McKay’s Used Books

Free Stuff

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“Hope of all hopes, dream of our dreams,
    a child is born, sweet-breathed; a son is given to us: a living gift.
And even now, with tiny features and dewy hair, He is great.
    The power of leadership, and the weight of authority, will rest on His shoulders.
His name? His name we’ll know in many ways—
    He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Dear Father everlasting, ever-present never-failing,
Master of Wholeness, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6, The Voice).

I confess. I love free stuff.

I periodically go by the Brentwood Public Library where they have two bookshelves off the front lobby to the right where they put all the books and other media that they can’t for whatever reason take.

I always look for hidden treasures there. Mostly, it’s old VHS tapes and 80’s-era computer manuals and other equally useful items.

Every now and then, I do find something worthwhile. A few months back, I found a 1945 Book of Common Prayer in more or less decent shape. Win.

I also like to look through the bins in front of McKay’s Used Books, Movies, Music, and So Much More Store (which isn’t really the name, but what it should be named).

Again, there’s a reason a lot of these got discarded and left behind. Still, every now and then, I can find some really cool stuff. Like the last time I was there, I found three Christmas CDs that I’ve added to my already astounding and amazing collection.

The best gift of Christmas was also free. It came in the unlikeliest of places– in a stone manger inside of a barn on the outskirts of the little town of Bethlehem. It came wrapped not in a fancy package with ribbons and bows aplenty, but in a worn-out cloth.

That gift was Emmanuel. God downsized into human flesh, infant flesh, born ultimately to be the ultimate sacrifice for you and for me.

The gift wasn’t free to God. It cost Him everything. But the gift is free to you and me. The only problem with a gift– any gift– is that it doesn’t become yours until you take it. So will you?

This Christmas, don’t get so distracted by the gifts under the tree that you miss the best gift in the manger.

The end.

Family Bible

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“There’s a family Bible on the table each page is torn and hard to read
But the family Bible on the table will ever be my key to memories
At the end of day when work was over and when the evening meal was done
Dad would read to us from the family Bible
And we’d count our many blessings one by one
I can see us sittin’ round the table when from the family Bible dad would read
I can hear my mother softly singing rock of ages rock of ages cleft for me” ( P. Buskirk, W. Breeland, C. Gray).

I’m reading through the New English Bible this year. I picked it up at McKay’s Used Books, Movies, Music (and Everything Else Your Nerdy Little Heart Could Possibly Desire).

This Bible previously belonged to Jo Ann Hardin, who received it as a gift on September 5, 1975. She was married to Robert Allen Hardin on March 13, 1954 by the Rev. Cecil Ewell. They had four children.

She was good about taking notes and marking favorite passages in her Bible, and I benefit from it. I love to see what verses spoke to her and what struck her out of a sermon she heard on any given Sunday.

My mother has underlined and dated verses for years. If a given verse speaks to her or relates to her current circumstances, she highlights it and writes the date in the margins. That’s a good way to go back and see how God has been speaking through the years. After all, we are so very prone to forget.

I love how God doesn’t leave it to each new generation to figure out the faith-life. He provides the example of the preceding generations, the “cloud of witnesses,” to show us how it’s done.

I hope one day to pass a Bible on to some future generation to carry on the legacy of the Family Bible.

 

The Cut-Out Bin

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Cutout_CD_spines

“Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these ‘nobodies’ to expose the hollow pretensions of the ‘somebodies’? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31, The Message).

As I mentioned a few posts ago, one of my favorite things to do back in the day, i.e. the 80’s, was to browse the cutout bins at the local record store. For me, that primarily was Camelot Music in the Hickory Ridge Mall in Memphis, Tennessee.

You could always pick out those CDs earmarked for discount by the telltale slash on near the CD label. My understanding is that record labels designated albums that didn’t sell very well to be moved to the cutout bin. Usually, you’d find a lot of unknown artists or the “sophomore slump” albums by those one-hit wonder bands or a failed comeback attempt. Every now and then, you might find a diamond in the rough that deserved better than being relegated to the cutout bin.

I discovered a section in McKay’s today that I will probably need to investigate further. It’s the “very scratched” section. It’s a good deal because 1) you can fix most CD scratches with 70% or stronger rubbing alcohol and/or toothpaste, 2) most of the CDs in that section are barely scratched, and 3) even if you wind up with a dud, you still haven’t lost much more than $1.

To paraphrase 1 Corinthians 1:26, God didn’t choose the top 40s of the world. He chose those of us stuck in the cutout bin. He selected those overlooked by everybody else, those whose best days seemed behind them, those who don’t look like much or don’t seem to possess anything special. He chose you and me.

That’s something worth celebrating. That’s something worth remembering on those days when you don’t feel like your life means much or that you don’t matter.

That also begs a question. If that’s who God chose, who am I to treat people any differently? Who am I to be elitist and snobbish when God condescended Himself and met the lowest of us at our most desperate point of need? Who am I to ever denigrate anybody else (or even me) when God proved His love by sending Jesus to die for all of us?

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

 

Revisiting My Own Past

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cm

Recently, I discovered an old favorite band of mine that I hadn’t thought about in a while. You’ve most likely never heard of the band, since they were a late 70’s jazz fusion band. You most likely have heard of their drummer, an English chap who goes by the name of Phil Collins.

Anyway, back in the day I owned a cassette compilation of some of their most well-known compositions. I’m fairly certain I picked it up in the discount section at either The Sound Shop or Camelot Music in the Hickory Ridge Mall, probably just before heading to the food court for some pizza from Sbarro’s.

A few weeks back at McKay’s Used Books (and everything else you can think of), I had enough trade credit for four of their CDs among some of my other noteworthy finds.

It’s interesting how much more I appreciate their ridiculous musicianship than I did way back when. Of course, back then I really dug groups like Wham! and Club Nouveau. Don’t hold that against me. My musical tastes have definitely matured a lot since those days.

Also, I’ve been reminiscing about a great series of books I used to read as a wee younger lad. I believe they were called Choose Your Own Adventure. In them, you would read for a few pages before being presented with a list of choices, a la if you enter the dark and scary hallway, turn to page 94, but if you elect to stay in the kitchen and make yourself a PB&J, turn to page 108. I loved those books.

So my next quest is to find at least one of those books. I’m checking out the usual places– the library castoff section, Goodwill, McKay’s, and amazon.com, but so far no luck.

So far, I’m batting .500, which for me is a win.