My Blog

Tag: Adoption

  • Only God Can Make a Saint

    On Sunday, we’ll observe the Feast of All Saints. And, we’ll help God make some saints when we Baptize two children. By water and the Holy Spirit, they are going to be sanctified through Baptism. They are going to become “holy ones of the Most High” who “shall receive the kingdom.” I promise you, neither of them has volunteered to have this holy water poured over them any more than they have volunteered to be born with their skin color, born to their parents, or born into their families. Neither will they volunteer to have vaccinations, learn to wear clothes, take baths, or brush their teeth. They won’t volunteer to stay with the babysitter, go to school, come home before curfew, or fall in love. On Sunday, without their consent, we are going to pour some water over them, rub some oil on their heads, and declare that they are saints – Baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked as Christ’s own for ever. We are going to vow to do whatever it takes to help them grow to claim the new identity given to them in Baptism, to be formed as saints of God as we have been.

    Whatever else they may be called during the course of their lives, in God’s eyes they are saints – blessed, sanctified, made holy, not by their own will but by the will of God. And, by virtue of the fact that someone baptized us, so are we. We are saints of God by grace and adoption. Above every other reason, when we return here week by week to worship with other saints, we return to be reminded who we are and to give thanks – to offer Eucharist – for the divine gift of and vocation to sainthood. For we were created by God to bear a divine image, to be shaped and formed by the will of our Creator, to be filled with the fullness that only God can give.

    We become members of the Church through Baptism. The Church is a unique institution in God’s eternal purpose, where the saints live in unity with God, one another, and those who have gone before us. We sometimes speak of the Church’s message, but if you read the New Testament carefully, you will see that it is the other way around. It’s not so much that the Church has a Message as that the Message has a Church. The saints, who are the Church, are the delivery system for the Message. That is our inheritance; our gift from God.

    A colleague of mine enjoys telling of a time when a little boy was visiting his grandfather, whose church had beautiful stained glass windows like ours. The little boy asked his grandfather who the people in the windows were. His grandfather told him, “Those are saints.” And the boy exclaimed, “Oh, I get it! Saints are people that the light shines through.”

    Saints of God, you and I are people through whom God’s light shines. Throughout our lives, as our wills are transformed and we grow less resistant to God’s grace at work in us, the light of Christ shines more brilliantly through us.

    I recall a wonderful woman who often used an expression that has all but vanished from our language. She would say, “Be a saint.” “Be a saint and help me with these packages.” “Be a saint and run to the store for me.” “Be a saint and help me with the dishes.”

    Jesus call to us is to “Be a saint.” Or, even better, “Be the saint I have created you to be.” Be a saint and help me feed the hungry. Be a saint and help me raise the children to know, to love, and to follow me. Be a saint and help me heal the sick. Be a saint and help me deliver my message of God’s love. Be a saint. Be a saint. Be a saint.

    I'll see you in Church!

    Ron Short Blue Sig Cropped 28

    The Very Reverend Ronald D. Pogue
    Interim Dean
    St. Andrew’s Cathedral
    Jackson, Mississipi

     

  • The Bar Circle P Ranch

    My dad, A.C. Pogue, moved to Houston from Rogers in Bell County, Texas in 1936. After he was settled, he sent for my grandparents, Coy and Nora, and his five brothers, Jesse, Gerald, Tommy, Pat, and Bill. They all moved to Houston and sought work.

    During WWII, Dad served in the National Guard and continued in his job at Reed Roller Bit Company, which had been granted a defense contract to build tank parts. The other five brothers enlisted in the military and served until the end of the war.

    After WWII, the six brothers formed the Pogue Service Company in Houston, Texas. Their company, headquartered in the 7600 block of Homestead Road, involved a variety of enterprises, including a construction company, a lumberyard, a service station, and a meat market. They also bought some 1,300 acres in Walker County, Texas where they had a herd of over 300 head of cattle. That herd was one source of meat for their market in Houston.

    They called the cattle operation the Bar Circle P Ranch. The brothers sold the herd and the land in 1949. My dad and his youngest brother, Bill Pogue, kept about 50 head of Brahman cattle and moved them to another piece of land nearby.

    In 1950, there was an anthrax outbreak in the area. Dad and Uncle Bill went to vaccinate their Brahmans and, in the process, one of the cows knocked my dad off balance. He stuck the needle of the syringe into his arm and contracted anthrax. As the illness progressed, Dr. Donald M. Gready, our family physician, saved his life by performing an emergency tracheotomy in the Medical Arts hospital hallway.

    As a consequence of the anthrax, Dad could not tolerate the Houston heat and began to look for someplace else to spend the summers. His housing development business was very successful and he could afford to buy 2,000 acres in Grand County Colorado. I spent many happy summers there and I’ve returned to the area often as an adult.

    Recently, when visiting with my Uncle Bill, the last of the six brothers, I asked if they branded their cattle at the Bar Circle P Ranch. He told me they did and described the brand for me. He personally made the branding iron. It was somewhat large and branded the cattle on the side instead of the rump because it made it easier to identify them among trees on the ranch property. He said that the branding iron had been lost and he doesn’t remember seeing it since sometime in the early 1950’s.

    I mentioned this to my cousin, Cody Pogue. His grandfather, Uncle Tommy Pogue, acquired a portion of the smaller property after Dad and Uncle Bill sold their Brahman herd. Cody grew up visiting his grandparents there and his family still owns the property. Cody promised to search for the branding iron on his next visit.

    On Friday, December 26, 2014, Cody found the branding iron among some old tools in a shed. He sent a photo and I forwarded it on to Uncle Bill, who believed the iron was lost and gone forever. What an interesting surprise for all of us.

    It is a symbol of an era in our family heritage of faith, collaboration, enterprise, and hard work and of an era when these six brothers helped each other build a new life for themselves and their families in Bar Circle P BrandHouston.

    The original photo shows a reverse image of the brand because the face of the branding iron had to be that way in order for the image burned into the hid of the animal to appear correctly.

    I’ve flipped the image around to show how it would appear on the animal's hide after branding.

    Bar Circle P Brand Rev

    Cody and his dad, Jimmy Pogue, are making images of the brand so that we can provide copies for other descendants of the six Pogue brothers to remind them of the importance of our family heritage, values, and lessons for future generations. That Bar Circle P brand reminds me that I was born into this branch of the Pogue Family and that wherever I may be, the lessons of one generation are passed to succeeding generations.

    Cattle are branded or ear marked so that their ownership can be identified wherever they may be. In Baptism, Christians are "marked as Christ's own for ever." Who we are and whose we are leaves an indelible mark upon us, even when we stray. Whenever and wherever I am, if I can only remember that I am Baptized and have been made a child of God by grace and adoption, I am reassured. Generations of Christians have passed lessons on to mine and now it is my privilege to share them with those who come after me. One of our favorite hymns says it well:

    Each newborn servant of the Crucified
    Bears on the brow the seal of Him Who died.

    Soon, we'll be taking possession of our new house in Arlington, Texas. It will serve as our home base as I continue interim ministry in The Episcopal Church. We're going to refer to our back yard as the Bar Circle P as a way of honoring our Pogue Family heritage. And, we'll have a branch office in Jackson, Wyoming, where I'll live out the imperatives of the seal on my brow as Interim Rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, starting February 15.

    Gay and I ask for your prayers as our journey continues – in a new pasture!

    Faithfully,

    Ron Short Sig Blue