My Aunt Leny was special.  She never invented anything, never wrote a book, never traveled the world, never ran for office, never chaired a board, and never made a fortune.  But when an almost-85-year-old packs a large funeral home chapel with standing room only for her funeral, you know she was special. 

A Celebration of the Life of
Laura Evelyn Williams Bailey
 
April 15, 2010, 6:30 P.M.
Churchland Chapel – Loving Funeral Home
Portsmouth, VA
 
While I was pondering what Scripture passage would be appropriate for tonight’s service, Revelation 21 seemed an obvious choice.  I read that text for Howard Bailey’s service in this chapel a couple of years ago.  I’ll come [...]

Reflections on our mother, Hazel Shores
April 2, 2010
Steve Shores
One of my lasting memories of childhood involves my mother’s father, Fred Dale. Our family would go to Longview to visit Papa, as we called him; and somehow, on some of these visits, I’d find myself facing my grandfather while he handed me a cake on a [...]

Love begins when life begins inside the mother.
Psalm 39:4-5
December 6, 2009
Baby Eddie
My first visit to Babyland at Catawba Memorial Park was about six years ago – October 16, 2003.  My wife Linda and I had been youth pastors in Reidsville, North Carolina in the mid-1970s, and one of our former youth group members had called [...]

If you knew Harriet Bean, it will not surprise you to know she had some specific wishes for this service today.  She knew which pastors she wanted to lead the service.  She chose the music she wanted us to sing.  She wanted the order of worship and liturgy to reflect both the Episcopal Church in [...]