Worship

By ERIC FOLKERTH

Up in the mountain

Even Jesus needed some alone time

“Immediately he made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray.” (Matthew 14: 22-23).

Parents never seem to find enough time for themselves. Especially when children are young, a parent’s own self-care often seems to be the one thing that suffers most. Between regularly scheduled activities, illnesses and emergencies, what little spare time young parents have often evaporates amid a mountain of other obligations.

This story from the Gospel of Matthew has always been a favorite of mine. It’s the very end of the famous “Feeding of the Five Thousand” story. To understand just how applicable it is to modern parents, we must start at the beginning.

Jesus has just received word that his cousin, John the Baptist, has been murdered. Matthew tells us that when Jesus hears this news, “he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.”

You can hardly blame him. Jesus needs some “alone time,” much as we all do when we are deeply hurt. He needs to come to terms with his own grief.

Unfortunately, the moment Jesus arrives across the lake to this “lonely place,” he discovers that it’s not so lonely after all. The crowds, it seems, followed him. (They apparently have little concept of “healthy boundaries.”)

You might guess Jesus would be angry with them or feel sorry for himself. But that’s not what the text says. Matthew tells us that Jesus “has compassion” for them.

I’ve written to you before about this word “compassion.” The Greek word here —“splagchnizomai”— means to be moved with deep emotion. It’s a visceral, physical reaction of love and sympathy to the pain or suffering of others. It’s the same as that complex wave of feelings you have when a child needs something, and you would do anything in your power to help them.

That’s what Jesus does. He heals the sick, and eventually feeds more than 5,000 people with a few fish and loaves and bread.

That’s the part of the story we find amazing. And we often stop telling it here. But that’s right when these little verses at the top of this page take place.

After Jesus has responded to the human need, fed the hungry, healed the sick … he sends them away!

He sends his Disciples away too. Then, he looks around to find that he is *finally* alone … finally able to spend the quality selfcare time he sought, hours ago. And so, he goes “up the mountain by himself to pray.”

Isn’t this the perfect story for parents?

Try as we might, our child’s needs never fit into neat, pre-programmed schedules.

But we can draw hope and inspiration from the fact that it was like this for Jesus too. Parenting, like Jesus’ ministry, is the art of managing nearly constant “interruptions” from needy “others.”

This doesn’t mean self-care is impossible. But it could mean we’re likely to be frustrated if we expect self-care to follow a rigid routine, every morning at 9:15 a.m. Maybe we’ll have to carve out time late at night or early in the morning. Flexibility, in ministry and parenting, seems to be key.

By all means, respond with compassion to the needs of your children. That’s what good parents do. But once you’ve met those needs, do the rest of what Jesus did, too.

Send everybody away for a while, and spend some time on self-care. If Jesus can do it, as hard as it might sometimes feel, so can you.

WORSHIP

BAPTIST

PARK CITIES BAPTIST CHURCH / 3933 Northwest Pky / pcbc.org Bible Study 9:15 / Worship Services 10:45 Traditional, Contemporary, Spanish Speaking / 214.860.1500

ROYAL LANE BAPTIST CHURCH / 6707 Royal Lane / 214.361.2809 Christian Education 9:45 a.m. / Worship Service 10:55 a.m. Pastor - Rev. Dr. Michael L. Gregg / www.royallane.org

WILSHIRE BAPTIST / 4316 Abrams / 214.452.3100 Pastor George A. Mason / Worship at 9 & 11 a.m. Sunday School at 10 a.m. / wilshirebc.org

PRESBYTERIAN

PARK CITIES PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH/ 4124 Oak Lawn Ave Sunday Worship 9:00 & 11:00 A.M. To all this church opens wide her doors - pcpc.org

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ERIC FOLKERTH is Senior Pastor at Kessler Park United Methodist Church. Call 214.560.4212 or email sales@advocatemag. com for advertising information.

