Turning books into Bread
Parson's Porch & Book Publishing is a book publishing company with a double focus. We focus on the needs of creative writers who need a professional publisher to turn their words into books, & we also focus on the needs of others by turning their books into bread by sharing our profits with those who are homeless and displaced by meeting their basic needs of food, clothing, shelter and safety.
I told my mother that if she had a manfriend visiting in her room she should put a sock on the doorknob so we wouldn’t disturb her visit. She said she hoped that she could find a sock!!
Could my mother be a wild woman in her older days? I think I am gettin’ my come up’ns.
I’ve been doing what I do for 18 years - Turning Writers into Authors and Books into Bread.
Here’s how you can help me do what I do:
Send us a manuscript. We publish books for authors from a variety of backgrounds. If you are a writer who wants to publish your work, send it to us. We do not charge for our services. We only make money when we sell books. Send your manuscript to dtullock@parsonsporch.com.
Why does a book company need milk money? We turn books into bread and milk, and our milk fund is getting low. Expenses have increased and profits have decreased.
Now, we need your help to replenish our milk fund!
We work closely with a local ccommunity kitchen to provide small cartons of milk for about 75 people a day, but we have had to suspend the deliveries for about six months because our funds ran out. We purchase milk from Mayfield who delivers to the kitchen.
For each dollar donated, we can buy three 1/2 pint cartons of milk.
To help provide milk to the poorer among us, please donate by clicking the link below:
35 years!! That’s how long I’ve been doing what I do the way I do it. What began as a simple idea has become a way of life for me, which is to:
Enjoy God,
Study Scripture,
Follow Jesus, and
Remember the Poor!
Along the way, a company of people have supported this basic idea; some with attention, others with financial support, still others who are authors, customers, and friends. It takes a company to remember the poor.
We want you to be a part of our Company as we remember the poor through Parson’s Porch & Company.
Our primary mission is summed up in our motto: We Turn Books into Bread. We simply publish and sell books that provide funds to feed the poor. It’s that simple, and it’s that profound!!
Here’s how you can help:
If you have a book to publish, let us publish it. Send your manuscript to me at dtullock@parsonsporch.com
If you need a book to read, buy one from us. We have an extensive online bookstore where you can shop. Each book we sell provides a hot meal for someone each day.
So, thank you for your interest and support. We can’t do it without one another.
David
I was delighted when my Dean told me I had a class in Room 195 - the largest classroom on campus. I would be able to show my teaching skills to a larger number of students. I diligently prepared for the class by studying everything I could on the topic, so the students would also be wowed by my knowledge of the subject.
The first day of class finally arrived, and the students were pouring into the large classroom. As the hour approached, the Dean walked in to the room and saw me at the Lectern.
“Dr. Tullock,” he said. “I don’t want you to teach the class. I want you to take it!”
The first holidays after someone you love has died can be excruciating.
Yesterday, we were sitting at my mother’s table. It was obvious that my father was not there. Without much thought, I said, “I miss him!” My mother said, “I do, too!” Then this thought of Thanksgiving crossed my mind, but I did not say it: “I miss him, and I’m thankful I do.”
One of the greatest things for which I am most grateful this holiday season is that I had a father, when after his death, I miss! He wasn’t at the table, and I missed him.
How tragic it would be to have lived and loved someone for almost 60 years and not miss them when they died. I can write a long list of things I miss about Daddy, but the one thing I miss the most is what he always did best: He showed up. He was there.
Yesterday he didn’t show up, but he was there. For that, I am thankful.
“God became flesh and dwelt in me”
The end of the third quarter means one thing: the fourth quarter is about to begin—I hope.
I am fully aware that it is also true that as I approach 60 years old, the last third of my life is coming to an end. This could be it—the end. We’ll see, but I am planning on it being the beginning of the fourth quarter.
I remember a novel by Wally Lamb titled, This Much I Know. I never read past the title, but the title was enough to intrigue me. What do I know? Not mentally, but by experience.
I companied with God when I was a boy. My Baptist parents and my Baptist church were thrilled when I decided to publicly profess that I wanted to be like Jesus. Looking back, that decision was quite audacious! I wanted to be like Jesus like I wanted to be like Hovie Lister, the great pianist for the Statesman Quartet or Hank Aaron, the slugger for the Atlanta Braves. While I was a complete failure trying to be like Hovie Lister and Hank Aaron, my failure to be like Jesus was not complete. It continued for some years until I read for myself in black and white why I was a failure. It was impossible to be like anyone else but me—David.
