Quick Trip to Salem

We were quietly preparing for our trip to Springfield this weekend. Ginger was going to join us at a motel Saturday, we would have fun together, attend church together, go to a nice Father's Day dinner and then part for our separate homes. How quickly plans change.

The Conference Superintendent asked to set with him in an interview of one of our pastors on Thursday. This man was being accused of some inappropriate behavior by one of his female parishioners. I can't go into detail but after visiting with him for over an hour it was our opinion that he was being falsely accused. In a situation like this particular one it is very hard to know where truth stands; there will be one more meeting between he and the accuser plus their spouses, the Superintendent, and maybe me. What stood out as we talked with this man is the importance of one's integrity. None of us can prevent someone from making a false accusation, but if our integrity is intact it goes a long way in establishing where truth abides. In fact, -- and I used this concept in my sermon this morning -- people can take everything from you except your integrity. They can take your money, your job, your family, even your life but they cannot take your integrity. The only way you can lose your integrity is if you give it away through your dishonesty, your theft, your cheating, or whatever. (Actually, I can think of one other thing that people cannot take from you but I'll let you think about that one. If you have an idea let me know by using the comment page -- the link is below).

Anyway, as you have already gathered, Joyce and I drove to Salem Thursday and stayed at Ginger's Thursday and Friday nights. In the meantime, Ginger's boss -- the owner of the company -- had to be out of town for a few days because of a family emergency. And the person who would ordinarily take charge also had to be out of town. So the boss asked Ginger to be the "person in charge." Even though she has lots of responsibility in the company, she has never been asked to do this before. However this meant she could not leave town so there went our fun time in Springfield. But since we were already in Salem, not all was lost. We celebrated Father's Day on Friday night. Ginger took us to a really nice restaurant called J. James. I had some very yummy and tender pork loin.

Joyce and I used the motel room Saturday. The ladies of the church had a simple but real nice brunch set up. My sermon was on "The Measure of a Man" so I gave each one a small tape measure to help remember the main points. Since the church is not large, there were not a lot of men so it didn't cost me very much. After worship we went to lunch with a couple from the church.

And then we drove home.