I’m not saying I want the “old days” back.
In my golden years, I have developed numerous age-related maladies. One is a skin condition I call “Nostalgic Exuma.” The symptoms are a terrible itch to return to the old days and reconnect with the friends of my youth.
Today is Sunday, July 29, 2025. The time is approaching 4 pm. The refrigerator humming is the background noise to my efforts to pull out some sort of intelligent assessment of what’s going on in my mind as I process the events of the day.
When I was a kid, my world was mostly eating and playing. As an early “Boomer,” I was privileged to grow up in a world marked more by the absence of war than by prevailing peace. Indeed, the Arms race and the Cold War with the USSR were fertile grounds for conspiracy theorists. There were plenty of raw materials for nightmares. As a preteen, I remember standing in our yard with Louie, looking up at the sky and searching for the UFOs we were convinced were hidden behind the clouds. As a scholar, those days were excruciatingly hard for me. My brain was just not up to the task of learning to read, let alone sit in a classroom. I continue to have difficulty sitting still. Reading is now a wonderful gift, but it remains a slow and tedious process. And I am still struggling with the emotional scar tissue of my many academic failures.
Then, in my early teens, our nation had to face our self-made race debacle, and the wages of indiscriminate discrimination awakened my soul to a sort of pain I didn’t know how to handle. My comfortable cubbyhole social world was rocked by the ugliness of the lie I had been handed and accepted as “normal.” Just as I was beginning to formulate my own thoughts on race, the Vietnam War began looming large and personally threatening as I realized I was moving, all too quickly, to leave the safety of high school.
In those formative years, I climbed many trees, built numerous forts, caught thousands of lightning bugs, learned to swim, and, best of all, discovered girls. Discovering girls and getting my driver’s license were exciting for me and worrisome for my parents.
In all that life stuff, I had two things that my life was ordered around: my home and my church. Early on, the first was inescapable, and the second was mandated by the first. Church involvement was at the core of what it meant to be a Baldwin. I remember attendance being insisted upon. But I have no sense that I was “made” to go. It was where my friends were. Sure, I thought it was boring. But it was different from being in a schoolroom.
It was my family that instilled in me a sense of the immovable. It was my friends at church who instilled in me a sense of acceptance and value.
This entire arc of thought originated from a visit I made this morning to worship at my home church. I hadn’t been there for a Sunday morning worship service for more than thirty years. (As far as I can remember.)
The building itself was just like I remembered it. The building was and is a grand traditional place of worship. However, I was caused to wonder why there were fewer pews for worshipers and more platform space for worship leaders. As I walked the hall to the worship center, the people were very happy and welcoming. Just like it was in my day. The music was different back then. And that is okay with me. The dress code had been reset, even as it is in my church. The environment was familiar, yet there was something missing. Something was not right in my senses. It isn’t that something was wrong, but something felt “less” than it was in my early days.
I remember an atmosphere of joyous reverence. Being mentored by a fellowship of Believers who had an abundance of Kingdom-generated “common man” refinement and creative thoughtfulness. I am tempted to say it had “class,” but that sounds too worldly.
And this is where I can get into trouble. But I will stop because my “feelings” have gotten me in more trouble than they have helped me. The experience was in no way bad. The worshipers were indeed worshiping.
When I was younger, as a member of that church family, God was with me. Only now am I appreciating the work God began doing in me back then—a work I was completely unaware of at the time. During this visit, I realized that I had changed; not only was God with me, but I was also now with God. That is a humbling realization, and I praise His Holy presence for the grace He has showered upon me.
My old church is just a collection of memories. Powerful memories. However, this particular church no longer belongs to me. It’s their church, and they are happily and earnestly serving the Kingdom of God. What that church was is what it was. I no longer fit there. And that is the way it should be in the Kingdom of God. I am I and they are they, and God is Lord over all. So, I take a few words of wisdom from a Beatles song, “Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.” (I love the Beatles, but don’t come close to trusting their theology. But a good word for me to end this blog.)
Of all the things I have learned, the best advice I have received is this;
“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)
Photo – A different kind of sunspot. Taken in the Rocky Mountain National Park.
Baldwin Heirlooms 