The Word became flesh! or God becomes me! My failure to become God was leading to my death! I was doing it backward. If trying to be like Jesus taught me one thing, it was that God becomes me! While trying to follow Jesus, I was really following Adam! Essentially, the garden story of Adam was God giving Adam a choice to become God by eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil or for God to become Adam by giving him all of God’s creation.
Jesus experienced the same thing in his garden story. After wrestling with his will to become God, he finally acquiesced for God to become him. He said, “Not my will, but Thine be done!”
I wrestle each day with God about who is God, and I hope I lose. I pray that God wins and God becomes me. This much I know: If this doesn’t happen in the fourth quarter, it will happen in the fifth quarter!
“... take up your cross ...”
The last time I saw my father was the first time I saw him dead. It was not of my choosing to stand by his bed and tell him goodbye.
It had been a harrowing day. He was killed about 6 hours earlier in an accident while mowing his yard that he had mowed for almost 50 summers before. Most days since then, I notice the clock—4:10 pm. Standing there, I knew that I would never hear him, see him, smell him, or touch him again. I was jarred to think that the rest of my life would be lived without my father, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was in a place I did not want to be.
The most prominent sensation I have had since then is the feeling that I am left hanging—suspended. Not only am I left hanging, I do not know what to do. That’s been the most painful part.
While it may sound like a cliche, part of me was killed with my father. Also, I did not choose the consequences of his death on me. Suddenly, i was hoisted, suspended, hung, if you will, on a cross I did not choose.
What do I do?
Well, I do the only thing I know to do: I take it. Oh, I don’t mean like a stoic. I mean I take the crucifixion that a cross of any kind is meant to bring. While suspended on this cross between heaven and earth, not wanting it, and not choosing it, I take it like Christ Jesus did. I’ll follow Him who loves me so!
So, here I hang upon the One Who hangs upon the cross! Hopefully considering what’s next. Wherever God leads, I’ll go.
“God works through all things”
A good actor, writer, or speaker has a throughline—a place where they want to go. We get this idea from God. God has a throughline.
In Genesis 1, there is a subtle incident between “God created the heavens and the earth” and “The earth was void and without form” The subtlety is God created the universe out of nothing and something warped. Then God continued creating the universe out of chaos.
The arch of the entire Bible is that God’s creation will be good (Genesis) and new (Revelation). God’s throughline for all is God is creating something good and new out of nothing and/or chaos.
My hope for today rests in God’s throughline. When I sense that my life is nothing or my life is chaos, I remember one thing: If my life is not good or new, God is not finished with it.
“I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Two of my basic needs is to be known and to be loved. If someone loves me but does not know me, I tend to doubt their love. On the other hand, if someone knows me, they may not love me. That’s the chance I take in all of my relationships.
The implications of the verse above is stunning: God was in awe and wonder as God made me!
A nuance of the word “made” is being found out. Everything I try to hide about myself so I will be loved is exposed—the love I so desperately need is jeopardized. So, like Adam and Eve, I spend much of my life and energy covering my embarrassing parts with fig leaves until my self is encrusted like macrame.
God asks, “Who told you that you were exposed?” Not God!
The implication of being made by God is that our embarrassing parts are known by God, but that’s not the stunning part. The stunning part is that God loves me while all my embarrassing parts are fully known.
This understanding of God makes me return to my Maker the awe and wonder with which I was made in the first place!
Wow. Just Wow!
“In the beginning God created ...”
My mother and father have always considered me to be a honeymoon baby. If that’s the case, I was conceived on December 5, 1959. Over the years, we have celebrated my conception day and by birth day - September 4, 1960.
They were married in the early evening, and I was conceived a few hours later. For the record, I had nothing to do with my conception, and there was nothing I could do about it! The act of love between my mother and father produced me. They companied me.
The word companied is not used much anymore. The word implies that the one companied is living because of the action of the company. In my case, my parents were the company, and I am the companied.
To paraphrase the text above, In the beginning, God companied the heavens and the earth. God is making the heavens and the earth as an act of love. My parent’s act of love continued the beginning of God’s creation.
They are basically two reactions to this idea of being companied. I could accept it or reject it. Either choice does not change the fact that “I am” because of an act of love, my parents’ or God’s.
I chose to accept it. I have fashioned my entire life around my experience that I am a result of an act of love, and it has made, makes, and will make all the difference for me.
Thomas Keating describes the false self as three energy centers within us, which motivate us to act to satisfy our ego’s exaggerated needs. These energy centers emerge in early childhood, when we are most vulnerable, as our attempt to cope whenever we experienced a sense of depravation or fear.
