November 15 '97                    

Volume 76


The Sansing Appeal [Insights Into]

Ever so often, a business situation results in an opportunity to mix in a helping of pleasure.  I recently had the opportunity to work in the SUPERVALU store of Forest, MS, for a few days.  It was my pleasure to visit with Gordon and Elese Sansing for a couple of hours during one evening of my stay in Forest.  I finished my work at the SUPERVALU store before 5:00 p.m.  and attempted to contact Gordon at the Baptist Church.  I was informed that he was out of town.  My initial concerns were that I might miss seeing this special family, but the party on the other end of the phone line stated that he felt the Sansings would be back later that evening.

After finishing an evening meal, I phoned the residence of Gordon and Elese and was promptly invited for a visit.  Don't you enjoy visiting with folks who know how to make you feel as though you were at home? I soon found my way to their spacious home on Azalea Drive and was greeted warmly with hugs of friendship.                                                    [Chord Resonated In My Soul

The Sansing family has had a special place in our family's hearts since early in their ministry in Pontotoc back in '76.  Our children and their children were approximately the same ages, so we watched them develop socially and educationally during their early school years.

If I could use but a single word, one that stands out in my mind when I attempt to define that which characterizes the "Sansing Appeal," it would be the word humanity.  I always knew that preachers were human, so I was not shocked to learn that Dr.  Sansing as well as his family were human.  However, it was his unpretentious, humble spirit illuminating his humanity that I felt drawing me closer to him.  (You have to like a pastor who holds a doctoral degree and insists he is more comfortable being addressed by his first name.) Here was a man, every bit as godly as any pastor I had ever known, but also one not ashamed of his humanity.  Such qualities struck a chord that resonated in my soul.  At first there was a single instrument, a single chord, bold, full, and strong—a sound such as G major on a flattop guitar.  As our friendship deepened and I discovered more and more thoughts and ideas that resonated a commonality between us, the sounds within me became orchestral.

Apart from generational bonds and similarly structured families, we shared a love of fishing, hunting, and golfing.  Couple all the above with the common desire to grow spiritually and intellectually, and you can understand how broad based our friendship became.  It is a friendship we have maintained through the years, though many miles separate our respective families and our visits which are at best infrequent, are nonetheless cherished ones.

Whomever stated, "Behind every great man is a woman," probably didn't know Elese Sansing, but would surely have been as inspired had he known her.  I have not mentioned anything about Gordon that could not also apply to Elese, save perhaps the part concerning the recreational sports.  I find in Elese a perfect complement to her spouse, a model of stately dignity tempered by a great sense of humor, and a kindly, loving friend.  It follows then, that you may well imagine I relished our time to visit.

I did not begin this article intending to praise this special family, however I hope you do not mind my divergence.  I felt it an integral part necessary to allow you to view the evening visit from my perspective.

Ours was a good visit.  We discussed and reminisced of friends both past and present.  I found myself without any baby pictures of my new granddaughter and word pictures cannot describe her.  About the only time I ever wish men carried purses is when I need to show off family photos.  35 mm prints are just too big to fit in a man's billfold.  Elese commented that she thought my granddaughter's parents had chosen a fine name for their baby girl, Meridith Elese Adams.

This reminds me to inform all readers who may have difficulty knowing how to pronounce Merilese that Rayanne explains, "Think of Merry Christmas, and say Merry Lease."

Adding to the goodness of any evening visit in a friend's home is the introduction of refreshments.  Once again, Elese did not disappoint me and offered coffee and cake.  Both were splendid, even if the coffee was decaffeinated.  I thought about getting Sarah the recipe for the pound cake, but abandoned the idea upon learning the cake was not baked in-house.  Elese explained that the cake had been given to them by a friend.

If you are wondering why I considered obtaining the recipe for Sarah and not for Barbara, I shall try to briefly explain.  Barbara already makes a good pound cake.  Sarah used to, but after my telling her the last one she brought over to the house tasted like cornbread, she has been a little miffed. (Trust me.  Honesty is not always the best policy.)

