know some of my cousins on dad's side and looked forward to seeing them once a year.  We all grew up and it became hit or miss on meeting and it got to the point where I never spent Thanksgiving the same place two years in a row.  That all changed 22 years ago.

I had moved to Cincinnati, gotten married (to a girl from Nashville that I met after I moved to Cincinnati) and started a family.  Lynn and I lived in an old row house in Queensgate.   It was a three story divided into three apartments in a downtown neighborhood in transition that never quite transitioned.  One of Lynn's friends from work was looking for a new place to live and we talked her into moving into the upstairs apartment.  Her name was Juanita.

I am also thankful for Juanita, as is everyone who visits our house for Thanksgiving.

Juanita liked to cook and she was good. She'd remark from time to time that she never saw white people enjoy soul food so much.  We had to explain to her that Cincinnati Soul Food was nothing more than home cookin' down south.  (except for the oxtail soup, never had that growing up... never want to have it again as a grownup. - I thought those were pinwheel pasta that didn't get cooked all the way - until Juanita's boyfriend helped me make the connection)

Bridgett was born the end of October in 1992.  Our parents alternated coming up to help out at first and my parents were going to be there on Thanksgiving.   I was going to buy a prepared meal but Juanita heard and would have nothing to do with that.  So on Thanksgiving Day 1992, Juanita Harris would run up and down the stairs at our old row house checking on me and teaching me how to make Turkey and Dressing.  (She had to teach me how to make cornbread before she taught me how to make dressing).

The grandparents would alternate years coming up for Thanksgiving until the last year , then we had them both up to Cincinnati at the same time.  (1995)

After we moved back to Nashville and got settled we started cooking Thanksgiving and inviting the extended family over.  These are some of the best times we have.  Through it all, Bridgett has always been my number one helper.

Some years she'd write the menu, other years she'd make the guest list, greet "the customers" and check them off the list.  As she got older she'd help me cook.  She always taste tested to make sure everything was done to perfection.

The last couple of years she became the bartender and made sure the cook had the strongest Bloody Mary while making Mimosa's for her mom and the other ladies.

I can count on one hand the number of times I haven't cooked Thanksgiving Dinner in the last 22 years.  Bridgett is the reason I started cooking Thanksgiving Dinner and this will be the first year we will not be together for it.

I was really sad when I realized we wouldn't see Bridgett for Thanksgiving, but then didn't think about it much as the grind of life took over.  As fall approached, I started to realize it was going to be harder than I thought - but that's just me - when I'm not grumpy, I'm emotional.  For me,
Thanksgiving wouldn't be what it is today for me if not for Bridgett  (and Juanita, of course).

So, when Bridgett let on she was a little homesick - I was happy. Not because I'm mean and don't want her to be happy, but because it makes me think I did something right.  I know all those Thanksgiving's meant something to her and she will have those memories all the rest of her life. Maybe in a few years I'll be at her house teaching her how to make cornbread in a skillet and how to give a turkey a deep tissue massage - unless she finds her own Juanita.

Happy Thanksgiving to all - and especially to the girl who owns my heart... I'll miss you at the table this year.  We all will.

Danny Butler
November 26, 2014

Everything Means Something or Nothing Means Anything

In the dream I'm talking to my father - a common dream occurrence recently - and I'm asking him questions about the street preacher Holy Hubert Lindsey who told my father he was going to hell for two drug-dealing years before my father's conversion. I want to write about my conflictions about the wild evangelicalistic street preacher and I was trying to find out what caliber of gun Hubert was shot with when my father saw him shot at point blank range only to be healed on the way to the hospital, bail out and pray with his attacker, returning to the streets to continue preaching.

And then Hubert was there, in my dream.

"Wait," I said. "Are you the real Holy Hubert?"

"No," he said, "I'm the Holy Hubert in your dream." Daniel Silliman, 2.07.2004,

http://danielsilliman.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_danielsilliman_archive.html. 