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HERE LIES DALLAS

Sparkman-Hillcrest wins Preservation Dallas honor

Story by RACHEL STONE | Photography by JOHNATHAN JOHNSON

THERE IS A PLACE IN DALLAS where nine of our city’s most important architects, one of the world’s greatest bluesmen, a football saint, an Oscar winner and a sheriff who helped take down Bonnie and Clyde are remembered.

Sparkman-Hillcrest Funeral Home and Memorial Park’s 88 acres are the final resting places of some of Dallas’ most prominent citizens, as well as a few allAmerican characters.

Baseball Hall-of-Famer Mickey Mantle is here. So is former Texas Gov. W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel.

Sparkman-Hillcrest’s history as a burial ground precedes the incorporation of Dallas as a city, and the cemetery recently won the Stewardship Award from Preservation Dallas.

In the 1940s, the Caruth family owned about 30,000 acres in Dallas and the surrounding area, including the eventual sites of SMU, NorthPark Center and Sparkman-Hillcrest. When William Barr Caruth arrived in Dallas from Kentucky in 1848, he brought multiple

enslaved people, including Edward “Ned” Fields, according to “Slavery and the Postbellum University: The Case of SMU,” a law journal article by Lolita Buckner Inniss and Skyler Arbuckle, published in 2021.

Sparkman-Hillcrest holds the graves of enslaved people who worked on Caruth’s plantation and died in the 1850s.

Undertaker George W. Loudermilk began purchasing land from the Caruths for the cemetery in 1893, according to compiled genealogy research on findagrave.com.

“Loudermilk matched teams of horses and beautifully outfitted carriages sporting ‘the only rubber tires in the city’ which became a source of great pride,” states a history from Preservation Dallas. “As the business entered the age of the automobile, hearses were the original ambulances for transporting the sick to hospitals as well as the deceased to the burial ceremony.”

The first of four generations of the Sparkman family began operating the cemetery in 1920, when Will R. Sparkman purchased it and operated under the name Loudermilk-Sparkman for many years.

Sparkman moved his business to the former Belo Mansion in 1926, leasing it for 50 years. The mansion, which still stands at Ross and Pearl streets Downtown, has been renamed the Arts District Mansion.

This was where the body of the outlaw Clyde Barrow was placed on public view in 1934, drawing huge lines of crowds.

Architect Anton Korn designed the Hillcrest Mausoleum, which opened in 1937. Korn also built grand homes in Highland Park and Lakewood.

“The style of his architecture is pure and classical, reflecting honesty and purity of heart,” Preservation Dallas states.

Here are a few of the well-known people buried at Sparkman-Hillcrest, located at 7405 W. Northwest Highway.

Freddie King is known as a Chicago bluesman, because that’s where he became known, but he was born in Gilmer, Texas, and lived in Dallas at the end of his life. In the 1970s, he performed at venues around town, such as the legendary Mother Blues on Lemmon Avenue. He lived a hard life of drinking and touring and died of complications with pancreatitis at age 42 in 1976. King was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.

Tom Landry needs no introduction around here. He was the first head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, leading the team for 29 years. Did you know he had a master’s degree in industrial engineering? That he played seven seasons of professional football before becoming an NFL coach? He died of leukemia in 2000 at age 75, and the honors he has received are too numerous to name.

Greer Garson received seven bestactress Oscar award nominations, winning in 1942 for Mrs. Miniver. Garson was from England, but her third husband was a Texas oilman and horse breeder, and they lived part-time in Dallas starting in the 1960s. She founded the Greer Garson Theatre at Southern Methodist University. She died of heart failure in 1996 at age 91.

Ted Hinton knew Bonnie Parker when she was a waitress at Marco’s Café in Old East Dallas, and he later admitted to having a crush on her. He was a 29-year-old Dallas deputy sheriff in 1934 when he became part of the posse of lawmen who ambushed Bonnie and Clyde at Gibsland, Louisiana. Hinton’s son, the former Dallas County deputy Linton Jay “Boots” Hinton, operated the Ambush Museum in Gibsland from 2004 until his death in 2016. Ted Hinton died in 1977.