Month: December 2023

Saturday, September 16 was a perfect morning for the Lara Teague Curry Memorial 5K.

With its cool temperature and bright blue sky, I was reminded of the quote from Ernie Banks: “Let’s play two.” A long time ago Mr. Banks played baseball with the Chicago Cubs.

His love of baseball and a beautiful day to play suggested— let’s play two games today instead of one. On September 16, the day was so pretty that we could have run two 5Ks instead of one.

That morning at Trinity United Methodist Church, four hundred runners and walkers gathered to show their love and support for Lara Teague Curry. Mrs. Curry was an outstanding social studies teacher at Douglas Freeman High School. Sadly, we unexpectedly loss Mrs. Curry last October.

With the blessing of the Curry and Teague families, River Road Church, Baptist, Third Church, Trinity United Methodist, St. Stephen’s Episcopal, Douglas Freeman High School, and the Henrico Education Foundation developed the 5K. We had two goals— raise funds for a memorial scholarship that has been established in Mrs. Curry’s honor at Douglas Freeman, and to gently remind everyone how important mental health is to our daily living.

Lots of planning goes into developing a 5K. Throughout the spring and right up to the 8 a.m. start time for the Kids Fun Run, our team worked diligently to build the event.

We secured corporate sponsors, support from local merchants, developed communication connections, worked cooperatively with Henrico Police to ensure safety for participants along the course, recruited volunteers, and hoped that runners and walkers would sign up to participate.

Additionally, we received a compassionate presence from Comfort Zone Camp, Children’s Hospital of Richmond, Henrico Mental Health and Developmental Services, American Foundation For Suicide Prevention, Pet Partners of Richmond, and Full Circle Grief Center. These agencies and their personnel provided valuable information about mental health services available in our communities.

Along the 5K course, twelve yard signs were placed with quotes to make us think about our lives and how we interact with ourselves and the people we encounter everyday. One of the signs displayed these words: “Be kind; for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

All participants and spectators had the opportunity to pickup a green wristband with these printed words—“Be Kind.” That wristband can serve as a good reminder for me as to how I should interact with the people I encounter on my daily walk through life.

As we know, life is full of ups and downs. The downs in life can be challenging to handle. Perhaps, America’s most significant mental health challenge is suicide. In fact, September was National Suicide Prevention Month.

Here is some data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) about suicide:

In 2021, 48,183 people died by suicide in the United States. That is 1 death every 11 minutes.

Suicide rates increased 37% between 2000-2018 and decreased 5% between 2018-2020. However, rates nearly returned to their peak in 2021.

Firearms are the most common method used in suicides. Firearms are used in more than 50% of suicides.

There is no immunity from suicide. Our family was impacted when my wife’s oldest sister died by suicide. I don’t believe my wife’s parents ever recovered from that loss.

During my career in public education dying by suicide impacted students, parents, and school staffs. I have never forgotten the October afternoon when I learned we lost a former school secretary. No one saw this tragic loss coming.

A disguised normality is one of the challenges families and friends face with their loved ones. That loved one can appear to be carrying on as usual, but inside this person is an unstable wreck.

Despite our societal struggles with suicide, the CDC states ‘that suicide is preventable.” Preventing suicide requires “a comprehensive public health approach complete with strategies for individuals, families, and communities including learning the warning signs.”

The launching of the new 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is another strategy that can be used to help prevent suicide.

Yes, there is still a heartbreaking sense of loss for the family and friends of Lara Teague Curry. But as I watched the runners and walkers approach the finish line, I saw content faces with a sense of graceful accomplishment.

The participants had helped us to reach our financial goal for the scholarship fund, but more importantly they had helped us to raise our awareness about how critical mental health is to our well being.

I think Mr. Banks would have enjoyed the 5K.

And who knows, maybe the 5K served as a connection to help a person to be able to “play two” on a pretty day next September.

An unseasonably warm temperature greeted me on the morning of Saturday, December 2. The remnants of an early fog had left a coating of moisture on the church’s old pick up truck.