________________________________________
August 19, 2006 - the oddesy begins...Danny's account of the Jesus Movement.

Strange. In the past year or so, I have "Googled" Holy Hubert's name a dozen times and never found anything. Last night I found Website upon Website about Hubert Lindsey. Based on whose eyes the testimony is coming from, he is either a cantankerous crackpot or a modern day prophet. It seems to be the same man, though. The only difference is the heart of the witness.

Either everything means something or nothing means anything. There is a circuit in my thinking that cannot completely connect in this story. Though I heard him preach and testify to the great things God has done in his life, and remember most of them even though it's been 25 years since I last heard him, I never connected him with the Jesus movement.

The first time I heard him preach was on a Tuesday night, probably around 1980 or 1981. It was a dark night for me and I longed for the warmth at the Lord's Chapel. I did not know it but Brother Moore was not preaching that night, Holy Hubert was. The more he talked, the more I hated him. "Stop in the name of Jesus or God said he would strike you where you stand" he recounted from one of his violent crusades. Apparently the man did not stop and God struck him dead. There was story upon story like this and it all seemed so loveless and dreadful. I wanted no part of this. I drove home in pain and emptiness. Why would they let this man preach in a church like ours?

In the summer of 1974, Owen came to our house looking for my older brother, Dennis. He was not home. He was excited and he wanted to talk to someone. He talked to me instead. From that day forward, Owen and I had a different relationship. It was the summer before 10th grade and I guess I was about 15. He would have been about 20. 

He was my older brother's friend and probably the coolest guy I knew growing up. Curtis and I would sit behind him in church and try to stand with our hands shoved in our back pockets and legs spread wide apart just like he did. He had some of the funniest lines, too. "Hey, your nose is bleeding... no its snot." or "Man, its raining like Hail outside." But that's when he was in High School. There was something different about him when he talked to me on the front porch. 

Owen's younger brother was a year older than I was and he was cool, too, but only as cool as a guy about your same age can be. Not that older, high school cool. Tim used to get me in trouble in church by making me laugh when everyone else was quiet. He and I were friends, but we were not really alike and we didn't have a lot in common. That changed the first night I heard Holy Hubert preach.

Owen

Back on the porch, Owen showed me a pamphlet with a finger pointing to the sky. I think the pamphlet was called "One Way to Christ." He read the four spiritual laws to me and explained them. He encouraged me to pray the sinner's prayer on my front porch and I did. I felt better than I had in a long time. He gave me a bunch of tracts and would take me to Jesus rallies. I got to meet pioneers like Randy Mathews and Dogwood. I prayed and read my Bible. The youngest kid at the rallies, I knew I fit in with my long hair and top hat. (cue to laughter). 

That summer, Owen introduced me to the West Coast Phenomenon called the Jesus Movement, except they didn't call it that.

Recently, Tom got me "Googling" for websites about the Jesus Movement. Call me slow, but 30 years later I finally made the connection between Owen and the Jesus Movement. I was touched and inspired. Inspired enough to drop an email to David Di Sabatino about my front porch experience. (Di Sabantino is the man who put out the movie about Lonnie Frisbee from the Jesus Movement).

Owen went back to school, or wherever he was going and I entered the 10th grade. I fell hard that year and my life seemed to turn black. Fast forward to the second semester of my freshman year in college. Drugged out and depressed, I despised Christians and Christianity. The associate pastor of Maranantha Ministries painted a target on me. By the end of that semester, I had made it very clear how much I loathed Brother Mark's religion and would never submit to their God or become one of them.

I could not wait to find Brother Mark when I went back to school that fall. Things changed over the summer. Last year, the Maranantha folks were praying for me, witnessing to me and trying to cast out the demons. I was cursing them, their religion, their bookstore and God. This year I was one of them, attending the rallies and ultimately Baptized in one of the most surreal services you could imagine. Maranantha Ministries came from the West Coast Jesus Movement. 