The three primary energy centers of the false self, says Keating, are our exaggerated needs for security, esteem and power. We have legitimate needs for security, esteem/affection and power/control, but out of our vulnerable sense of insecurity, we inevitably exaggerate our needs. Most of our problems are related to our attempts to satisfy these exaggerated needs by trying to accumulate whatever symbols of security, esteem and power make us feel good.
Keating is putting into contemporary terms the same thing that the Gospel writers told through story two thousand years ago, Matthew’s version of the temptation of Christ.
Christ has been in the wilderness fasting for forty days. He was famished. The tempter offers Jesus a quick shortcut to meet his security needs for food — turn the stones into loaves of bread.
The tempter next offers Jesus a dramatic act guaranteed to raise esteem for him as he begins his public ministry. From the pinnacle of the temple, the most visible sight in Jerusalem, Jesus can throw himself to the ground safely, for the angels love him so much they will protect him (the devil quotes scripture to prove it).
Finally the tempter offers Jesus the power and splendor of all the kingdoms.
Jesus turns away from each of the false offers. Instead, Jesus embraces God the Father as his source of perfect security, perfect love, and perfect power. Accepting security, esteem and power as a gift rather than trying to achieve them on our own is a fundamental exercise of faith.
Our needs are so exquisite, and their fulfilling is so tempting, that it is hard to resist the notion that we can reach out and achieve them for ourselves. It takes trust and discipline to dismantle our addiction and attachment to the ways we try to satisfy our exaggerated needs. For most of our lives, it is the first order of business of the spiritual life to turn away from these compulsions.
Freedom begins when we unanxiously accept ourselves as perfectly secure, loved, and empowered from God, here and now. Free from compulsions, we can respond as Jesus did — living from every word that comes from the mouth of God, not putting God to the test, but worshipping and serving only God.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me today
because I know it’s for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions,
persons, situations, and conditions.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire for affection, esteem,
approval and pleasure.
I let go of my desire for survival and security.
I let go of my desire to change any situation,
condition, person or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and
God’s action within. Amen.
An alternative and more aggressive way that we can address this unconscious dynamic is to make use of the welcoming prayer in real time – when an emotion or powerful event has taken hold of us – to begin to break the cycle of that particular emotional trigger. This technique has three basic parts.
1. Focus on sensation being experienced in your body. Simply feel into what is taking place in your body, what it feels like within. The goal here is not to change anything but simply to stay with the sensation until is subsides. And it will subside, usually within a few minutes. When the bodily sensation has subsided, go to next step.
2. Welcoming the emotion. For example, say to yourself ‘Welcome Anger’. You are not welcoming the cause of the anger but merely the effect of that anger in your body.
3. Letting go by reciting the four lines below. The purpose is to begin to shortcut the automatic, unconscious False Self reflexive response. Instead of reinforcing it with yet another ‘episode’, we begin to dismantle it because it is almost certainly emanating from one of the first three of the following desires:
I let go of my desire for security and survival.
I let go of my desire for esteem and affection.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire to change the situation.
Over the years, I have discovered that one talks about the things one loves. That saying is certainly true for me. That's why I want to tell you about Parson's Porch.
My idea for Parson's Porch began about 30 years ago. Once out of seminary, I was soon frustrated by the way Church was being done by the congregation I served. It seemed to me that most of the ideas which received the most energy was about buildings and budgets. Trying to help someone in need was tedious, to say the least. After years of growing frustrated, I determined a better way for me to accomplish what I felt God was calling me to do. In 2004, Parson's Porch was established, and today it continues to be the most challenging and rewarding ministry for me to do.
Parson's Porch has a double focus: Books and Bread.
First, we turn words into books. We seek creative authors to submit to us their manuscripts so we can publish a book for them. We do not charge for our service. We simply depend on the books we publish to sell through an online bookstore like Parson's Porch Books, Amazon, and other online outlets. Once a book sells, the author is paid a royalty, and the poor are helped.
Second, we turn books into bread. There are 438 homeless people in our city, and it our goal to establish relationships with each of them in order to help them by 1) meeting their physical needs of shelter, food, and clothing. and, 2) helping them with their pastoral and spiritual needs.
We use money from the sale of books and donations from our friends to support this effort.
Each weekday, I eat and drink with the poor and homeless at the Community Kitchen. Also, I have the esteemed honor to preach a sermon each day at Noon before the hot meal is served at 12:30 pm. To say the least, this assignment keeps me challenged to make the Bible relevant to a congregation of great people, many of whom are prostitutes, convicts, thieves, con-artists, and drug addicts and all of whom are in need of pastoral care and spiritual direction. We also work closely with Salvation Army and the Emergency Shelter in Cleveland.