With a wheel barrow and shovel in the back bed, I drove the short distance to the Sons and Daughters of Ham Cemetery. This is an historic African-American cemetery located at 7001 Chandler Drive in Henrico County. Established on an acre of land, the cemetery is scrunched between Bandy Field, the University of Richmond, and a quiet Henrico neighborhood.

This morning, about twenty volunteers had assembled to work on an erosion project.

In the past, I and other members from Trinity United Methodist Church had volunteered for cleanup days at two other African-American cemeteries—Evergreen and Woodland. Evergreen and Woodland are sprawling properties with many grave markers very visible.

The Sons and Daughters of Ham Cemetery doesn’t sprawl. Grave markers are hard to spot to the untrained eye, and that’s where the skills of archaeologist, Tim Roberts, become valuable.

At the entry path off Chandler Drive, Brooke Davis from the cemetery’s board and Tim circled up the volunteers.

Tim has been responsible for conducting quite a bit of research about the cemetery. In getting to know the property, Tim has focused on the obvious above ground finds, but also those undisturbed items buried in the soil.

Through his work, and with the advance of technology, Tim has discovered previously unmarked graves. Additionally, he has given us a snapshot of how the property was originally plotted out with buildings, paths, and roads. His gentle probing into the earth has helped to confirm that we still have much to learn about this historic cemetery.

But this morning, our goal was to construct wattles. Down from the contours of Bandy Field, the cemetery has a steep incline. When heavy rains pound this slope, rainwater pushes anything in its way down the hillside. Through the board’s leadership, a grant was secured to construct the wattles.

With Tim and Brooke leading, we took the short walk to the construction site. A diagram showed us the points down the hill where the wattles would be built.

A wattle is a type of barrier that helps to slow erosion created by water runoff. Those rectangular bales of straw you’ve seen outlining a construction site are a type of wattle.

For our purposes, volunteers will be accessing adjoining University of Richmond property to locate fallen trunks and large limbs from trees. These pieces will form the foundation of the wattles.

For two hours, a team of us scoured the woods. We carried logs and tree limbs to a drop zone where another team worked on placing our finds.

As the wood debris was placed to form the foundational barrier, another team was using the shovels and wheelbarrows to dump a mixture of soil on top of the wooden wattles.

At some point in the future, when the soil layer reaches an appropriate depth, another crew will carefully plant shrubs. These planting will enhance the aesthetics of the grounds, but more importantly, the plants will help to keep the wattles in place and curtail future erosion.

By noon, we could start to see our progress.

Since 2017, lots of progress has been made in uncovering the cemetery. This transformation is linked to Richmonder, Marianne Rollings, who has become the steady spirit for the recovery and restoration of the cemetery.

All kinds of skirmishes have taken place on its grounds, and Mrs. Rollings knows every square inch of that history. It is a history that deserves to be preserved and maintained for our present time and into the future.

No matter the location, properly maintaining these African-American cemeteries is always a work in progress. From late spring into early fall, keeping ahead of the weeds is a challenge. The weeds love covering up history.

I hope we find the commitment and determination to keep the weeds under control. And while money is essential in sustaining the cemeteries, the real key is having enough volunteers.

Just as the foundation of the wattles depends upon the strength of those intertwined connections, maybe the current leaders of the African-American cemeteries throughout Richmond can find the way to collectively “wattle” their community resources and volunteers.

How might working together create a more sustainable supply of resources and volunteers for the cemeteries?

I enjoyed every minute on Saturday morning at the Sons and Daughters of Ham Cemetery.

But, I tell you what I enjoyed the most was the diversity and demographics of the people who showed up to help.

Who knows, maybe constructing a wattle can help me understand the layers of the barriers that often set us apart.

I read with interest Michael Paul Williams’ op-ed about Armed Forces Brewing Company’s pursuit to open a brewery in Norfolk (“A beer brouhaha in Norfolk typifies our national divide,” Dec. 6). I have no beer expertise, but I find the craft brewery explosion across Virginia intriguing.