I started the steps toward becoming a Baptist Preacher, made a pretty big mistake and was more or less ostracized from the Baptist Ministry. Tom had come to me some months before taking about some intense problems in his life, which opened the door for me to come to him now. He took me to the Lord's Chapel and I was introduced again to a God of love and acceptance, not unlike the experience from the summer with Owen or the year with Maranantha. 

From what I understand, the Chapel in those days was a "Calvary" based Church. Calvary is the church started by Pastor Chuck Smith and the history of the Jesus Movement is intertwined with the history of Calvary Churches. You cannot have one without the other. Brother Moore, called to preach at the Lord's Chapel in its infancy is no stranger to his own Jesus Movement. 

The second time I heard Holy Hubert preach at the Lord's Chapel I loved him. He told the same stories and preached just like before but this time I felt the love he had for God and man flow out of him. Tom and I went down to meet him after the service and could feel the electricity coming out of his hands. Before he pronounced a blessing on us, Tom reminded me of the question he asked us: "Do you use tobacco or alcohol?" After hearing all the things that happened in his ministry, I am sure we were too scared to lie, lest we be struck dead or impotent, and told him we didn't drink and were giving up the smokes tomorrow. In his blessing he told us were going to do great things together. I loved that man and never forgot him.

The reason I feel compelled to rehash this history is because I just put all these things together this weekend when Tom told me to look up the Jesus Movement and then pointed me to a picture of Holy Hubert. The point of connection that I cannot quite connect goes back to the first night I heard Holy Hubert preach. The reason the night was so black was because it was the night my mom told me Owen died a violent and tragic death that weekend.

Why would I happen to hear a man like this, a man with his own violent past, preach this night. The man who helped bring the Jesus Movement to the world was preaching on the night I was mourning the death of the man who brought the Jesus Movement to me.

Does this mean anything? Either everything means something or nothing means anything. 

I don't know. What I do know is while I was pondering this a young man came to my door, out of gas and lost. All I could do was chastise him for pulling into my neighbors yard and tell him it was too far to walk to his destination. The nerve of this guy; doesn't he know you don't run out of gas in Belle Meade and you certainly don't come up to someone's door asking for directions? Get a cell phone for crying out loud. I needed to get back to pondering the impact of the Jesus Movement in my life....

Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Maybe there is no connection, but I know one guy who got some gas and two guys who got some direction because of it. Hopefully they will both make their destinations.
________________________________________

Holy Hubert

"Do you want a Revolution? I said do you want a revolution? I can't hear you radicals do you want a revolution?", by this time he would have all the hippies and socialist listening and would go on to say, "...You don't need a revolution on the outside, NO!!! You need one on the inside, and the greatest revolution you will ever have is when Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God comes into your hearts."

Then Dr. Billy Graham once asked Brother Lindsey, "Dr. Lindsey, what is the greatest demonstration that you have ever broken up?"
Dr. Lindsey replied, " 35,000"
Billy Graham said "One Man!?"
Hubert replied, "Jesus was with me Dr. Graham!" 



everything means something or nothing means anything
Danny Butler
Nashville Tennessee
©August 19, 2006

Happy New Year

Celebrating the New Year has meant many things over the years, but it has never really meant that much.  It was mostly a night of broken promises followed by a day of either being very tired or very hungover.   

If you were able to look at New Year's Day from an omnisicant point of view, I doubt there would even be a hint of demarkation between what we consider one year or the next.  

Merry Christmas...   

From that perspective, though, there is one event that is a dividing line in time.  It was the time when God broke into human history and every reality that ever existed shifted that night.

Historians and astronomers have a pretty good idea of the year and the season that Jesus was born, but even if they are not in agreement on when He was born they ARE in agreement of when he was NOT born.  It is no longer controversy to say the Messiah's birthay is not December 25th.

