Thoughts of a Pastor-Historian

The following description of the meaning of a baseball glove was used in advertising by the Rawlings Sporting Goods Company in 1965:

My glove for the past 23 years.

A baseball glove is a beginning and and ending: a boy’s first sure step towards manhood: a man’s final, lingering hold on youth: it is a promise… and a memory.

A baseball glove is the dusty  badge of belonging, the tanned and oiled mortar of team and camaraderie: in its creases and scuffs lodge sunburned afternoons freckled with thrills, the excited hum of competition, cheers that burst like skyrockets.

Me and Haddon

A baseball glove is a thousand-and-one names and moments strung like white and crimson banners in the vast stadium of memory.

A baseball glove is the leather of adventure, worthy successor to the cowboy’s holster, the trooper’s saddle and the buckskin laces of the frontier scout; it is combat, heroics, and victory… a place to smack a fist or snuff a rally.

Above all, a baseball glove is the union of father and son, boy and friends, man and men; it is union beyond language, creed or color.

© The Rawlings Sporting Goods Company, 1965

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I remember when I was 19 years old traveling on Northshore Rd. just between Martel Rd. and the brand new 140 that connected Oak Ridge and Alcoa, TN. As I drove it was raining and I was listening to a new cassette tape in my car. It was an album by Steve Green titled “The Mission” and I remember the specific song that I was listening to as I drove on Northshore with water falling from the sky in an afternoon shower into the lakes on both sides of the road.  The song was called “The Symphony of Praise.” This was the moment in my life when theology (the study of God) became doxology (the worship of God).

God was working in my life at that time in a number of ways. It was around this time that I was reading The Holiness of God and Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul, Ashamed of the Gospel and Reckless Faith by John MacArthur, and The Pleasures of God by John Piper. And I was listening to God-centered music with lyrics like these:

The composer and conductor of the universe
Steps before the orchestra of God
Creation lifts their finely crafted instruments
As all in heaven wildly applaud

The seasons well rehearsed begin with His downbeat
And on his cue the sun trumpets the dawn
The whirling winds swell in a mighty crescendo
With each commanding sweep of His baton
The oceans pound the shore in march to His cadence
The galaxies all revolve in cosmic rhyme
The fall of raindrops all in wild syncopation
As lightning strikes and thunder claps in time

The symphony of praise
Conducted by the Ancient of Days
May each creation great or small
Lift their voices one and all
In the symphony of praise

Heaven waits in hushed anticipation
The great I AM then turns to mortal men
A massive chorus robed in spotless garments
Offer up their song of praise to Him
The glories of God explode in full orchestration
As all creation joins the thunderous refrain
“Worthy, Worthy
WORTHY IS THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN”
Lyrics from http://www.stevegreenministries.org

Finally, here was music that matched the theology that I had been reading. The greatness of God that I was studying in Scripture, I was now hearing sung in praise to God. This was a pivotal moment in my life! The day when theology became doxology.

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