It’s okay to start messy. You just have to start.

Ashes in Ink

1 week ago

There is Southern. And then there is Southern-with-the-good-silver-out, and I believe this occasion calls for the latter.

Because apparently a self-proclaimed street pastor in Borger, Texas, was so deeply offended by the American flag being lowered to honor Dolly Parton that he took it upon himself to march over to the post office, untie the flag, run it back up the pole, and encourage other people to do the same. He called the honor, "offensive" and "repulsive."

His complaint? Dolly Parton never officially served in the United States government.

Well, pull up a chair, Pastor. We need to have ourselves a little visit.

Allow me to introduce myself: I’m a fiercely proud Army mama. My only son wears the uniform and serves this country, so I don’t need a lecture on service, sacrifice, or patriotism. And I can hold that enormous pride in one hand while holding tremendous respect in the other for a woman who spent a lifetime doing more good for this country than seems humanly possible.

You see, down South, some of us were raised to understand that service is not defined by whether the government ever issued you an ID badge. Sometimes service looks like a uniform. Sometimes it looks like elected office.

And sometimes it looks like a five-foot-tall woman from the mountains of East Tennessee spending a lifetime making sure poor children have books, disaster victims have money, sick people have hope, and forgotten communities have somebody willing to remember them.

Dolly Parton came from next to nothing. She grew up one of twelve children in a tiny cabin in the mountains. Her father was one of the smartest people she knew, but he couldn't read or write.

So, when Dolly became rich and famous, she didn't simply buy herself prettier things and forget where she came from. She started giving books to children.

Not a few books. Not a publicity stunt involving somebody handing out books while cameras rolled. Hundreds of millions of books.

Through Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, children receive a free book every month from birth until age five, regardless of their family's income.

She looked at something that had hurt her own family and decided to keep it from hurting somebody else's. Around here, we call that remembering where you came from.

I had no idea we were supposed to call it “repulsive.”

When wildfires devastated the Smoky Mountains, and families watched their homes disappear to ashes, Dolly didn't offer thoughts and prayers from a comfortable distance. She opened her pocketbook. Her My People Fund ultimately put millions of dollars directly into the hands of families who had lost their homes.

When COVID came, and researchers at Vanderbilt were working desperately to understand a virus killing Americans, Dolly gave them a million dollars. That money helped support early research connected to the Moderna vaccine.

Later, she gave another million to Vanderbilt for pediatric infectious-disease research.

When Hurricane Helene devastated parts of Appalachia and East Tennessee, Dolly showed up again, personally pledging a million dollars to relief efforts, with another million pledged through her businesses and foundation.

Again and again and again, when people were hurting, Dolly Parton's response was essentially:

Where do you need me, and what can I do?

Now, Pastor, I don't claim to be a theologian, but I have spent enough time around Southern churches to remember hearing something about feeding people, comforting people, caring for children, tending to the sick, helping the poor, and showing up for your neighbor.

Seems like it came from a fairly important book. Maybe somebody can look it up.

Dolly also created jobs.

She poured money into Appalachia. She brought tourism and economic opportunity to a region this country has too often been perfectly happy to stereotype, exploit, pity, or ignore.

And for decades, she carried the music and stories of those mountains around the world without ever pretending she had become too sophisticated for the people who raised her.

No, Dolly Parton never served in Congress. She never occupied the Oval Office. She never served in the military.

And honoring her takes precisely nothing away from the extraordinary sacrifice of the men and women who did.

Because honor is not pie.

Giving a slice to Dolly does not mean soldiers have to split theirs.

We are allowed to recognize more than one kind of American service.

In fact, I think we desperately need to.

…Because somewhere along the way, we have developed this strange idea that patriotism is mostly about symbols. Flags. Anthems. Pins. Slogans. Who stands. Who kneels. Who salutes correctly. Who gets sufficiently angry when somebody else doesn't.

Dolly practiced another kind of patriotism. She invested in Americans. Especially children. Especially poor families. Especially people who had just watched everything they owned burn to the ground. Especially communities that don't usually have lobbyists wandering the halls of Washington.

And perhaps most remarkable of all, Dolly managed something almost unheard of in modern America: She gave people who agreed on practically nothing a reason to love the same person.