So, thanks for reading this email. If you would like to help us, please pray that our ministry will be effective as we preach the good news of God's Love, and give a donation to help us buy socks and shoes, coats and toboggans, and blankets and sleeping bags for my friends.
Yesterday, I enjoyed a holy day with a holy man.
I met Robert Shurden in 1979. I was a sophomore at Carson-Newman. Dr. Shurden was a professor in the Religion Department. He taught Greek and other New Testament classes.
I took several of the classes he taught, but Greek class had the most lasting effect on me. Koine Greek is a tedious language, but Shurden made it accessible to many of us young theologues.
Dr. Shurden was a stickler for details with Greek. A misplaced or absent accent mark often cost me a lower grade, simply because I was sloppy with the details the language required. Once on a vocabulary test, Shurden wrote the names of ten random letters of the Greek alphabet, and we were required to write the letter which corresponded with its name. After finishing the quiz, I was confident that I had made a perfect "10" on the quiz. When it was graded, I made a 9 - I missed Theta. Theta looks like a Q with the line coming halfway down the center and to the right. I had written it with the line coming down the center through the bottom, not through the right, and he marked it wrong. I pled my case to him, but he insisted there was only one way to write the letter Theta. That was 40 years ago.
After getting to know Robert, I became acquainted with his brother Walter. Walter was the Dean of Theology at Southern for some of my seminary days. Walter made his mark in Baptist life at Mercer University, while Bob made his mark at Carson-Newman University. Edna Shurden Langley was a school teacher in Birmingham until her retirement. She and her Husband, George, moved close to Bob and Irene in Jefferson City about 13 years ago.
When I think of holy people, I think of this Shurden trio and their spouses and children. In Greek, there are two words for other. One means another of the same kind, while the second word is another of a different kind. The Shurdens: Robert, Walter, and Edna incarnate both nuances. They are exactly the same and entirely different! Each is each other. For me, that is the essence of holiness or otherness.
Yesterday, Shurden and I had a lively conversation about the Greek preposition en. En can be translated with, in, on, or among. For instance, in Matthew, God "with" us can just as correctly be translated God "in" us. While that is a small detail in the Greek, it is a profound difference in theology. While I enjoy my wife being "with"me, I have a deep sense of her being "in" me even if she is physically absent. In the same way, I experience God "with" me, and I also experience God "in" me.
Robert Shurden (and his siblings) is one of a kind. No doubt, God is with him, and most assuredly, God is in him. He is a holy man - not because Bob asserts that about himself, but that God asserts that about him!
I was not one of Shurden's best students. However, there is no other of his students who loves him more than I do. I want to be like Jesus, but if being like Shurden is what I'm like when I grow up, I will be as close to being like Jesus as anyone can get. The word became flesh and dwelt "in" him.
For that, I give thanks!
I have been an advocate for the homeless for most of my adult life. Many of the people I have helped have made a significant contribution to my life - like Ricky.
Ricky is a one-legged man. He wears a prosthesis, but it easily falls off.
I see home riding his bike around Church Street with his prosthetic leg across the handlebars. He peddles with his right leg. I tried peddling with one leg, and that was quite a feat. It should be in the Olympics!
Ricky told me that he was helping a friend change a light bulb a while back which required him to climb a ladder. When he reached for the socket, his leg fell off! His friend handed it to him, and he finished changing the bulb and hopped off the ladder.
Ricky has also told me that recently a man pulled his leg off and beat him to steal $15 from him! He told me that the man didn't have to beat him with his leg. If he had known the man needed money, he would have given it to him!
Today was the first time I'd seen Ricky in a few weeks. He's been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. He looked pale and weak, and he had lost some weight. I was glad to see him, and he said he was doing great but he was dizzy a lot.
While I was speaking today, Ricky laid his head on the table and slept. He was warm and safe. He was cold and we warmed Him.
I was glad to see Ricky. He's my friend.
I have been an advocate for the homeless for most of my adult life. Many of the people I have helped have made a significant contribution to my life - like Gene.
Gene is 60 years old and lived on the street until recently. The first time I met Gene he was standing on Church Street. He looked old and rough. When I spoke to him, he grumped. The next time I saw him, I noticed his hat had the initials "CK", so I told him I was going to call him CK. He grumped again. Finally, after a few more days and a few more grumps, he told me his name was Gene. I said, "CK Gene." He smiled.