Curiously, on the brewer’s website, under Who We Are, in the first sentence they call themselves a “craft brewing company.” Four sentences later, they state: “We aren’t a local craft beer.” Further reading makes it clear that brewer leaders aspire to be bigger than a neighborhood craft brewery.

If the brewery wants to develop their brewing operations for mass production with a distribution network beyond Virginia, then I question if the brewery site in Norfolk has the capacity to meet their long-term goals. Might brewery leadership be wiser to consider the availability of larger production facilities?

For example, Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing announced an agreement on March 23 to purchase from Constellation Brands a 259,000-square-foot production brewery in Daleville, Virginia.

Craft brewers have a camaraderie among themselves. I wonder how Armed Forces Brewing Company will be accepted among Norfolk’s established craft brewers?

We will soon find out. On Dec. 12, by a 6-to-1 vote, the Norfolk City Council approved the brewery’s plan. I’m not surprised.

More concerning to me are Mr. Williams’ points about our division. No matter where we look — churches, public schools, politics — our divisions are troubling.

We are far removed from the jovial theme of division that sold many barrels of Miller Lite beer— “less filling/tastes great.” Sadly, our divides are over filling with a bitter taste.

Maybe over a beer at a craft brewery, we can meet like Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan and start the conversation to solve our division.

Avoiding this conversation will only deepen our divides.

Bill Pike.
Henrico.

Author’s note: I was honored to have this letter to the editor published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Thursday, December 21, 2023.

Today is Christmas Eve.

The last hours of the sprint to Christmas Day are upon us.

As I continue to rapidly age, time blitzes me.

Time moves faster than a desperate group of shoppers descending upon their last store of hope. Their bundled mass swirls into the store like agitated yellow jackets who have been jarred awake in their ground nest by the accidental step of an unaware intruder.

From Thanksgiving to this most anticipated eve, the days have no pause. Their motion is unrestrained and constant.

It is as if the earth spins uncontrollably on its axis charging hastily into each new dawn. I sense the spinning world wants to quickly place the faults of 2023 into its rearview mirror.

You have heard my whine before about our rush into the Christmas season. I will not whine today. You know how I feel about that gallop.

Back on November 28, our oldest daughter, Lauren, was driving her children, Caroline and Hudson, to their elementary school.

Caroline made this observation: “I bet Jesus would be really happy to see all of these decorations for his birthday.”

I love Caroline’s honest, simple reflection. What I loved even more was the fact that she was thinking about the birthday of Jesus at this early morning hour.

Not sure about your hometown, but here in Richmond, Virginia from late November through the end of December we have Tacky Light Tours. All across the Richmond region homeowners overly decorate the exteriors of their homes with Christmas lights and seasonal displays.

Maps are produced of these approved locations, people rent limos, and even tour buses to view these showy displays. Kids love them, parents gawk like their kids, Clark Griswold would be envious, and our electricity supplier, Dominion Energy, is delirious.

I will confess that over the years, we piled our kids, in-laws, and out of town guests into cars to view some of these nearby tacky lights.

In truth, these displays leave no lasting impression on me. Clearly, I admire the passion of the displayers. These tacky displays require planning, setting up, taking down, storing, and finding the pennies to pay the electric bill.

In my Grinch and Scrooge grounded aging, I’m more attracted to simple seasonal displays. For years in our neighborhood, I was drawn to a singular star in the front yard of a home.

This heavenly light was attached by a line to a large tree limb. The star gracefully dangled from its perch to be clearly seen on Baldwin Road in either direction.

Sadly, the family who displayed the star moved to California. But, my sludged brain has not released the memory of that star cast against a dark December sky.

At some point during the last days of November, I was driving west on Patterson Avenue. I had just passed the intersection with Forest Avenue. A rapidly approaching December was already practicing its early nightfall routine saying goodbye to a speedy setting sun.