Republicans loved Dolly. Democrats loved Dolly. Church ladies loved Dolly. Drag queens loved Dolly. Coal miners loved Dolly. Schoolteachers loved Dolly. Grandmothers loved Dolly.

Little children standing at the mailbox waiting for a book with their own name on the package loved Dolly.

She didn't demand ideological paperwork before deciding somebody deserved kindness. She just helped people.

Which renders it especially unfortunate that a man calling himself a pastor looked at the lowering of a flag for that woman and decided the proper Christian response was outrage.

And not ordinary outrage, mind you. He called it “repulsive and offensive.”

Sir.

If lowering a flag for Dolly Parton is the most repulsive and offensive thing you encountered that day, I would very much like directions to the blessed little corner of America where you are living.

Because I can think of some things that offend me considerably more. Children going hungry offends me. Families sleeping in cars offends me. People losing everything in a disaster and discovering nobody is coming to help offends me. Children growing up without books offends me. Sick people being treated as disposable offends me. Cruelty dressed up as righteousness offends me.

And yes, watching Christianity become a costume people put on while behaving in ways that bear precious little resemblance to Christ offends me quite a bit.

But lowering the American flag for a poor little girl from the mountains of Tennessee who grew up, conquered the world, and then spent decades reaching back down the mountain to pull other people up behind her?

No.

I don't find that repulsive.

I find that beautifully American.

And since we've already brought out the good silver, there is one last matter of etiquette we should probably address.

If the President of the United States orders American flags lowered, and your response is to walk onto federal property, take it upon yourself to change the position of the flag, and then announce that you're leaving it that way for federal employees to discover later because you have decided who is and is not worthy of national honor...

I'm not entirely certain Dolly Parton is the person in this story who has misunderstood the meaning of public service.

But I suppose that's between you, the Postmaster, and Jesus.

As for the rest of us:

Lower the flag. Play “Coat of Many Colors.” Read a child a book. Send some money to a family who just lost everything. Feed somebody. Comfort somebody. Employ somebody. Teach somebody. Help somebody who cannot possibly do a thing for you in return.

And if you are terribly concerned that Americans no longer understand what it means to serve this country, there is a wonderfully simple solution:

Go serve somebody.

Dolly did.

For decades.

And may the rest of us be fortunate enough to leave behind even half as much goodness when our own flag is finally lowered.

#dollyparton #americathebeautiful #halfstaff ... See MoreSee Less

Ashes in Ink

2 weeks ago

There are people the whole world loves. And then there are people the whole world loves who also somehow belong to your hometown. Those are different.

Today, the world lost Dolly Parton. And in Sevierville, Tennessee, I don't think any of us quite know what to do with that sentence yet. Because Dolly wasn't simply a celebrity who happened to be born here. She wasn't somebody whose name we put on a sign because it was good for tourism. She was ours.

I realize we shared her with the rest of you. But before she belonged to Nashville and Hollywood and Broadway and millions of people who have sung "Jolene" at karaoke with wildly varying degrees of success, she was a girl from these mountains. And most of us who claim this place as our hometown have been washed in Dolly's light our whole lives. Quite literally, in some cases. There are an awful lot of sequins involved.

It is difficult to explain what Dolly Parton has meant to Sevier County to someone who doesn't live here. Yes, we adore her because she was Dolly. But she is also woven into the economic fabric of this community so thoroughly that it is nearly impossible to pull one thread without finding her somewhere in it. There are businesses here because of Dolly. There are careers here because of Dolly. There are mortgages that got paid and groceries that got bought and children who got braces because tourists came to these mountains, in no small part, because a little girl from Locust Ridge grew up and decided she could bring some of the world back home with her.

Even those of us whose work seems far removed from tourism aren't really removed from it at all. The truth is, Dolly helped a whole lot of us eat. And she did it while somehow making us feel like we were doing her a favor by showing up. That's a remarkable business model.

But the economic impact isn't the part that hurts today. It's the personal stuff. Because everybody around here has a Dolly story.

Here's one of mine.

My son grew up with Dolly long before he really knew who Dolly Parton was. Through her Imagination Library, books began arriving at our house with his name on them when he was little. To a child, there is something almost magical about getting mail addressed specifically to you, and Dolly made sure children all over these mountains knew that feeling. Long before my son understood fame or philanthropy or what it meant to build an international entertainment empire, he understood something much simpler: Dolly sent books.