One day he came to me at the Kitchen and pointed to his shoes. He said, "Thanks." I had bought the shoes for anyone who needed some shoes, and he did.
After several weeks of this kind of banter, Gene and I became friends. His life situation is typical of many my friends I keep company with on Church Street.
About a month or so ago, I missed seeing Gene in our usual hangouts. I asked another friend about Gene, and she told me that Gene had a stroke and was in a hospital in Chattanooga.
I went to the hospital to see him, and he was in bad shape. His right side was paralyzed, and he couldn't speak without a heavy slur which made him impossible to understand. I stood by his bed while the nurse was taking his vitals and such, and while Gene couldn't speak, he patted my hand and arm and smiled. By that, I knew he was glad to see me. We had a good visit.
As I left the unit, I left my name and phone number with the nurse. I didn't want anything tragic to happen to Gene without knowing about it.
This week I got a phone call from a nursing home. When I answered the phone, the social worker said I needed to give them permission for Gene to come there as a resident. I said, "Why me?" She said that Gene had listed me as next of kin, in fact, I was not only the next of kin, I was his only kin!
I was stunned. I had made a meteoric rise from grump to kin in a matter of a few weeks. But more than that, I was honored.
I am going to the nursing home tomorrow to look over the papers that Gene has "xed" so he will have confidence that he has signed papers that will be for his good.
Gene is 60. I am 57. I have a brother from another mother (and father), but this time I was chosen. Actually, we chose each other.
When I was in school in Louisville, Kentucky in the early '80s, I had a paper route. Each morning I delivered The Courier-Journal and in the evening The Louisville Times.
One of my customers was Mr. Reese. Most afternoons, he would meet me as I delivered his paper. We would chat about nothing, and I'd look forward to seeing him the next afternoon.
One Sunday, a man at church asked me where my paper route was. I told him, and he said, "Oh, that's where my friend, Herman Reese, lives." I told him I knew Mr. Reese and about how we talked to each other every day. In fact, we would talk so long, it would slow my schedule late each evening.
"You don't know who he is, do you? Have you ever heard of Pee Wee Reese?" Of course, I had heard of Pee Wee Reese, but I didn't know his first name was actually Herman!
I couldn't wait to see Mr. Reese the next day and every day after that for another two years, especially when it was time for Mr. Reese to pay his paper bill each month. He would always give me a $5 tip, which was half as much more than he owed. He said I was the best paperboy he'd ever had.
Among the scores of stories he told me, he said that two of his favorite memories were throwing the last out in the 1955 World Series to beat the New York Yankees, and standing on the infield with his arm around Jackie Robinson earlier in the '55 season when the Brooklyn Dodgers played the Cincinnati Reds and his family came from Louisville to see him play.
Later Jackie Robinson, a black man, said that Pee Wee Reese, a white man, made it a lot easier for him to face the racial hatred in Cincinnati when Pee Wee showed his friendship to him in front of the crowd.
Thanks, Mr. Reese, for your friendship to me, too.
We follow the teachings of Jesus in all we do at Parson's Porch. We believe that if we do not care for the "least of these" in a practical and daily way, we have failed as human beings and any success as a publisher is woefully inadequate. We support the work of New Life Community Kitchen, The Salvation Army, and the Cleveland Emergency Shelter.
The following list reflects the type of items we buy each month for the homeless and displaced people in Cleveland, Tennessee. If you would like to buy these items for us to give the homeless, shop in our Store.
Hygiene - shampoo, conditioner, soap
deodorant
lip balm
lotion
wash cloth
floss
toothbrush
toothpaste
mouthwash
hair brushes
laundry soap detergent
facial tissues
anti-bacterial wipes
disposable razors
cotton swabs
toilet paper
quarters for laundry
Learn more about the Cleveland Emergency Shelter
Clothing
men's cotton crew socks
cotton socks - children
adult t-shirts
children's t-shirts
baseball caps
warm scarves
knit hats
gloves
fingerless gloves
first class postage stamps
notepads/envelopes
pens
crayons
coloring or activity books
small stuffed animals
small, safe toys
hand warmers
bandanna
Bottled water
Ziplock bags
Learn More about the Salvation Army
bottled water
fruit juice
cheese & crackers
tuna kits
cereal bars
pull-top canned fruit or vegetables
pull-top pasta or chili,
fruit cups
fruit snacks
cookies
Hot meals are served each day of the week at the Community Kitchen, Salvation Army and the Emergency Shelter.
Daily showers and weekly laundry services are provided by the Salvation Army.
Shelter is provided each night for the homeless, including women and children.
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