Before leaving the Sansing home and returning to my motel room, I was given the grand tour of the house.  The house is owned by the Forest Baptist Church and had been refurbished for the Sansing's arrival earlier this year.  The house I previously described as spacious, borders on palatial.  The single level structure has a living room larger than some houses in which I have lived.  Even if I have exaggerated a little, I am sure you can imagine the largeness of the room.  After seeing 4 or 5 rooms and navigating a hallway or two, I lost count of the total number of rooms and bathrooms, and I was not certain I could return on my own to the den.  Fortunately my guides were well qualified to see me back to my point of entry.  Shortly after the tour of the house I said good-bye to my cordial hosts and drove back to my motel room.

Driving back to the main highway, I decided to count the streets that exit from Townsend Street to see if Gordon's directional instructions were correct. He had told me that I would take a left on the sixth street after I turned onto Townsend.  I attempted to count the streets when I first drove over to his house, but the intersections were not very well lit and I had difficulty determining the difference between streets and driveways.  He had also told me that the streets were named after flowering shrubs or trees such as dogwood and azalea.  After I passed the first two streets that were named after presidents, I was about to retrace my route when the names suddenly changed over to the plant kingdom.  As it turned out, I found Azalea Drive was the sixth street, just as Gordon had described.  


Official Notice

This is an official notice.  I ain't moving any more boxes or furniture for anybody between now and 1998.  And, with the Good Lord willing, I ain't moving anything in 1998.  Between moving my mother-in-law to Pontotoc, my sister buying a home and relocating, my daughter wanting to rearrange everything in my home and my sister's home, and the formal emptying of the contents of the rented storage building to my carport and Sarah's out-building, I intend to rest awhile from a year filled with relocating the possessions of others.

Saturday, November 01, was a pretty busy day for me and a couple of other folks.  When we moved Lillie Belle to Pontotoc, she had planned to locate in one of the Senior Citizen Apartments.  We stored her furnishings in the largest size rental facility available, and put her up in our house.  However after a few weeks of living the good life, Lillie Belle accepted our offer to board in our house.  From time to time we would go to the storage building to get something that Lillie Belle needed, so it was slightly emptier than when we first filled it.

Lillie Belle has been anxious to empty out the building, sort through the remaining boxes, and determine what to keep, what to discard or sell off in a yard sale.  It goes without saying that she would also save some money in the process.  I had been putting off the job of emptying the building until the weather cooled off somewhat.  I found the weather on Saturday was not as cool as I would have preferred, but at least I did not suffer from heat exhaustion.

I really needed a pickup truck for the moving, but I decided to begin moving all the small stuff and boxed stuff into my carport, transporting it in my car.  The task required several trips.  Yet, because the storage building was less than a mile away, it did not eat-up a lot of drive time.  Rayanne and Merilese had spent Friday night at our house, and Anson was scheduled to arrive Saturday afternoon.  Since I needed a truck, Anson brought over his dad's truck to help with the washer, dryer, couch, recliner, and other large items.

Sarah had long ago volunteered the use of her outhouse (No, not that kind of outhouse, a storage building or outbuilding.) to store anything that could not be wedged into a place in my house.  While I waited for Anson to arrive in Pontotoc, I decided to check out the available room in Sarah's outhouse. (Upon proofing this section, Sarah wanted everyone to know she does not call it her outhouse.) I was glad I did check out the outhouse, for she and Brett had set a few things inside the building in a less than organized way.  I know Brett was in a hurry to get out of the building, because it had old wasp nests in the rafters.  In his mind there might still be a wasp around the place.  I spent a good thirty to forty-five minutes rearranging all of their belongings on one side of the building.  About the time I finished the project, Sarah walked down the hill to check on what I was doing.  After explaining my actions I told her about the bigger project I had going and invited her to stop over and help with the unboxing at my house.

Anson arrived around 3:00 p.m., but Rayanne carted him away with her to exchange some gift items, a necessary chore, but one that consumed valuable daylight moving time.  Uncertain of how long my son-in-law might be detained, I tapped Barbara to assist with loading some of the remaining items at the rented storage unit.  We had just begun to unload, the items in our carport when Anson and Rayanne returned from Rayanne's run.

The next two loads, the heavy stuff, were trucked to Sarah's outhouse.  When we had put away the last, a mattress, we both agreed that the building was filled.  It might hold a few small items, but had there been another appliance or piece of furniture, there would have been no room for it in the outhouse. Daylight was spent as we drove back to my house with head lamps shining in the dusk of evening.