Years later, when COVID shut the world down and Dolly began reading children's books online, there she was again—with a book. By then, my son was old enough to understand that the woman who had been his Book Lady was also proof that where you start doesn't have to determine where you finish.

There were years when things were hard. "She did it, Mom," he'd say, and there was always an unspoken, “…and I can do it, too.” Dolly was proof that humble beginnings didn't mean you couldn't thrive. Coming from a little place didn't mean you had to live a little life. You could come from almost nothing and build something extraordinary and still be proud of where you came from.

I will always believe some little piece of his confidence came from growing up in a place where Dolly Parton had already gone first. She did that for an awful lot of children here.

People know about the Imagination Library. They know about Dollywood. They know about the music and movies and rhinestones and wigs. But there are generations of people in this county who also know about the quieter Dolly. The scholarships. The educational opportunities. The families she helped. The things she funded. The things she did that never became a press release. There are people walking around with college degrees because Dolly Parton believed children from these mountains ought to have a chance. And there are acts of generosity we may never know about because Dolly never seemed particularly interested in receiving a proper thank-you. She just kept doing good.

She had every excuse in the world to leave here, become famous and never look back. Instead, she kept reaching backward with both hands.

Which brings me to the other Dolly in my life.

Several years ago, a dear friend who knew how much I loved her sent a package to my office. "Package" is perhaps an inadequate word. This thing arrived looking like someone had shipped me a refrigerator. The delivery driver wrestled it inside. I hadn't ordered anything remotely large enough to require a loading dock, so I opened it with some concern.

And out came Dolly.

Life-sized. Cardboard. Magnificent.

Our Dolly has been a member of the Kellum Creek Business Solutions staff ever since. She doesn't contribute much in terms of billable hours, but morale is excellent. She patiently oversees daily operations. She is always available for a photograph. She never complains about meetings. She has yet to request PTO. The mailman speaks to her when he comes through the front door. At least one Amazon delivery driver does, too.

Nobody finds this particularly strange. That's Dolly. Of course you speak to her.

And, ridiculous as it may sound, Dolly really does have a place in our business beyond the cardboard version standing in the office. When we're wrestling with a decision, someone will occasionally ask, "What would Dolly do?" It's a surprisingly effective business strategy.

Would Dolly treat people that way? Would Dolly take the money if it meant compromising the thing that mattered? Would Dolly make somebody feel small just because she had become big? Would Dolly find a way to turn this into something that helps somebody else?

Usually, the answer becomes pretty obvious.

For months, we've been working hard on something that Dolly would've loved, and a couple of weeks ago, we figured out a way to honor her with that project. I can't tell you all the details just yet. I can only tell you that it mattered deeply to us when we began it. Today, it matters more. Tomorrow, that work continues. But now it carries a weight we never expected it to carry.

I wish we'd had more time.

I suspect an awful lot of us are thinking that tonight. More time to say thank you. More time for another song. Another book in a child's mailbox. Another ridiculous one-liner delivered with that perfectly timed Dolly grin. Another generation of mountain kids getting to grow up knowing that one of the most famous women on Earth came from right here, sounded like their grandmothers and their aunts, loved Jesus, loved people, wore enough rhinestones to interfere with air traffic and never once decided she was too important for home.

The world lost Dolly Parton today. But here in the mountains, where her story started, I don't think she'll ever really be gone.

There will be plenty of beautiful things said about Dolly in the days ahead. There should be. There aren't enough words for a life like hers. But at home in Sevier County, I hope she knew the simplest thing:

We know what she did for us.

Maybe we never managed to thank her properly, but we know.

We know every time another business opens its doors and somebody gets hired. We know when another family makes a living because people still come to these mountains. We know every time a child opens a book with their own name on the mailing label. We know when someone who might never have thought college was possible gets a chance to go. We know every time one of our kids looks beyond these mountains and thinks, “Maybe I can.”

And we'll know tomorrow morning when we get up and go back to work in a town she helped build.

At Kellum Creek, cardboard Dolly will still be standing in the front office. The mailman will probably still speak to her. Somebody will eventually be faced with a difficult decision and ask what Dolly might do.