"renovated with life, my eyes again bright, and You are radiant."

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Happy New Year....

The season of Advent starts the fourth Sunday before December 25.  That is a real date.  While the Church looks to Christ each and every day, this time is set aside as a speical time to remember the Hope of the Jews as they awaiting their Messiah.  We celebrate the Nativity of our Lord.  It is also a time that we look toward His return. We prepare our hearts in a special way for his return.  

Today is the first Sunday of Advent and it is also the first day of the Church's New Year.   

"Where hope can hold the hand of sorrow and we can walk into tomorrow..."

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I am done with the traditional New Year.  It has become a meaningless night of binge.  Sort of a warm up for Fat Tuesday...

Today is my Church's New Year.  All aroud the world we celebrated the first Sunday of Advent -- the first Sunday of our New Year.    I didn't spend last night making promises I knew I couldn't keep and today was a heartbreaking day - certainly not the kind of day you would want to start your year off - especially if it were January 1.

But I can embrace this day as the beginning of my New Year and I will begin my year, not with a day, but with a seaon of preparation.  A season of working through who I was, who I am... and who I want to be.  I can do that because many years ago God broke into human history - invaded mankind to bring us hope and peace... to bring me Hope and Peace.

Today is my New Year.  Happy New Year....."Where peace is found in troubled days and the joy of Jesus carries pain..."

Danny Butler  November  27, 2011 _____________________________________________________________

My heart beats like a drum, flying up with the sun

I grab Your hand again

Renovated with life, my eyes again bright

And You are radiant

Where hope can hold my hand of sorrow

And we can walk into tomorrow

Where peace is found in troubled days

And the joy of Jesus carries pain

This is a new year, this is a new day to rise

Shine, lift up your eyes

This is a new year, this is a new day to rise

Shine and point the way to God's great life

I'm held in a place, a beautiful space

Where heaven meets the earth

My heart opens wide and the Father pours life

Deep inside my soul

Charlie Hall - New Year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd9BTMjcEBE

The Wedding

An update on the Karen (Burmese Refugee) Community in Smyrna

There are a some good things happening.

Two summers ago, $100.00 was donated for a pair of glasses. It was important because this refugee lady could help with the community. She spoke English and could read, but she couldn't see. Glasses were purchased and she began helping in the community. Fast forward to today: This young lady, a Karen Refugee in America barely two years now has a full time job with benefits working in the school system with refugee school children. The children love her, the school loves her and she loves her job.

Their lives aren't easy and most are barely making minimum wage if at all. They share what they have. If they are able to get out of the refugee camp, they are required to pay their airfare back over a certain period of time. The doctor visits to required by immigration are very expensive and the basics like food, shelter, clothing and transportation leave them with little discretionary income.

But I'm not writing about what thy don't have -

Kelli and Stephen are a young couple working as missionaries here with the refugees in Smyrna a couple of summers ago. Kelly and Stephen worked with the young children and provided a much needed safety net as the first group settled in the area.

I once visited a sick child at the hospital. Neither she or her guardian spoke English. I didn't speak Karen. It was tense and they were nervous. As soon as I handed them pictures of Kelli and Stephen everything was ok.

Word got out in Smyrna's Karen Community that Kelli and Steve were getting married in Arkansas. One of the Karen came to Tom and Sherie with an envelope stuffed full of ones, fives and tens and asked them to give it to Kelli and Steve for their wedding present.

From this small refugee community in Smyrna came a gift from their heart. It was the widows mite. These men and women, boys and girls - lives shattered by a military who wants to eliminate their race - unable to return to their home - a community with an unemployment rate over 40% and the employed making minimum wage and sharing what they have with the rest of the community reached in their pockets and pulled out their crumpled dollars. Little hands shoved their hard earned and much needed money into an envelope.

Tom said the spirit that filled the room when Kelli and Steve opened the envelope after the wedding was beyond word. It's not about the money, I hope you understand - but I think the amount is important when you understand where it came from. $1810.00.