As I drove up the crest of a hill, to my right, my eyes were drawn to a display of Christmas lights at the edge of a yard. I was so captured by the sight that I promised myself to come back the next morning to take a photograph.

In the predawn light of Friday, December 1, I made the short drive to the house on Patterson Avenue. The Christmas lights were still on. From the median turn lane, I hooked a left into east bound Patterson, and pulled off to park on a side street.

Wearing a reflective safety vest, I made sure no early commuting drivers would flatten me, and I took my photos of this simple display illuminating the word—“PEACE.”

Yes, I think Caroline’s assessment about the decorations in honor of the birthday of Jesus is correct. I imagine the combination of tacky lights and simple seasonal displays are a sight for Jesus to behold from heaven.

At this point in my life, I also believe the best birthday present that I could give him is peace— a sustainable worldwide peace.

Despite the breakneck speed of time, I keep hoping and praying that our pace will slow, and jolt us awake in order to commit to making peace around this whole world.

Psalm 34 verse 14 reminds us: “Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.”

You, me, we, us are overdue to pursue peace, and we can’t let fear stop us.

Merry Christmas with love and peace, Bill Pike

My friends the leaves are being stubborn this fall.

I guess they are reluctant to leave the comforts of the trees where they were birthed last spring.

From their perch in massive oaks, I think they have figured out how messy the world can be.

Some fallen leaves will gracefully decompose. Others might be run over by a shredding lawn mower blade. For some, they will be blown by a leaf blower with hurricane force wind into another neighbor’s yard. And even a single leaf can be gobbled up by a leaf vacuum where it is shredded, and dumped without care into a dark cavernous bag.

Our leaf pile has been at the edge of the front yard for several weeks. I’ve been adding to the pile on a weekly basis. In order to have the pile disappear by the end of December, we had to meet a November sign up deadline with our county.

I appreciate all that our trees do for our environment, but in truth, I dread the fall when they without a care cascade down into our yard.

I mutter internally from the first whisk of the rake tines to the last run over the yard with the lawnmower. Yes, I could pay a landscape company to come out and attack our leaves, but I’m still too much of a cheapskate. Besides, I think the leaf work is good for my health, and it does give me time to daydream.

The afternoon of Thursday, December 7 was just about perfect. Bright sun, pretty blue sky, cool temperature, but not too cool. An occasional gust of unexpected wind had me appreciating this opportunity to work on our leaves.

In the backyard across a neighbor’s leaning wooden fence, I could hear the broken English chatter of the framing crew working on a new addition.

When I moved to the front yard, the banter came from the neighbor’s boys across the street. These brothers and their friends were involved in bike riding, and then a kickball game. I was tempted to ask if I could join the game.

And, I noticed something else in my leaf work, the sun sets faster in December. I looked up and out toward the west, the sun had started its descent.

Thousands of feet up in the atmosphere, I can pick out commercial jets with their normally white contrails. In the sinking last rays of the sun, the contrails are an array of constantly changing pastels of orange and pink. With daylight fading, I had to pickup my pace.

The seasonal hustle of December automatically quickens our pace. With winter almost here, our daylight begins to shrink. That is a tough adjustment for some. Those last angles of sunlight that skim a rooftop, twist through barren trim limbs, and gradually disappear down Stuart Hall and Sweetbriar hills mean something to a person whose hope lies in that sunlight.

As December pushes us to a faster pace on its treadmill, I need to remember—I’m going to encounter people who lives haven’t been a graceful fall, who feel life has shredded them like a mulching blade, their daily living has been blown so far off course that their hope is gone, and some are buried in the burden of a singular loneliness at the bottom of leaf bag.

Yes, the sun does set faster in December.

And yet, we can’t let that stop us from being the light for those around us who struggle with December and Christmas.

Genesis 1:4 states: “and God saw that the light was good,”

Let you, me, we, us be the good light of hope to those we encounter whose lives sink fast in the sunsets of December.