I imagine we'll keep asking that question for years.

And when we do, I think we'll know the answer.

Do some good. Help somebody. Don't get too big for your raising. Dream bigger than anybody thinks you have a right to. And for heaven's sake, put on a little lipstick.

.

.

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.

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…Rest well, Dolly. We know what you did for us. And we love you.

#dollyparton #smokymountains #iwillalwaysloveyou #whatwoulddollydo ... See MoreSee Less

Ashes in Ink

2 weeks ago

Sunday morning, I was sitting in church when I noticed a young man I had never seen before.

Now, this is not exactly unusual. We go to a big church. There are people I have probably worshipped alongside for three years whom I could not identify in a police lineup. There are almost certainly people who have seen me every Sunday for months and still think I’m visiting. So, a stranger? Not noteworthy. A stranger wandering around the sanctuary before church carrying a miniature chess set and enthusiastically approaching unsuspecting Baptists? That’ll get your attention.

We had arrived early because our service time had changed, and several people were already seated throughout the sanctuary. Church people who arrive early have generally arrived early for a reason. They have selected their seat, placed their belongings around them, spoken to the people they intended to speak to, and are now prepared to sit quietly and wait on Jesus. They are not necessarily prepared for chess.

But this young man was.

He would walk up to somebody, flash this enormous smile, and say, “HEEEYYYYY!” Not a tentative hey. Not a church hey. Not the soft little Sunday-morning “good morning” we use when we’re trying to be friendly without accidentally beginning a relationship. This was a full-volume, delighted-to-see-you, we-are-about-to-be-friends-whether-you-know-it-or-not kind of “HEEEYYYYY!”

Then he’d introduce himself, pull out his little chess game, and ask if they wanted to finish a game somebody else had already started. I watched him approach one person. No. Another. No. Another. Still no. And nobody was mean about it. Nobody said, “Sir, I came here to worship the Lord, not defend the king.” They simply declined.

Which I understand. Some people don’t play chess. Some people don’t like surprises. And some of us require caffeine and approximately forty-five minutes of consciousness before we are prepared to interact with humanity at all, much less inherit somebody else’s mid-game chess strategy.

I kept watching him. He was young and a little disheveled, with lots of energy and a smile that could have illuminated the sanctuary if somebody had forgotten to pay the electric bill. And I thought, Well, eventually he’s going to get to Adam.

And Adam was absolutely going to say yes. My husband plays chess. He is also one of those genuinely good-natured human beings who would consider being approached by a complete stranger before church and handed an unfinished chess match a perfectly reasonable development.

I, on the other hand, would immediately have questions. Who started this game? Where are they now? Why did they abandon it? Am I being hustled? Is there money involved? Is this a metaphor? Is this how cults begin?

Adam would just say, “Sure.”

So, I was fully expecting to lose my husband to the chessboard when the young man stopped at an older gentleman sitting near the front with his wife. There was that enthusiastic “HEEEYYYYY!” again, followed by that enormous smile and the same question: Would he like to finish a chess game somebody else had started?

And this man—God bless him—said yes.

I don’t know whether he actually wanted to play chess. I don’t know whether he even knew how to play chess. For all I know, his wife elbowed him and gave him that look wives have been giving husbands since the Garden of Eden that means, “You are going to be gracious to this person, and you are going to do it right now.” But whatever happened, he said yes.

So, the young man sat down, and they played.

I watched them for a while. The older gentleman was well dressed and seemed quiet and reserved. He looked like a man who probably had a preferred pew, a preferred parking space, and strong opinions about what time church ought to start. The young man was his opposite in almost every visible way—young, energetic, a little rumpled, smiling like he’d just won something. And there they were, heads bent over this tiny chessboard, two people who probably never would have crossed paths otherwise.

Somewhere in the middle of watching all of this, a thought came to me that I really wasn’t prepared for.

What if Jesus walked up to us like that?

What if Jesus came strolling down the aisle on Sunday morning and simply said, “Hey.” Not with a choir of angels. Not with thunder. Not with a heavenly spotlight. Just, “Hey. Want to spend some time with me? Want to help me with something somebody else started?”

Would we say yes?