Below is a slide show of photographs Kelli took the summer she was in Smyrna.

Flying Men

I am going back in time right now to some old emails sent last year, accumulating them in one place, keeping it easy for me to find a place to go back to when I forget.

The two stories in this email from last year continue to completely blow me away - They are not my stories - but I have been blessed to know them and where they come from:

2 Kings 6

15 And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army, surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?”
16 So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 17 And Elisha prayed, and said, “LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

---

I am writing this, not for the masses, but for those who are looking for truth and who believe in God's limitless love and desire to show it to us. I prayed for God to open my eyes like Elisha's servant ....

Ken Rideout, from "the 12 string mystery", has a son named Norman ministering in Tribal Burma http://www.therideouts.com/. (coindenses? no, according to Pastor Phil we are connecting the dots.)

Here is an excerpt from one of their newsletters:

"The following week, I got a call from Pastor Nirand. He asked me did I believe in angels? I said yes and he continued to tell a story. He was so excited from the weekend that he couldn't sleep. So about 3 am he got up and went up the hill to the church to pray. He had been there about 30 minutes when a few dozen people in the village were awakened out of their sleep with the sound of over 100 people singing praises to the Lord. Together they hurriedly rushed up to the church thinking they were missing out on something. Upon arriving they found the young pastor sitting on the floor by himself in the dark with one candle lit"

(here it is in its entirety http://www.therideouts.com/Newsletter/News2008May.htm

The rest of the story is Tommy's and he will tell it much better than this one day. Tom was waiting with a 9 year old girl from Burma this weekend watching Spongebob Squarepants. One of the characters was flying around and the girl asked Tom if he thought men could fly. Tom said they could in airplanes. She was persistent about men flying and Tom said that movies and TV make you think men can fly. Again she was persistent and said that her grandmother (still IDP in the jungles of Burma) told her of men who fly around and protect you when you are in danger and come to you when you are sad and help you when you need help. She said her grandmother saw and believed in those men and she did too. Tom told me he had to leave the room to regain his composure.

They are not men at all, are they?

"And Elisha prayed, and said, “LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw."

Danny

August 11, 2008

Open my eyes, Lord.

Blown Away (A 12 String Mystery)

I just got off the phone with a man I’ve never met but have known for a long time…

A couple of years ago my dad started telling me about a man he met walking at Shelby Park. He said he had been a missionary overseas but had now settled in East Nashville. I wondered why dad was telling me this…(and why East Nashville) I figured he was just passing the time, talking about the little things.

Then dad goes to the board by his phone where they keep all their notes and appointments and phone numbers. He said he had written this missionary’s name down. Only my dad would write down the name of some man he met once and would never see again. I mean really, how important could this be.

Dad said, “He has kind of a funny name. Here it is….Kenneth Rideout.” “Dad!” I exclaimed, “I know who he is, I’ve heard him speak…I’ve plagiarized his sermons. You remember the one where I said you couldn't stick your foot in the same creek twice? That was Kenneth Rideout”

It had been at least 25 years since I last heard him. My best friend Tom and I were mesmerized by what he was saying. One night he must have preached for 3 hours and we wanted more. He could have preached all night. But he didn’t and life moved on.

Tom started a family and I moved away. We stayed in touch but were moving in different directions. Tom stayed in church and I stayed out late. One time when we were catching up Tom told me he gave his 12-string guitar to Kenneth Rideout. I could not believe it. That is all he ever wanted. I watched him save his money and was with him when he bought it. Tom loved that guitar and now he’d given it away. I wondered why Tom didn’t buy a cheap guitar to give to this guy if all he was going to do was take it to some foreign country and sing Kum Ba Ya. Tom was not as cynical as I, but I sensed regret in his voice.