It was approximately 8:00 p.m.  when Sarah began to assume the task I had invited her to perform, helping unbox some of the items in the carport.  The dinner table had been cleared of our dinner's leftovers and dishes, a load of dishes were being washed in the dishwasher, and Rayanne had once again found something to rearrange.  Most all of Lillie Belle's dishes and cookware were in the boxes in the carport.  I began to bring inside these boxes, and Sarah and Lillie Belle soon had the table laden with glassware, stoneware and cookware, and set-about-ware.  Rayanne had directed Felicia to empty the bottom of the hutch, a work now in progress.  A notably, slow progress, for Felicia seemed more interested in the contents of the hutch than boxing them up.

By 10:00 p.m.  Barbara's nerves were gone, and someone noticed she, too, was gone.  We found her in the den watching TV—at least we thought she was watching it—she was staring in that direction.  Chaotic conditions and/or clutter tend to take their toll on Barbara, not unlike a parked car with the headlights left on and the battery being slowly drained.  We recorded one casualty and went back to the kitchen.

"You surely don't want to keep this," one of us would say to Lillie Belle.

More often than not her reply would be, "Well...that belonged to...," and then we got to listen to the history of the item and why for sentimental or other reasons it remained important to her.  As a result, the pile of things on the table grew alarmingly faster than did the box of items to throw away or the box of items for a later, carport sale.

By 11:30 p.m., I could not find anything in the kitchen cabinets that Rayanne had rearranged.  Now, the hutch looked more like a an antique dealer's display of vintage glassware, chinaware, and cut glass.  Yet, you would admit that Rayanne had done a good job with the arrangement.  It was time to shut down our activity and get to bed, else none of us would be able to get to a house of worship on Sunday morning.  Rayanne and Anson decided to spend the night at our house rather than drive back to Belmont.  Merilese found she had slept enough, having spent the past couple of hours asleep on the stomach of Felicia, who was also asleep on the floor of the living room.  And, at 12:30 a.m.  I surrendered the chore of rocking and feeding Merilese to her dad, who I later learned did not get her back to sleep until three a.m.  Except for Merilese and Anson, all the household was asleep by 1:00 a.m.

Over the course of the evening several boxes of carport merchandise had been properly disposed of, though enough boxes remained to give Lillie Belle something to do over the next few weeks.  Between now and the last Friday in November the remaining boxes and any reboxed keepsakes will be stored in the attic. The day after Thanksgiving is the day Felicia has mandated as the day she will put up our Christmas tree, so since I will have to go to the attic, I may as well clean out the boxes in the carport.  


Bodock Beau

Believe it or not Beau heard another true tale concerning religious humor. "Kid's Say The Darndest Things" was a book written by TV's Art Linkletter many years ago.  The title is timeless, for in any generation, kids, because of their limited knowledge of language, really do say some of the darndest things.

It seems that a working mom was getting her five-year old bedded down for the night.  (We all know children that age play hard and sleep hard.  When they get ready to sleep they can go to sleep anywhere.) Mom listened carefully as her daughter, Julie, began her bedtime prayer.  She carefully remembered to thank God for her parents and grandparents, but cut her prayer time far short of the usual.  It was her habit to express thanks for everyone she could remember at bedtime, as well as for the trees, birds, etc.

Mom realized that Julie had prayed a much shorter prayer, and as she tucked the bedcovers around Julie's small frame, she reprimanded her for neglecting so many persons and things for which she was thankful.  The response from Julie, had a tone of apology, but is best described as words adults speak that come back to haunt them.

"Moma, I'm just too damn tired!" exclaimed Julie.

Beau said he was reminded of how hard it is for Christians to live in the world without becoming worldly.

Beau also noted, "The speech of small children is often seen as an image mirroring another person and is but a reflection of that to which they are exposed."

Since Beau was using French, I hope I translated his quote correctly.  


Christmas Memories

During the month of December, RRN would like to publish articles submitted by readers that relate to Christmas.  RRN is particularly interested in the most memorable childhood Christmas experienced by a reader.  If, instead, you wish to write about a memorable Christmas you have had as a parent please do so.  Any memorable Christmas that someone in your family has had is also considered appropriate.

Make Christmas special for someone, this year, by sharing one of your Christmas memories.

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