Scripture: Matthew 6:34

I wonder if Mary worried? Luke 2:19 states: “But, Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

In her circumstances, Mary had much to ponder, but did the light and hope of the angels counter her worries?

Despite the light and hope of Advent, I’m a worrier. In fact, my
middle name should be worry. I’m fairly certain I inherited my mother’s worry gene.

I’m convinced she worried because she loved. She wanted life to
be worry-free for those whom she loved.

Growing up, I contributed to the weary lines of worry on her pretty face. I was a horrible high school student. No question she and God did a lot of pondering in their hearts nudging me
through high school and into college.

In my Bible, I keep an old church bulletin. I highlighted the following words from the opening prayer: “In your strength, enable us to drop our burdens and set aside our anxiety about life.”

I read those words every morning. Some days, I’m able to set aside my worries.

During Advent, my worries shift to family, health, travel, and I work to avoid being consumed by the seasonal commercial pursuit of perfection.

I might not ever conquer my worrying, but I can improve something my mother and Mary had in common—an unyielding faith and trust in God.

Prayer: Father of us all, in this season of Advent, help us to cast aside our worries, and trust in you. Amen.

Bill Pike | Richmond, VA

Author’s note: Thanks to Chesley Vohden from the Society of St. Andrew for allowing me to contribute this piece to their annual Advent devotional book. It is the devotional for today, Monday, December 11, 2023.

I have always appreciated artwork created by children and students in a school setting. That artwork when properly and publicly displayed can transform the environment of any building.

It is not always easy to coax artwork out of a child. But, with the patience of Job and the capacity to encourage, teachers often pull this off.

On the morning of Wednesday, November 29, 2023, I was on my feet a lot.

I needed to make sure that the steam boiler for the Sanctuary was in a good mood. Elevator inspectors were scheduled to arrive for the annual checkup of our three elevators. And, I needed to revisit plans for Friday, as the final push to ready the building for the first Sunday in Advent was staring us down.

I walked through the Preschool wing, and in a couple of places recently completed student artwork was safely drying on the ancient hallway carpet.

Each square of paper featured the precious image of six green hand prints. The name of the student was taped in the upper right corner.

I’m sure capturing those priceless hand prints required careful planning and lots of instruction to ensure that the green paint didn’t coat the students and teachers. From what I saw, each piece was masterfully done with no stray smudges to detract from those irreplaceable hands.

These handprints will put a smile on the faces of parents. And who knows, maybe for just a moment those tiny fingers will push parents to pause in the chaos of Christmas. And just maybe in that quiet moment, parents will realize—time is flying, in a blink those hands will be grown.

As I gazed into the hand prints, I wondered what those hands might become. I hope they become good, compassionate, practical hands. Hands that can step back, assess, and determine—hey old world, this isn’t working, we must improve, our hands need to unite for the good of all.

Even though they are now grown, I suspect that somewhere in our old house, we might have the hand prints of our three children.

I can remember holding one of them. I sometimes felt a tiny hand patting my back. Maybe our children sensed that I am the world’s best worrier. It was like that little hand was saying—its ok Dad, things will get better.

Despite his sometimes prickly personality, Ted Williams, the former star hitter for the Boston Red Sox had a soft heart.

In Leigh Montville’s biography of Mr. Williams, the author relates a story from former Red Sox second baseman, Mike Andrews.

The famous slugger went to visit a kid who was dying. The kid grabbed one of Mr. Williams’ fingers and wouldn’t let go. Mr. Williams “pulled a cot next to him and slept there all night, the kid holding Ted’s finger.” (Montville page 345)

I wonder what pushed Mr. Williams to react in this manner?

I wonder how I would respond if I found myself in a similar situation?

Would I pull up a cot and hold that tiny finger?

The steam boiler fired up, the elevators passed inspection, and somehow our hands pulling together will guide us through Friday’s logistical needs.

And I’m thankful for the artwork hand prints I encountered this morning.

Maybe, those precious hands will help me to be better at living this quote from Maya Angelo: “I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.”