Tom is working very hard to help the Karen refugees from Burma with their resettlement in this area. Not many really know or can fathom the horror they experienced in Burma and the trials of beginning a new life in this country.

About six months ago, Tom said he wished he knew how to find Kenneth Rideout. For some reason he remembered hearing him speak about Burma and that he lived there for a while. It’s a real struggle sometimes because most of the Karen speak little, if any, English. The ones that do are still hard to understand. The combination of knowing the language and culture along with being a man of prayer would be a great help. I got excited. I reminded Tom that my dad had met him in the park and he lived close to both our parents! Dad even had his address and phone number.
I called Dad and asked if he remembered meeting Kenneth Rideout at Shelby Park. That was only a formality, because Dad never forgets anything. (That was a real problem when I was a kid.) Of course he said yes. I asked if he still had his number. He looked, but it wasn’t on the board anymore. I hung up and planned on trying to find him after work. Within minutes, Dad called back and gave me his address and phone number. He found them.

I gave the information to Tom. Tom tried to call a few times, but finally gave up. It seemed the Rideout’s did not have an answering machine and were not home very much.

Tom calls me daily to let me know what is going on in the community. Sometimes I don’t say anything (constructive) and try to listen. Sometimes I try to offer a little advice. Sometimes I just laugh with him about how crazy things get.

A Church of Christ close to the Karen Community has opened their doors for them to have meetings and ESL classes. The pastor of the Church of Christ has asked that they respect the leadership of their church with regards to worship, so the Karen have church somewhere else – but this week the pastor was a little upset.

A man from Thailand was in town and wanted to meet with the Karen Community. They were meeting at the church. One of the Karen pastors called Tom and asked that he come meet this great friend of theirs who helped them in Burma and Thailand. Tom said he needed to spend some time with his family and could not go. The Karen pastor insisted but Tom still refused. The other Karen pastor, the one who leads the community, called Tom and insisted he come meet this great man who helped them in Thailand and Burma. Tom still refused. It’s not that he did not want to go, but Tom knew he needed to be at home to spend time with his family.

ESL was Friday Night at the Church where the “Thai Guy” had spoken the night before. As soon as Tom got there, the pastor of the Church let him know he was more than a little upset at what had taken place the previous night. They were singing and raising their hands and some guy prayed for almost thirty minutes. They prayed for everyone there. (Tom talked to the first Karen Pastor who invited him to come and told him how much the prayer had helped and they prayed for the needs of everyone and he knew everything was going to be ok) Since Tom wasn’t at the prayer meeting, he did not know what went on or what to say to the pastor of the Church of Christ. Tom asked Jesse, our Free Burma Ranger friend, if he knew what went on that would have made the pastor so upset.

Jesse wasn’t sure what went on, but he said he knew a friend of his was there to meet and pray with the Karen – a missionary named Kenneth Rideout……………

I found that number my dad gave me and called Kenneth and Sandra Rideout tonight. I had to tell them. Mrs. Rideout wondered why their answering machine did not work when Tom tried to call a few months ago. I can’t explain it anymore than that for things to mean what they do, they had to happen the way they did.

This is only about me in that I was a witness to the events and have been allowed to share them with you. A while back, I asked God to let me see His Hand and let me know He is real. There have been so many little events working with Tom and his wife Sherie that cause my eyes to glisten over because they are little revelations and little answers to that prayer. When Tom told me the story, I sat in my car stunned. Tom said he nearly fell out when Jesse said, “Kenneth Rideout.”

When Tom told Sherie, he said her jaw literally dropped. Then she reminded him of what Kenneth told Tom when he gave up his beloved 12-string. Kenneth Rideout told Tom that guitar was a seed and he had no idea where it would end up.

When Mr. Rideout was in America making church visits he met a lot of people making it hard to remember who he met. He did remember the 12-string and where it traveled 15+ years ago. Its last known location was in a Karen village in Burma….



Danny Butler
August 2, 2008.