Because I would like to believe I would. Naturally. I am a Christian woman sitting in church on Sunday morning. This is absolutely the answer I’m supposed to give. “Yes, Jesus. Of course.”

But if we’re being completely truthful, if Jesus showed up looking different than I expected, interrupted my routine, and asked me to do something I hadn’t planned on doing, there is at least a possibility I might smile politely and say, “No, thank you,” and then go right back to waiting for church to start so I could worship Him.

And if that doesn’t preach, I don’t know what does.

We Christians can be peculiar that way. We will sing, “Where He leads me, I will follow,” while silently adding, provided He gives me reasonable notice and doesn’t change the service time again.

We want to encounter Jesus. We just prefer appointments.

We like burning bushes because they’re obvious. Parted seas are helpful. Angels are nice, assuming they identify themselves immediately. But Scripture specifically warns us that sometimes we won’t know. Hebrews tells us not to neglect showing hospitality to strangers because some have “entertained angels unawares.”

Unawares. That’s the uncomfortable part.

Because if the angel introduces himself as Gabriel, glows faintly, and descends through the ceiling, I feel reasonably confident I can pull myself together and be hospitable. It’s the “unawares” that gets me. It’s the person who doesn’t look important. The person whose timing is inconvenient. The person whose energy is a little more than I’m prepared for at 8:37 on a Sunday morning.

The person carrying a chessboard.

I don’t know anything about that young man’s story. I don’t know where he came from or why he had that chess set. I don’t know who started the game or why finishing it mattered to him. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe the game was simply a bridge. Maybe he wanted connection. Maybe he wanted conversation. Maybe he just really, really likes chess.

And maybe that’s enough.

Not every encounter has to become some enormous spiritual metaphor. Sometimes a chess game is just a chess game. But sometimes a chess game is also two human beings saying, for a few minutes, I see you. You can sit here. I’ll spend some time with you.

And I don’t judge the people who said no. I can’t. I have missed too many opportunities myself. I’ve been busy, distracted, tired, uncomfortable, and preoccupied. I’ve avoided eye contact in grocery stores because I knew—I KNEW—that if I made eye contact with a certain person, I was about to hear a twenty-minute story, and I only had six items in my buggy. I have pretended not to see people.

So have you. Don’t leave me out here by myself.

We’re human.

But I wonder how many beautiful little moments we miss because they don’t arrive looking important. How many people are quietly asking us to see them? How many times are we so busy getting somewhere to serve God that we walk right past somebody He put in our path?

Jesus was constantly interruptible. That’s one of the things about Him that gets me. People stopped Him, called to Him, touched Him, climbed trees to see Him, and lowered people through roofs in front of Him—which, frankly, would have tested my sanctification considerably. And He noticed them, especially the ones everybody else found inconvenient.

So maybe following Jesus looks a whole lot less like having the right answer and a whole lot more like being willing to scoot over, listen, make eye contact, say hello, and play the game.

I didn’t get to find out who won that chess match. I don’t even know whether they finished it before the service started. But from where I was sitting, something had already happened that mattered. A young man had walked through a sanctuary full of people and kept asking. He heard no, and another no, and another, until finally somebody said yes.

An older gentleman stepped outside whatever plans he had for those few minutes and sat down with him. Two strangers. One unfinished game. One small yes.

And maybe that is how the Kingdom of God shows up more often than we realize. Not always in miracles that shake the earth. Sometimes it looks like somebody scooting over. Sometimes it sounds like laughter between two people who didn’t know each other five minutes ago. Sometimes it is an older gentleman bending over a tiny chessboard with an energetic young stranger while the rest of us wait for church to begin.

Then again, maybe—just maybe—church had already begun.

So, the next time somebody unexpected wanders into my carefully scheduled, caffeinated, reasonably organized little life, flashes a giant smile, and says, “HEEEYYYYY!” I hope I don’t get so busy waiting on Jesus that I miss Him.

And if there’s a chessboard involved? Well, I guess I’d better learn how to play. ... See MoreSee Less

Ashes in Ink

2 weeks ago

Some days I feel less like I’m flourishing and more like a raccoon with a planner… 🦝

Scroll check: Are you thriving, flailing, or just making it weirdly convincing? ... See MoreSee Less