Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Thirty-Eight
Practically my entire life has revolved around school. I have practically no memories of life before school. I don’t think life for me actually began until I attended two weeks of Headstart just before beginning first grade in 1971.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Thirty-Seven
I have been blessed with family on my father’s side that are just humorous people by nature. It’s inbred—they can’t help themselves. What makes them so funny is that they aren’t trying to be funny.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Thirty-Six
Many people follow the “five second rule”. It goes something like this—if something is dropped on the floor and remains less than five seconds, it is fine to retrieve for consumption by the human body. This holds especially true when referring to the last chip in the bag.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Thirty-Five
Today, I went to get my allergy shots. It seems the busier I get the easier it is for me to forget to go at least once a week to be poked by needles for real, not on Facebook.
The staff member who administered my shots didn’t seem at all sympathetic to my plight. I felt I should confess, “Bless me, for I have sinned. It has been 33 days since my last presentation for holes in my arms.” Thank God I don’t suffer from trypanophobia (fear of needles).
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Thirty-Four
I have been blessed with a wonderful family. I was born late in both my parents’ lives, so a great many of my relatives I only know about from stories as they died before I was born.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Thirty-Three
There are so many things that people fear! I never realized just how many until I conducted a Google search in preparation for this article.
I began a simple Google search (I’m “fearful” there is no such thing) to determine what is the greatest fear people have. I found one list of ten top fears, then immediately found a list of 100 fears, next a list of fears common to women. The unending, exhausting lists seem infinite. Amazing to me is that each and every fear seems to have a name.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Thirty-Two
I once had a student who said aloud quite often, “I’m skeered!” If you could have known that child as I did, I’m sure you would have agreed that in reality he was scared of nothing.
I was having a conversation with my nephew the other day and the question of when we were the most scared in our lives arose.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Thirty-One
Hello, everyone. My name is Oak Grove. I am a two room school building in the Sharps Chapel area of Union County.
For the past two weeks my “scribe” Ronnie Mincey has written articles about me, detailing pertinent points of my history for school terms 1932-1933 and 1934-1935. His main source for information has been the old registers on file at the Union County Board of Education’s Central Office, my “diaries”.
Hello, everyone. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Oak Grove. I am a two-room school building in the Sharps Chapel area of Union County. Let me tell you a little about myself.
If you were to search for records on me, about the oldest you would find are from the registers kept by teachers. These registers were and continue to be legal documents. Still in 2018, registers are often used to verify a birthdate for a former student who has no birth certificate and needs proof of birth for social security, disability, and other benefits.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Thirty
Hello, everyone. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Oak Grove. I am a two room school building in the Sharps Chapel area of Union County. Let me tell you a little more about myself.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Twenty-Eight
For the past nine weeks, I have referenced Bill Hybels book Who You Are When No One’s Looking: Choosing Consistency, Resisting Compromise. In this final article on this topic, I want to focus on the greatest character in all history.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Twenty-Seven
The title of this week’s article is based on part of the lyrics to a song that was popular during my college days, “Let’s Get Physical, Physical.” The obvious reference in the song is to sensual pleasure. Such a view reflects a great portion of the world’s view of love, the satisfaction of desire without commitment.
The Fourth of July, 2018 is less than approximately twenty-six hours away as I write this article. It is fitting at this time to reflect on the sacrifices of innumerable veterans and active military that have provided me the freedom to write and you to read these words.
Servicemen and women embody a type of love, the fifth of five endangered characteristics of true character suggested by Bill Hybels in his book Who You Are When No One’s Looking: Choosing Consistency, Resisting Compromise. The previous two weeks have focused on tender and tough love in lives of compassionate and hardhearted people. This week I share with you a third type of love, sacrificial love.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Twenty-Five
Once again, we find ourselves close to an election. Our founding fathers saw it necessary to create our national system of government to have a balance of power that would prevent any one group from becoming dictatorial. That is why we have a President as head of the Executive Branch, the Senate and House of Representatives that serve as the Legislative Branch (the only branch of our national government that has its own balance of power), and the Supreme Court Justices as heads of the Judicial Branch.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Twenty-Four
It is so often easy to see faults in others, but often how difficult to recognize our own. Sometimes those of us who have done the greatest wrong are the first to pass judgement and be blind to justice.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Twenty-Three
Have you ever thought about the lives our ancestors lived? Once our forefathers boarded ship in the Old World, there was no opportunity the next day to decide, “I don’t think I want to make this trip after all.” I’ve never read of any lifeboats or rafts on the Mayflower.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week 22
I have always looked at decades as milestones in life. I was too young to appreciate this when I turned ten years old, but every decade beginning with age twenty presented opportunity for a significant pause to look back to what God allowed me to accomplish and forward to what He held in store.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week 21
My mind sometimes wanders back forty-five years ago to my third grade class. Florence Chesney used practically every minute of every day teaching us moral values, especially in reading class.
Remember the pictures in those old readers? They practically begged us to read the stories we were assigned. Ms. Chesney read every story aloud to us, enunciating each word and phrase exactly the way she wished us to express it when we read aloud later in the week. In other words, she taught by example.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Nineteen
In his book, Who You Are When No One’s Looking: Choosing Consistency, Resisting Compromise, Bill Hybels says that character can be determined by what we do when no one is looking. Character is sometimes confused with reputation, but reputation is what other people think of us. Character is not the same as success or achievement—character is not defined by what we have done, but who we are.
Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Nineteen
My pastor recently asked me to teach the adult Vacation Bible School class at our church this summer. I asked him if there was a book or specific topic he wished me to address. He said that he could get me a book or that I could choose one of my own.
I came home and examined my bookshelves. I found a book by Bill Hybels entitled Who You Are When No One’s Looking: Choosing Consistency, Resisting Compromise. What a fascinating subject, I thought.